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.
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. His story shows us ways we can improve the system.