A Message to the Judicial System About Mental Health From A Mental Health Patient and System Victim

As my expungement hearing draws closer to being heard once again by the Superior Courts here in New Jersey and as I prepare to rehash the horror and mental discomfort of this entire debacle I have had to endure with the system and the courts over senseless actions I conducted over the internet while off my medication, I ask the courts especially Judge Vincent Salem Atto of the Morris County Judicial system one question. What have you done lately for the Judiciary and the legal system to better help you learn and understand mental health issues and the plight of more than hundreds of thousands of my brothers and sisters that lie dormant in mental hospitals not just here in New Jersey but around the country? What have you done to propagate better understanding of mental health issues especially those suffering from mania and depression? Have you made any strides to learn firsthand what it is like to suffer from a mental health handicap? If so and you even care to educate yourselves instead of choosing to be ignorant then bravo...accolades and commendations but if you have done nothing and have chosen to only hear about our plights through other people's testimony instead of learning and exploring the issue yourself first hand like Councilman Cody perhaps by visiting Greystone Psychiatric Hospital and others like it, I hope and pray that what I have had to endure through this entire judicial process has helped educate and teach those who are ignorant about mental health issues that we are NOT Elephant Men, John Merricks and people clutching in a corner to be treated like animals....We are "human beings" and I hope and pray one day that all Justices and Police Officers have been taught mandatory self awareness about those suffering from a mental affliction.  If none of this has been accomplished to this day, all of the pain and suffering I have endured will have gone in vain. I only pray that as the symbol of taking down the confederate flag has marked a new era of love and understanding, that our legal system and the process have come to some better understanding of what mental health issues and the suffering and pain we endure has helped us all to better realize, that this is an issue that isn't going away to be hidden behind the walls of a mental health unit. This is real...This is now...This is part of our American fabric and shame on anyone who turns a blind eye and chooses to be ignorant. G-d bless America...