Letters to the Editor

My mother stopped her Paxil and appears to have gone crazy She went on Paxil eight years ago when my dad died, and now she's acting irrationally. By Cary Tennis [2007-02-08]

• it's not easy

  It's not easy to have an adult involuntarily committed. We are going through this at the moment with my older half-sister, whose mother had to be committed for the last half of her life. My sister believes there are people living in her attic, she has already set fire to her neighbor's house, and we're all terrified that she will shift her attention to us next. For a while it looked as if there was hope because of the arson, but she has told her lawyer she doesn't want to plead insanity and wants to fight being committed. My other half-sister, who mainly remembers that her own mother was very unhappy being institutionalized, is backing her up, and it's a mess.

  Good luck. If you run into unhelpful individuals or agencies, don't stop trying. You're not being disloyal to your mother by taking steps to combat her illness. And try to remember, she isn't pure evil, she's just a prisoner in a machine that isn't working properly.

  -- Allie
  Permalink Flag Wednesday, February 7, 2007 08:43 PM
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