Still, there are those who want to neatly categorize those with "serious" mental illness so that we can focus more of our resources on their needs and not on those who they deem to be the "worried well." Juan, it appears, did not fall into that category of chronically or persistently mentally ill. Similarly, all of us know chaotic, misbehaving, and even suicidal teenagers who go on to live productive lives. Does that designation matter if those not-so-seriously (or not-so-obviously) mentally ill individuals kill someone or die during their brief moments of emotional turbulence?
It seems to me that the goal is to keep people safe and help usher them through difficult periods in their lives, regardless of any diagnostic certainty or severity. I would contend that the mentally healthy among us also are subject to impulsive, distressed, and dangerous moments and that the world does not always neatly divide people into proper categorical entities.
Dr. Miller is a coauthor of "Shrink Rap: Three Psychiatrists Explain Their Work" (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2011).