Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness

This section depicts the early stages of Mike’s mental illness, beginning with his erratic behavior while attending college in Brooklyn. Earley notices when Mike begins experiencing insomnia and displaying odd behavior, including inviting unhoused men to come eat with him, wandering the streets of New York City for hours at a time, becoming convinced he is being sent messages through a movie called Heaven and Earth, crashing his parents’ car, and fixating on a childhood acquaintance to an alarming degree. Earley and his family struggle to get Mike the medical help that he needs. Mike, meanwhile, is resistant to taking medication because he fears he is being poisoned. Because Mike is over the age of 18, no one can legally force him to seek treatment, leading Earley to feel frustrated and overwhelmed over how best to help his son.

The chapter opens with a scene in which Earley gives Mike a bowl of cereal that contains crushed Depakote, one of the medications that he refuses to take. Mike figures out that his medication has been crushed into his food and fears that his father is poisoning him. He runs away to his mother’s house. When he arrives, Earley and his ex-wife (Mike’s mother) call the police because of their son’s behavior. Both parents decide to take him to a treatment center.

Before Mike enters treatment, he runs away and breaks into a stranger’s house, where he rummages through the homeowner’s belongings while playing loud music and taking a bubble bath. Because a man with a mental illness was murdered by police the day before, police officers responding to the scene take extra precautions with Mike. Earley lies to the police officers, telling them Mike has threatened suicide so that they can admit him to a psychiatric unit. While he is admitted, the nurses still cannot make him take his medication against his will.

Earley then receives a call from a state-appointed attorney who will represent Mike for his commitment hearing. She informs Earley that if his son doesn’t wish to stay in the hospital, he can sign himself out at any time. Mike will need to voluntarily commit himself to receive treatment, but he will only be held for five days maximum. Earley makes the painful decision to tell the court that he wishes his son to be committed until he can recover, but the judge cannot grant him his request. In treatment, Mike still refuses to take his medication. He thinks the break-in only happened in a dream. Earley also struggles with his health insurance company, which is pressuring Mike’s doctors to release him from the hospital earlier than anticipated.

In a desperate bid to placate the homeowners from seeking retribution in court, an attorney friend named Jay Myerson tells Earley to apologize. Earley goes to the house on behalf of his son and apologizes, attempting to explain his son’s mental illness. The husband is sympathetic, but the wife refuses to feel sympathy for Mike.

After 14 days in the hospital, Mike is released and enters a day treatment program. His parents soon learn that there is a warrant out for Mike. He is being charged with two felonies for breaking and entering with intent to commit larceny as well as destruction of property, meaning Mike may be liable for up to $10,000 in fines and could be imprisoned for up to five years. Earley seeks legal advice from Myerson but feels crushed by the weight of his worry. When Mike is arrested, Earley is struck by the unfeeling nature of the police officers and subsequently horrified by how routine all of this seems to them. Since “the wheels of justice move slowly” (35), Earley decides to begin his larger investigation of incarcerated individuals with mental illness by contacting major jails across the country, a process that leads him to Judge Leifman in Miami.