Document Category: Health & Dental Care

But then the nightmares started. He couldn’t sleep. He distanced himself from family. Eventually Sessoms started self-medicating with a bottle of vodka, just to get some sleep.

By that point his daughter told him the obvious: He was in crisis and had post-traumatic stress disorder.

Sessoms, now a pastor at Little Union Baptist Church in Dumfries, was able to get the help he needed, but he wants others to be served as well.

“I was one of the fortunate ones,” he said.

The Prince William County Board of Supervisors is evaluating plans to create a mental health crisis center in the county, and may be able to use federal coronavirus relief funds from the American Rescue Plan Act to do it.

Earlier this month, Virginia announced that five of its eight mental health hospitals will stop taking patients because of capacity limits. And now, there’s a push in Prince William County to build new facilities to deal with mental health crises.