9. Watching Mental Illness Take a Family Member

Elizabeth Clare West shares a story of her own sister who has been going through delusions and paranoia which are types of mental illnesses. After years of inactivity on Facebook, she suddenly re-emerged and started posting posts of her location, things like where she was at, what kind of people were after her, how safe she is at the time ad such. She believes the "feds" are trying to get her, and that the assassins are attempting her life daily. Only Mr. President Obama was on her side. All these things that sound nonsense to us is the reality and truth to West's sister. Numberous times West have contacted psychiatrists and doctors to help her sister's mental problem but all she got was either no response, of sometimes a brieft statement saying "She has yet to give me permission to speak with anyone. The rules of Federal law protects the right to remain untreated, unless and until a person becomes a threat to him- or herself, or to another person. West, who also believed of this right does not know what to do but just watch the illness take over her sister.

West opened her introduction by giving an example of Amanda Bynes who was physically hurt by her leg getting caught on fire accidently. The family of Bynes would not have to worry of Bynes getting medical treatment because she herself is aware and knows that she kneed treatment. On the other hand, families who have a mentally ill member becomes helpless and worries more because mentally disordered people are usually unaware of their condition, so they would refuse seeing the doctor. This is the case West is going through. Her sister is going through serious delusion and paranoia, and the sister is posting things on Facebook for everyone to see that she has a problem with her brain. Many people are contacting West for the concern of her sister, but there's nothing West can do since the sister does not want to see the doctor. 
The first time I read through the article, I didn't get the purpose of this article being written. I get that West has a mentally ill sister and that herself is frustrated about her incapability to do anything about it (because of the Federal Law). But she does not have anything against this rule. She has no opinions of the law that's keeping her sister from getting treated. Throughout the whole paper, West only talks about her sister. Mostly they are episodes of things happened ever since her sister's illness. What kind of fights they had together, how her sister suddenly disappeared, her divorce, not listening to her family, all these personal episodes or examples of her sister is written throughout the whole article. I couldn't find any argument nor opinion. It was almost just pure narration. Well the title is "Watching Mental Illness Take a Family Member" so I assumed there would be narrations of "watching"  what the illness was doing to her sister. But I also expected some thought or views on the thing that was just letting her "watch" the illness take over, and keeping her from "doing" anything about it. The narration was told in a very interesting way though; it kept me focused and interested. There were many times where she had to go back and forth in the story but her good use of transitions kept things clear. Also her word choice and use of language was just at the right level for readers to understand easily.