The legal and social pendulum on the issue of involuntary treatment for mental issues has swung too far, from the days of too easily enacted forced institutionalization of someone to where we are now with parents themselves having so many legal loopholes to jump through to force their children with known mental issues into meds and treatment.
We don’t want to get back to the old days, but we do need to develop the legal means to achieve involuntary treatment, with sufficient protections for the individual as well. It will never be perfect, and anything we do will stumble and need reforms again. But we can do better than we are now.
I agree. We are failing our mentally ill, often hands tied behind our backs until they do something criminal.
There's a sad story I picked up on one of my other forums of a young man who beat his mother to death with an electric guitar. Looking at his photo and then clicking on his Facebook page, it was clear he was suffering from serious mental illness, probably schizophrenia. Comments from family on the page after the murder were filled with sorrow at being unable to get him help. Now he's likely off to prison.
Yes, there needs to be some middle ground. I don't know how to get there either.