You know that saying, "There's none so blind as those who can't see?" It runs through the back of my mind today.

Yesterday, I received an email from a childhood friend of mine. Not a personalized to me email, but to me and several other friends, outlining the hassles she is going through in her desire to have her recent vintage husband released from a state-run mental health facility.

This so upset my nervous system, I stopped reading after the paragraph that implied The Patient (as we will refer to her husband) was involuntarily committed, as though he is the victim of mistaken identity or bureaucracy gone amuck. My friend wishes to be allowed to escort her husband outside the facility as his treatment advocate, rather than having him receive treatment inside it from the state. The state told her she isn't qualified as a patient advocate and cannot be objective since he's her husband; she is this close to declaring it a conspiracy to keep him from the help he so desperately needs and only she can give him access to.

I love my childhood friend dearly but I cannot reconcile my feelings for her and my repulsion for her husband. They were high school sweethearts, although they broke apart and did not see each other again until after he was committed. Her happiness is obvious. She is truly in love and it's marvelous to see her so joyous. I'm happy that she's happy...I really am. I even remember The Patient as he was during the time they dated; he was funny, goofy and offbeat. That's how I want to remember him.

Unfortunately, I remember other things as well. We quote from a newpaper article concerning his commitment, removing the names ((While not particularly graphic, if you might be disturbed by reading this, g'head and skip the next several paragraphs)):

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"A man found not guilty by reason of insanity for shooting a woman in the face with a pellet gun and stabbing her to death at more than 20 years ago is asking to be released.

Circuit Judge M. T. yesterday granted a motion to appoint a three-member panel to evaluate The Patient and recommend whether he should be released from the State Hospital, where he has been since 1981.

The Patient, then 21, shot and stabbed S. Y., 29, as she was about to leave the shopping center in July 1979.

The Patient last applied for a conditional release, subsequently denied, in 1993.

State Hospital officials felt conditions could be imposed to ensure the community's safety if he were released, said deputy public defender D. Y..

However, the state objected to The Patient's request for release.

The Patient was diagnosed as a necrophiliac, a person with a sexual attraction to corpses. His attorney in 1981, David S., did not contest The Patient's committal, saying he was dangerous, and agreed with mental health experts that he 'intends to do it again.'"

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In the email, which I later read together with Rob in its entirety, my childhood friend does not disclose why her husband is incarcerated, only that it is unfair. This dismays me as I suspect the other people who received her email, not knowing the details, will instantly take her side and cheer her on.

I cannot sincerely wish this man ever be free. It worries me constantly, to think of my childhood friend in the company of The Patient, knowing what he did and knowing he wishes to do the same thing again. She has lost her sense of perspective on this, and certainly, her sense of humor. She's one of the funniest persons I know and can tell jokes that have you rolling before she gets close to the punchlines. I joked to her about something related to his situation once and she did not speak to me for days, relenting only because I sought her out. She is as relentless in love as she is in holding a grudge.

He would not harm her; that is something I'm fairly certain of, for as sure as she loves him, he loves her. Still...it worries me. And luckily, I live far enough away where I can wall up this worry and not deal with it. Receiving her updates will bring it closer and I don't know what to say. That I'm cheering on the other team? That I don't want to know (which is not true; I'm interested to know what happens so I can plan to avoid seeing him if possible)?

As for the other people who received the email...I wish I had the nerve or lack of courtesy to my childhood friend to send them this article so they know exactly what is going on. I won't...but will my silence imply that I agree with her position? None of them visit this journal, childhood friend included, so I feel safe here, safe to worry aloud and wring my hands.