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

To learn more about his bipolar disorder, Mike orders a book by an anti-psychiatry and anti-medication doctor, which Earley finds disconcerting. They argue about whether medication is the right answer to mental illness, and Earley shares the results of his investigations and interviews in Miami with his son.

Mike finds an office job through a temporary employment agency. When he uses his new insurance to visit a psychiatrist who tells him his medication, Abilify, isn’t any better than a placebo, Earley is infuriated. He and Mike’s mother worry that Mike is no longer taking his medication, but they soon realize that they are mistaken. Earley realizes that his reporting in Miami has shown him the danger of his son going off medication, but more importantly, the inevitability that he will go off his medication at some point no matter what his family or doctors say. He begs his son to never, ever stop taking his medication.

Earley receives a phone call from Jackson, who was awoken by a police officer knocking on his door. Earley recommends calling an attorney who can find out if the police have a warrant out for his arrest. Jackson asks if he can call Earley every night at eight o’clock as a form of check-in, and Earley reluctantly agrees.