Progress for mentally ill shouldn’t be slowed

This year has seen a lot of hoopla and celebrations across America as the nation marked the 25th anniversary of the passage of the American with Disabilities Act. President Barack Obama gave a beautiful speech July 20 about how this historic law guarantees civil rights to those with mental and physical disabilities.

There has been a lot to brag about over the past quarter-century. I’ve watched Tina Turner in concert, accompanied by a sign-language interpreter. I’ve seen working dogs sit next to their owners on an airplane. Wheelchair-accessible paratransit shuttle buses and taxis are now mandated to take passengers door to door. For Nevada, this is a huge deal. There are plenty of disabled people worldwide who want to come to Las Vegas, gamble, see shows, dine and stay in wheelchair-accessible hotels.

To cite the cliché, however, not all that glitters is gold, especially with regard to employment and especially in Nevada, an at-will-employment state where anyone can get fired for any reason. And it’s not always easy to get access to the paratransit bus; many disabled Nevadans are turned down.

Many people don’t know that the disabled require a lot of ADA letters written by our doctors, for everything from job and school accommodations and disabled parking placards to permission to let our working dogs live in our no-pet rental condos. As someone with both a mental and a physical disability, I’ve received my share of them. They’re not always easy to get in a timely manner.

I got hired once to work the 4 a.m. shift at a radio station. I thought I could get up that early. I couldn’t. I realized just how important regular sleep patterns were to my mental health. Less than one month after I started, my boss threatened to fire me for not performing well. He gave me two weeks. I needed a doctor’s letter fast.

Few psychiatrists make same-day, after-hours appointments, especially if their client isn’t suicidal and in need of hospitalization. Many state clearly on their website that ADA letters require two-week advance notice. For many doctors, their job with its years of extensive training is about treating severe medical conditions with some serious medications. They deal a lot with hospitals. Their job certainly isn’t to make an impromptu appointment long past dinner, waiting for a desperate client about to get sacked.

Fortunately, my compassionate and experienced doctor made time at 7 p.m. that same day and knew exactly what to write to save my job. Thirty minutes and one email later, the letter was sent. The next day my company told me they were switching my shift start time, from 4 to 11 a.m. I excelled at my job, and my boss was very happy. But many of my senior co-workers who didn’t know better thought I got special treatment for some unknown reason and were very upset.

Summer presidential speeches in the White House East Room about ADA laws sound great. Implementing their contents is often easier said than done.

The law says employers must provide interpreters for the deaf at job interviews upon request; it doesn’t say companies have to hire those hard of hearing or that the boss has to inform applicants as to why they didn’t get the position. No one appears at job interviews saying, “Hi. I’m the best person for the job, and oh, by the way, I have disability so I may have to take more sick days than usual.”

When prominent USC professor and attorney Elyn Saks gave a speech in Reno about her 2007 memoir, “The Center Cannot Hold: My Journey Through Madness,” the story of her life with schizophrenia, her advice to a roomful of young students with disabilities was basic.

If academia is your calling, she said, don’t share your disability with your colleagues until you’ve got tenure. In fact, she pointed out, her book wasn’t published until she got tenure herself. Now she’s the director of USC’s high-profile Saks Institute for Mental Health Law, Policy, and Ethics and the 2009 winner of a MacArthur Foundation “genius grant.” As she proves, people with mental illness are not stupid; we’re just mentally ill.

Kim Palchikoff is a Reno freelance writer.