New York's mental health system fails young people like me

I was 4 1⁄2 when my anger outbursts started. I couldn't articulate what I was feeling, but I didn't have access to the support I needed.

Starting in pre-K, when I had crises, I got sent to the hospital in an ambulance. As I grew, the police started coming — at just 7 years old, they would handcuff me and throw me in the back of the cop car. You don't forget that.

The cops were taking me to psychiatric hospitals: sometimes Stony Brook, sometimes South Oaks. That happened more than a dozen times before age 10.

I'd be cooped up there for a few weeks. The specialists would teach me some stress reduction strategies, and then they'd send me home. That's where I wanted to stay, but I didn't get access to the community-based services I needed to help with the transition.

My Medicaid coverage sent me respite workers, who helped keep me calm when I was having a crisis. Though they were good people, they didn't get paid enough, so there was turnover. As soon as I felt ready to open up to them, they'd quit, or switch jobs.

Without community-based supports, I couldn't stay home, and had to go away for a long time. I needed care at a residential treatment center, where I could receive consistent support. Unfortunately, there weren't options for me on Long Island — there are few residential treatment centers here. My school district found one for me in Brewster, upstate. I got better there, but being far from home was hard.

I was discharged in 2019, and back home, help was still slow to arrive. I sat on waitlists for months (technically I'm still on one). The workers aren't paid well, so there's a shortage — a report found Long Island needs almost 800 more behavioral health providers to fill the gap.

Eventually, though, I battled my demons. And it's not because the system improved. Funny enough, it was COVID. Going through the pandemic, I realized nobody was coming to help me, so I faced my problems on my own. Plus, everybody was stuck inside — that gave me some time just to be home. A global disease outbreak was the most consistency I'd ever had.

Now, at age 19, I'm doing better. I live in Babylon with my mom, I'm in a relationship, and I have a good job at the YMCA. I overcame my struggles.

But too many young people are still suffering. On Long Island, about 3 in 4 Medicaid-eligible children who need community-based services aren't receiving them. I'm advocating on their behalf, after my mom and I and three other families sued New York State in 2022 for failing to provide mental health services to children on Medicaid.

In January, we settled C.K. v. McDonald with the state, and they said they'd improve youth mental health. So far, I haven't seen it. The nonprofits who deliver these services have called for $200 million in Medicaid funding so they can keep their workers and serve more kids. But the state has failed to make that commitment in the upcoming budget.

When you're a kid and your mind isn't right, it's really scary. You just want to talk about it with someone you can trust. You want to deal with it at home — not at a hospital, or in the back of a cop car.

For me, and every kid like me, we've got to do better.

This guest essay reflects the views of Cody Hauptman, a youth mental health advocate from Babylon.