She ate at the downtown missions and associated with the homeless transients that populate the meanest streets of the city. Like Carrie, many of them are also mentally ill. She started down the dreadful spiral that led to the street soon after her diagnosis a year and a half ago. No, it really started long before that for Carrie. I guess that s the way it is many times for people with a serious mental illness.
Life just doesn t go right.
One of the cruelest aspects of this disease is that the sufferers so easily alienate those closest to them before anyone knows that they are ill. It effectively robs them of the love and support that is vital in dealing with the devastation wrought by mental illness. Relationships are torn apart, home and families are lost, and anticipated futures evaporate. Respect is eroded and a person is often left with nothing and no one and at a point in their lives when they are the least capable of helping themselves. If they are fortunate, there will be at least one person who doesn t give up, one person who does not retreat in the face of a mind in chaos.