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The Glass Minnow Trap:
A Look Inside a Family Struggling with
Mental Illness, Treated and Untreated by Pam Butler Pam Butler
book review by Priscilla Estes
"The message is the mental health system in the State of Michigan needs a major overhaul. My sister had to commit second-degree murder to get long-term mental health care."
When Butler's eighty-three-year-old father died from head injuries administered by Butler's mentally ill sister, Butler underwent a sea change. After more than fifty years of protecting and appeasing her volatile sister, Susie, she chose to protect herself from Susie by telling the truth. The result is a candid, sad, angry and well-researched story of a "normal" suburban Michigan family of four who were rotted from within by generational mental illness.
No Mommie Dearest tell-all, this book exposes the inability of the current system to handle the mentally ill in a way that protects the rights and safety of the family. Through letters, research into her ancestors' mental illness and interviews with family, friends and caregivers, Butler chronicles her mother's and sister's myriad breakdowns and how Michigan's mental health system stopped short. From her grief and pain emerge a practical four-step plan to help families escape the "glass minnow trap" of family mental illness, a three-step plan for Michigan, as well as praise for Wisconsin's Fifth Standard intervention treatment.
Despite abrupt chapter transitions and occasional punctuation and grammar gaffes, this self-proclaimed "non-writer" makes herself understood. Concrete examples illustrate the idiocy of a system more concerned with patients' rights than wellness; that expects the patient at his sickest to make good decisions about his treatment; and where homes become mental institutions and prisons psychiatric hospitals. For all the frustrated mental health care professionals and families dealing with the mentally ill, this book is a practical resource and a reminder that they are not alone.