The news from Tucson is painful for all of us, but in a particular way for anyone related to someone with mental illness. For parents of the mentally ill, headlines about a person who is almost certainly psychotic cause anxiety and pain. But psychosis isn't the same thing as rage, even though it may involve it; in fact, it is often a state of intense fear. People with schizophrenia, as well as those with bipolar psychosis, seem to want to protect themselves, first and foremost; sometimes they want to right some enormous wrong and save the world; sometimes they want to stop the hurt and end it all. A world where nothing looks real and no perception can be trusted -where the TV is sending cryptic messages and the faces of loved ones are distorted masks-is at best unsafe; at worst, intolerable.
