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I have been in situations similar to what the Yates went through (without the dead children, of course!). Let me tell you, I did not fall down on the job of making sure the kids were protected. I can't tell you what it cost me in my personal and business life. (How many of you have had a supervisor say, "the phone's for you - It's someone saying he just took an overdose and its all your fault"?)

I can tell you that it is not that easy to get help. It took me three years of taking my husband to doctors before they even realized the problem was not a "marital problem", it was a severe mental illness. (I knew it, but mentally ill people can have a gift for making you look like a major league liar once they get you in front of a doctor.) I have sat and yelled at hospital personnel for releasing an obviously psychotic man to home. I have had doctors not return calls and hospitals not admit. And you can't always get them in the car to get them to the ER, you know.

I have often wondered what horrible things must happen to uneducated people who don't have the chutzpah and persistance to "deal with the system". I personally know someone (a woman) who just "took off" and left her kids with a psychotic man who decided not to take his medication. (Mentally ill people often decide not to take medicine because, you see, they are "fine" - its everyone else who is nuts).

The doctors often don't have a clue and if you have no personal support system you are toast. If you are the kind of person who just does what they are told and has no one to help you can expect stuff like this to happen. Not excusing the husband - I would have never done the things he did - just letting you guys know it is NOT as easy as you think it might be.