The system fails every single day

From a 46-year-old man with bipolar disorder -

It fails every time a homeless mentally ill person gets stabbed and dumped in the river. It fails every time a mentally ill person goes to prison after committing a crime while untreated. It fails every time a mentally ill person is denied opportunities that most of the population takes for granted. It fails every time a mentally ill person cannot stay on their meds because they can't afford them or can't afford the visit to the doctor to prescribe them.

It fails countless times a year; most of those failures are the little tragedies that affect the ill person, their family, or an innocent victim, but do not draw the attention of the nation as the VA Tech affair has. It fails every time a mentally ill person cannot find a productive role in society because the support system isn't there. It fails miserably and it destroys countless lives and countless families.

Why does it take the loss of so many lives for people to realize the system is broken? How many more lives will be needlessly destroyed before something is done to fix it? I wish I had the answers. I do not. But, I do see that the system is failing the mentally ill, and failing society in general.