Acquaintances of mine has had their family life disrupted time and again by a bipolar relative who threatens harm, is put away for a couple of days, then signs himself out because of his "rights", usually just in time to mess up the family's holidays, vacations or work crises, and scare the children half to death. Other friends had a son in and out of various facilities, then breaking into their house over and over. Finally, he was shot by police. They were almost too exhausted by fear of his marauding of their home in the middle of the night time and again to mourn him, but his father died soon afterward and before his time.
Thank you! We hear the stories again and again. Families destroyed, people killed, all because of a mental case that is protected by the law. The families can’t find it in their hearts to BE hard and reject these people, and society is prevented from acting to protect itself. So the lunatics really ARE running the asylum-and the asylum is now the normal world.
I see schizophrenics and psychotics as dead people walking. Their loved ones LIVE grieving for the people they are not, and can never be. In the end they will grieve their physical loss- or be destroyed by them. WHY does there have to be so much violence and tragedy endured between? Because individuals-and society collectively- does not want to face ugly reality. Mental disease of that magnitude cannot be fixed.Pretending it can causes tragedy. We either blow off incidents like this as the cost of our delusions, or demand changes in a dramatic, and definitive way.
The parents of this 18 year old-like your acquaintances- are grieving the child they WANTED and SHOULD have had, not the destructive and dangerous one they endured.