America is entirely fucked up when it comes to mental health.
The only reason I am awake right now is that I have a neighbor with dementia who has no next of kin. She has a city social worker already assigned to her and has had multiple supposed court dates that come and pass. Yet almost every night between 2 and 4 am, she bangs on our door for one reason or another, and she remembers none of it. In her mind, reasons exist, and I get that, and its sad. Her partner left a year ago to an assisted living facility and is never coming back. She screams for her in the hallway 10 to 20 times per day. She thinks she got lost checking the mail. But the biggest problem is that she refuses all medical attention. She feels faint because she has dementia and forgets to eat, but in what's left of her mind, that isn't possible. She truly feels that she can only feel faint because of an outside factor. So she thinks there is gas. However, the gas has been completely shut off in her apartment for nearly a year.
Worse, meals on wheels abandoned her during covid as well. So we also provide pretty much the entirety of her sustenance. And we aren't allowed to reinstate meals on wheels because we aren't next of kin. And nobody can do anything really. She is going to eventually die alone in her apartment even though she could have had a few good years in a facility or even with a home visit nurse. My options are to stop feeding her and let her die, or get her arrested after filing nuisance and harassment complaints against her because she bangs our door nightly. None of these options are good for me, and I live in a city that supposedly gives a shit.