[laughs]

You know, and if schizophrenia can be ballparked with dementia, then people m- might sort of get it.

I remember I used to work in a family medicine doctor's clinic in Florida, and he wound up being elected to the Florida House, and I went and talked with him in his office at a time when I was advocating for a state hospital to stay open, and it got closed.

But, you know, I was talking about anosognosia, and I was asking, "Why is it that a woman, you know, who's 30 years old and neuropsychiatrically gravely disabled is sleeping under the bridge to stay away from satellites and satellite beams, why is that okay and considered freedom of choice? But if we find grandma wandering around the neighborhood, we do something different." And his response was pretty blunt, and it was pretty earthy.

He said, "People care about grandma.

They don't give an F about that girl under the bridge."

If you write to your congressman, you can maybe affect change that would have lasting results.

Education.

So from your experience, how would you describe the difference between how the criminal justice system handles serious mental illness versus how the civil system handles it today?

Well, I'm a psychiatrist who's been doing this for over three decades.

Worked in jails and prisons, currently working again at a forensic psych hospital, this time on the maximum security unit.

And, uh, you know, it's so sad that at this point, the criminal justice system has the laws and policies that-- and they have sufficient accountability, um, ability to follow through, ability to actually do things better than the civil system does 'cause the, the laws on the civil side have been anemic, and they just let people go.

They don't realize, they don't recognize the reality, the neurological reality of the illnesses themselves.

And so the criminal justice system picks up the slack.

And, um, you know, I don't think a lot of people are aware of that because, you know, nobody goes to visit a prison to see all the, the mentally ill people there, and nobody goes to the forensic psych hospital up here on the hill to, uh, know what that is like or what kinds of people wind up there.

So David, from a clinical standpoint, are there key factors, maybe even neurological ones, that you feel the field still isn't fully recognizing or incorporating into how we diagnose and treat serious mental illness?