(July 7, 2014) The torment of a family unable to get help for a loved one with untreated severe mental illness is the subject of Stephanie McCrummen’s devastating piece in the Washington Post (“Behind the yellow door, a man’s mental illness worsens,” the Washington Post, June 28).
For the next four days, the Treatment Advocacy Center will share brief excerpts from the tale.
One point of view in McCrummen’s narrative is that of the ex-wife, Jennifer, as she watches helplessly while her ex-husband deteriorates.
Jennifer’s perspective:
“She has been watching him deteriorate for three years now.... He began reading conspiracy theory Web sites. He started saying he was going to jail and taking batteries out of cellphones. Jennifer told herself it was stress and tried to get him to see a counselor, but he wouldn’t.
“Then one day a package arrived, and he told her to take the kids outside, and she watched as he put on a biohazard mask and used long-armed tools to open the box, which contained a crank radio he ordered.
“He started wearing all yellow or all white. When they visited a relative who had a gun with five bullets mounted on a wall, he said the bullets were a sign that their family of five was going to be killed. Jennifer kept trying to persuade him to see a counselor, but there was nothing else she could do to get him treatment until the day he disappeared with the boys.
“What she wishes is that her ex-husband, whom she still loves, could be involuntarily committed to a psychiatric hospital for however long it takes doctors to figure out what’s wrong, for medications to work, and for him to once again be the person she married.
“But because she can’t have him committed, she is doing the only thing she can think of to do. In accordance with the divorce decree, she is selling the house, which she is hoping will force her ex-husband into a situation desperate enough that he might meet the standard for involuntary commitment. For him to get better, she realizes, she and his family have to let him get worse.
“’He’ll be homeless. . . . And we just have to let it happen.’”
Read the entire story by Stephanie McCrummen.
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