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Read this book and learn about the chaos caused by untreated bipolar disorder. Despite the extraordinary and loving efforts of his family over thirteen years, Scott Baker’s bipolar disorder ruined his life; his downward course was aided by a completely ineffective legal system that continually protected his right to be severely mentally ill… Dottie Pacharis, Scott’s mother, vividly describes the frantic experiences of families who struggle to get the mental health care that their family members desperately need and too often fail to receive. This book should be read… by anyone wanting to understand one of the most misunderstood crises of our time.
Susan Inman, author of After Her Brain Broke
Mind on the Run chronicles a family tragedy – the life and death of Scott C. Baker. It’s a story of a family’s efforts to help Scott through five major, prolonged bipolar manic episodes. It’s the story of a suicide that proper treatment would have prevented.

The book tells a compelling story of love and loss. It’s a tragic account, filled with sadness and frustration, of a family’s futile attempts to save their loved one. It takes readers inside the bipolar mind, a mind tormented by psychotic and delusional thoughts that erase any semblance of reality, a mind trapped in a body ravaged by irreversible damage from untreated bipolar disorder. Readers will grieve for Scott as they watch him lose his successful business, his family, and ultimately his life.

Even as a broken mental health system protected Scott’s civil right to remain mentally ill by refusing treatment, it rejected the fight by Scott and his family to obtain timely and humane treatment for him. When Scott was well, he tried to empower his family to help him during bipolar episodes, but the courts rejected his requests. His story shows us ways we can improve the system.

People reading this book who have a family member or close friend with bipolar disorder may become concerned that they, too, will face situations like those in this book. Put your mind at ease. I assure you Scotty’s illness was much more severe than most. When manic, Scotty never realized he was sick and thus couldn’t make rational decisions regarding treatment. For him, the illness erased anything resembling reality.

I have friends who are bipolar whose illness is less severe; for the most part, they manage their illness and live normal lives. Many have very successful careers, happy marriages and live normal lives. They take their medication and are proactive, not reactive, to warning signs. Yes, they have a very serious mental illness, but they manage their illness — the illness does not manage them. These people are true role models for others struggling with this illness and are to be commended.

The chronicle of Scotty’s mind on the run looks at the other side of the problem, where the person with bipolar is not able to care for himself. It is a look at what can and, more often, cannot be done by the family of the person who has bipolar disorder.

Dottie Pacharis from Mind on the Run, page 6