My intention in writing these posts is to share the experiences that I went through with my son, starting with the first manifestation of his illness and our journey through numerous subsequent episodes. It's also to provide commentary as a parent and psychiatrist on issues that these experiences bring up, such as how the diagnostic process works in mental health, and how to work with treatment providers and medication issues. My hope is that reading this may be helpful for people with mental health issues and also their families and friends.

To understand the rise and fall of the Dane County (Wisconsin) mental health system, it is first necessary to understand the history of the asylum and of deinstitutionalization. In the 19th and early 20th century, mental asylums were created as the main form of care for patients with severe mental illness. Dane County originally had a state psychiatric institution, which opened in the 1800s as the Wisconsin Hospital for the Insane, and then later the Mendota State Hospital and the Mendota Mental Health Institute (MMHI). Patients received custodial care and typically lived all aspects of their life in a psychiatric hospital with limited access to the outside world.

Originally, state hospitals were asylums developed to provide care and shelter for the seriously mentally ill run at the state level. The total number of residents at state hospitals peaked nationally in 1955 with 560,000 inpatients and fell to 47,000 by 2003. Factors responsible for this depopulation included........

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