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Most reasonable people can understand the need for some kind of assistance from society when dealing with mental illness.

The problem is, when the government is the sole solution, whatever well-intentioned program is put in place is immediately and overwhelmingly set upon by people looking to game the system, which then needs more money and resources, and next thing you know, it has a budget of billions of dollars and tens of thousands of people.

And too many of the recipients of this well meaning largesse who sit in lawn chairs relaxing on Wednesday mornings are not mentally ill at all. But you are cruel and heartless if you point that out.

Yep. Another one of my daughter's first jobs out of college was as a caseworker for families of autistic kids. She told me the vast majority of her cases (90% +) were, at best, kids with borderline autism which could best be dealt with by the adults in the family spending even an hour per day doing something with the kid as simple as tossing a frisbee, playing catch, a picnic, board game or almost anything other than letting them play alone with some electronic gadget.

A relative handful of her cases (less than 30%) were impressed with the results when she just demonstrated this with them a few times. Most of them were interested only in making sure the government check continued.

The excuses were laughable. None of them had the time, money, etc. to buy simple things like books or board games. But they all had multiple big screen televisions, the latest electronic gadgets such as X-box, Play Station, etc. which are to autistic kids what an open bar is to winos.

My mom is bipolar. She is 84 years old and still works.

She has a little shop in an antique mall.

Once she got the right meds, she was ok. She tried to get off them once, but she realized she needed them.