Drtrekker, I agree with you absolutely. I have been trying to express why I and others should care about the LW's cat. It is because the LW, no matter how frustrating the cat, already invested emotionally in its care as a kitten. I do not believe the LW would have written here if the LW did not want Cary/us to at least try to understand those feelings.

If putting down the cat were the uppermost thought, why write a letter at all? Just do the deed. However, we have the letter and the LW is looking for solutions for the cat. To me, the people who actually looked for the solutions, whether or not we can all agree, are those who have responded in that spirit.

My crazy cat of many years ago was an black Siamese cross. He used to shred the drapes. Sadly, I had to give him away. Wild as he was, he slept in my arms every night. Because I have a contact allergy to cats, I had a rash from my hands to my shoulders. The doctor said he had to go. I still remember the look he gave me when the woman I gave him to carried him away. I almost felt like I was giving away a child.

When I worked with people with disablities, I found some of them lived on little more than $500 a month. Those who had pets did without essentials so that they could care for their pets. The pets were giving back so much in terms of emotional support to people who had sometimes been abandoned by their own families.

Pets are up close and personal friends. We don't need to examine them through field glasses. They are right there -- someone to touch, someone to love.

When I used your words as the title of my last post, I forgot the quotations marks.

Thanks for responding. The reason I asked your daughter's diagnosis is because the constant phone calls you mentioned sounded like Bipolar behavior or maybe an agitated depression. I have had several Bipolar friends and also Bipolar clients who behaved that way. Of course, it is easier for me to deal with because I have caller ID and just don't answer the telephone. I have no doubt that, when it is your child behaving that way, it is vastnessly more complicated.

Drugs (both legal and illegal) are definitely a double-edged sword. I just ran across an article Joseph Glenmullen on the serious side effects SSRIs that may be of interest to you -- especially what he has to say midway in the article about amotivational syndrome. It is at this address:

http://www.depressiondialogues.ie/custom45/

Note that Glenmullen leads with a story about the sudden symptoms in a client who had just gone off SSRIs. When you mentioned your mother and the effects of her stopping smoking on her dementia, it also made me think of that article.

People are sometimes aware of the side effects of being on drugs and don't realize that there is a backlash effect of going off drugs -- that they can have an impact long after they are no longer in the system. Drugs (both legal and illegal) can seriously and sometimes permanently alter our brains.

I can also sympathize with your comments about getting insurance and financial help when a person's income falls into what I think of as the twilight niche. The system truly seems designed to stay broken and to produce broken people. This is no doubt compounded in your daughter's case by the fact that she is "high functioning."

I have noted a tendency in people who respond to letters in Cary's column to do armchair diagnoses (really labeling) or to say simply that a person needs an antidepressant. They do not realize how vastly complicated these things can be. I hope you realize that that is not what I am doing here. You know your daughter's situation far better than anyone reading or writing here possibly could.

I wish you better fortune both with your relationship with your daughter and your relocation.

Sincerely,