I am so sorry for your loss of your son. As the mother of a daughter in her twenties, I can only imagine how difficult both his death and the circumstances of his death must have been for you and your family. My heart goes out to you.

I hope the new action that you take will help your schizophrenic son. I have been to a few NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) meetings in the past and I know they are of great support to parents. Chances are you already know of them.

To others: The Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance (DBSA) is a good organization. Both Depressed and Bipolar people and their families can find connection, support, education, and good discussion at their meetings. They also have an annual screening for mental health in many communities.

Don't worry. I took no offense at all. Instead, I felt you gave me an opportunity to explain further about Bipolar Disorder.

About your sons' friend who keeps calling for their support: There is nothing wrong with telling your sons that it is okay to set boundaries with their friend. Setting boundaries is an important skill for all young people to know and it is appropriate to treat their friend not much differently than they would anyone else.

You might help to educate them on mental health issues. If you think it is appropriate you might also mention to them the serious warning signs of possible suicide.

1) Does the person feel completely hopeless.

2) Does the person feel or act helpless.

3) Does the person talk about hurting herself.

4) If the person actually has a mentioned or threatened a detailed plan for suicide, then this is a real danger point.

You do not say how old your sons are, but if they are still in their teens or younger, they need to know that some emergencies are better handled by adults.

Also, leaving the Virginia Tech killings aside, it is terribly common for young people to write about suicide. It is usually nothing more than a flirtation with the idea.

I still remember a part of a poem I wrote in my teens. It was truly awful. "Come heartless water! Take life without remorse!" I lived nowhere near an ocean or lake. Every publication I sent it too rejected it. Good thing, huh?

I was taken aback by all the response to this issue. It's like something under pressure finally exploding.

During my entire history as a psychiatric patient, there was one thing I heard more than anything else: "You seem fine to me." No matter how wretched, disoriented and ill I felt, I was able to cover it so well (at a terrible cost) that even psychiatrists and psychologists could not tell I was seriously ill with bipolar. The implication was, "You're faking this illness." The truth was, I was faking being well.

When I had the worst episode of my life two years ago, in which my stability and sanity blew into a million pieces, the health care system still told me, "You seem fine to me." Until I landed in my GP's office gibbering and raving after months of no food or sleep, no one even saw my illness, as the exterior was so normal. It was a huge shock when she said to me, "You're bipolar" (sort of like "you have inoperable cancer").

When the news reached my daughter (I was too ill to babysit, which drove her into a fury because "she seems fine to me"), she said, "She's faking this illness. There's nothing wrong with her."

I'd like to know why having "good coping skills" can have such a cost. If that mask hadn't dropped when it did, I'd be dead by now.

All I know is this: That any drug that has a list of common side effects that is a mile long and all more dangerous than the original reason you started the medication for can not be good for anyone. Come on, thick about it. Or, due to the ones you may be taking, the truth can not be realized?

Bauer's article is proving so important to some people. I hope you sort things out for your son.

At first I did not know what HFA was, so I Googled it, and after getting past something called the Home Finance Association, scanned to High Functioning Autism. This is what I think of as Aspergers. I know this is part of what they call the Autism Spectrum. However, I don't know much about Autism.

It would be great if someone who does could enlighten us a bit.

I also wonder if there might not be many undiagnosed cases of HFA. I have certainly known people who have this, but they can function so well intellectually usually that I think there could be many more people like your son and Bauer's son who may have this and not even know it themselves. They would certainly want to avoid such drugs.

That is why the article, while it is interesting to many of us, may be absolutely crucial for others to know about.

it was dramatic but not sappy. really. compare it to hallmark on one end and modernist esoterica on the other. it sounds pretty good to me (and being hypomanic(just discovered that term) i don't take "reputable publications" word for it)). this kinda "proves" my point. crazy makes you creative. that's why we have evolved to have so much of it. but that's just *ability* there are two other factors. being crazy means never having to give a shit (apologies to "Love Story" - which sucked, by the way, i guess whoever wrote it *wasn't* crazy)). that's two. and three, it gives you something to say, the same reason journalists go to iraq not flushing (queens). my sons are 19 and 20. the 20 year old one was called yesterday (by M_), however he only spent ten minutes. i asked, "is that ok with you?" and he said "yes". amazing, he's a man by this time and still listens to me. and yes, his solution is much better than mine. he's able to help yet not get bogged down in someone else's morass. as for the suicide warning signs. i knew people who committed suicide. they weren't depressed and they gave *none* of the signs. i know from myself that when people you love kill themselves you look for something to blame. his mother convinced herself that it was the librium he was taking (misdiagnosis? depression not anxiety? another of his relatives thought that). it's useless. the person's not there any more. you can't go back and change it. he called me a day before he killed himself. i mentioned that someone we knew got into a car crash and died. and said, amazing how someone can be here one day and then be gone the next. he made a stupid excuse (he had to help his wife with the groceries) and was about to hang up when i said, wait, when can i see you again? he said in a month or so. when i got off, i shrugged, an odd way to end a conversation. of course, you know, what happened. that phone call was 30 years ago, i can still remember it. you never really get over it. i've often thought, if he could see how many came to his funeral (literally *hundreds*) he, like tom sawyer, would never have done it. but then, who really *knows* who will come to their funeral? all i know is my nuclear family - but that's enough. i think all of us who are happy enough (could be better, but so what?) ought to thank our lucky stars, or medications or god or genetic neurochemistry - whatever myth suits. in the end, it's a mystery.