This story resonates with me. My mother is bipolar. Growing up she would be fine for a year, then gradually become more active and paranoid and spendthrift, then be hospitalized for several months, and then start the cycle over. In 2008, she drained and overdrew the joint checking account that she had helped me open when I turned 18 and flew abroad, costing us much distress and thousands of dollars (she was kicked off one homebound airplane for causing a disturbance). She was finally hospitalized long enough to recover.

But in 2011, when she had another bout, the hospitals refused to hold her for more than a week, and she was returned home only to be a nuisance to her landlord and a weirdo on the street. The social worker said to ask the police to take her to CPMC or St Francis (private hospitals) who will be more likely to hold her for long enough to recover instead of SF General, but since then she hasn’t been an imminent threat; merely a loud, paranoid insomniac who can’t get anything done.

It’s very difficult to reason with her regarding her illness, which she denies when she’s manic. I don’t know first-hand the facts of her police mistreatment or landlord interactions or whatever she happens to be angry about, so I can’t convince her that she’s wrong. Oh, and she refuses to take her medication because she’s convinced that they will ruin her liver. I sometimes wonder whether a smarter, more introspective manic person would be able to deduce logically that their paranoias are irrational and rein themselves in. But alas, her poor concentration and temper hare never allowed her this power.