[metmom]

Family members said since the death of her beloved grand­mother two years ago, Diane Catalani’s mental illness, which she has struggled with for decades, grew worse. She often won’t take her medications, would go missing for as long as weeks at a time and has fre­quently been hospitalized. Her tendency to hoard things also had gotten worse.

I can't imagine but if she won't take care of herself, and her family can't take care of her, she has to be locked up somewhere.

She's not being put in jail because of her illness. Right now jail is the place because of the crimes she committed. Maybe they can evaluate her there and decide what needs to be done.

[I still care]

Sometimes what happens (and I know it happened with me, and it seems it happened with several others I read about, like Andrea Yates) is that the family simply doesn’t realize how sick the person is.

The doctor tells you, and all the signs are there, but it is very hard to truly realize and internalize that the person is totally irresponsible and capable of doing the most irrational things.

I mean, this is your spouse. You married them, you love them and they seem normal. They start to say and do weird things. You take them to the doctor and they get put on meds (or sometimes not; our psychologist didn’t realize my husband was bipolar until he jumped on his endtable screaming in his office. And bipolar people have no respect for the meds, they often just go off them because they “feel great”).

But it’s very hard to realize the person you thought normal is suddenly, without obvious warning fully capable of say, chasing a cableman down the street screaming he’s destroying the minds of children. Or going out for “a ride” and coming home with $20000 worth of furniture bought on credit. Or, God forbid, screaming racial epithets out the car window at a black man. And you look at them and say, “How can you do that!”

And their answer is, “I’m fine. What’s wrong with you?”

The first few times they do it, it catches you by surprise. After that people usually wise up. But sometimes the first time is the time that is a doozy. I didn’t realize the problem I had until the postal inspectors showed up at my door.

After that, I never left him alone with the kids or a credit card in his wallet. I never let him deal with servicepeople. I never asked him to go anywhere to run an errand. I never sent him anywhere alone, at all. We didn’t even let him drive unless he was having a really, really good day. Mind you, he always thought he was “Just fine. Really.” And you know, he was, 90% of the time. So you feel rotten saying, you can’t watch the kids. But that last 10% was the kicker.