Mind on the Run

Mind on the Run chronicles a family tragedy — the life and death of Scott C. Baker. It’s a story of a family’s efforts to help Scott through five major, prolonged bipolar manic episodes. It’s the story of a suicide that proper treatment would have prevented.The book tells a compelling story of love and loss. It’s a tragic account, filled with sadness and frustration, of a family’s futile attempts to save their loved one. It takes readers inside the bipolar mind, a mind tormented by psychotic and delusional thoughts that erase any semblance of reality, a mind trapped in a body ravaged by irreversible damage from untreated bipolar disorder. Readers will grieve for Scott as they watch him lose his successful business, his family, and ultimately his life. Even as a broken mental health system protected Scott’s civil right to remain mentally ill by refusing treatment, it rejected the fight by Scott and his family to obtain timely and humane treatment for him. When Scott was well, he tried to empower his family to help him during bipolar episodes, but the courts rejected his requests. His story shows us ways we can improve the system.

Dottie Pacharis is retired from a law firm in Washington, DC, and lives with her husband, George, also retired. They divide their time between Fort Myers Beach, Florida, and West River, Maryland. Since her son's battle with bipolar disorder, she has become an advocate for the mentally ill and a volunteer in family support organizations.