I am suffering from a serious case of writer’s block at the moment for reasons both mundane and not mundane.

            Chapter three is proving a challenge. There is simply so much crap that started up over just the four months between February 2002 and June 2002, I am having difficulty pulling a theme out of it all. I just need to read, think and absorb.

            Part of it is the evolving answer to one critical question – How do I define the relationship between Patricia’s growing mental illness and her interaction with the Beast Machine? Where is the truth? Did the Beast Machine drive a mentally ill woman over the edge or did they simply provide her with the weapons to attack her family? Simply put, when you have two devils attacking you, it is a little difficult to figure out who was in charge. Patricia had plenty of evil in her before she joined forces with the Beast Machine.

            There was a blurb about us in last week’s Albuquerque Tribune . Here is the section about us.

Broken mind, broken system: Patricia Long went to prison after being convicted in 2005 for trying to hire a hit man to kill her ex-husband.

Her intended victim has implored the courts and corrections officials to get her the help she needed while locked inside, but the state penal system is no substitute for mental health care as he, and everyone else, soon realized.

Six months after her release, Long was back behind bars on a probation violation, her mind seemingly just as broken, her risk to herself, her ex-husband and others just as alarming.

Long goes back before state District Judge Albert S. "Pat" Murdoch on Wednesday in Albuquerque to determine whether she is competent. Eventually, he could decide to commit her to the New Mexico Behavioral Health Institute, the state mental hospital, where arguably she should have been sent in the first place.

It's all been too much for her ex-husband, Stephen Avery, and a new challenge for their 19-year-old son, who has now made it his mission to seek help for his damaged mother.

"I used to tell employees we have left the `Twilight Zone' and entered `Toontown,' " Avery said. "I never believed it would apply to my own life. I simply can see no way out."

But what other way is there, now, but for him to once again hope the system works? You can forgive him, however, if he has grave doubts.

"One point that I hammer the DA with is the truth that Patricia's mental illness, while present during our marriage, did not reach this extent until the state became involved," he said. "First, through the divorce courts and later through the criminal justice system."

It's enough to make the rest of us crazy.

Patricia is a sociopath. Sociopaths can really only be treated if they realize they have a problem. I did nothing to put Patricia in prison, but I saw prison as our best hope for her to realize her illness and begin the long road toward some type of recovery.

My diagnosis of Patricia’s sociopathic tendencies is most recently supported by her Probation Officer’s report.  The common characteristics can be found by goggling “sociopath defined” and include: 1. Failure to conform to social norms; 2. Deceitfulness, manipulativeness; 3. Impulsivity, failure to plan ahead; 4. Irritability, aggressiveness; 5. Reckless disregard for the safety of self or others; 6. Consistent irresponsibility; 7. Lack of remorse after having hurt, mistreated, or stolen from another person.

I do not apologize for holding some hope out to our children, of putting the best face possible on their mother’s imprisonment. “Hopefully, now she can get the help she needs, but your mother has to want to change”.

Perhaps this is why Glen is now expressing anger at the Department of Corrections. I think there is a basis for his anger, but the probation report brings into doubt how much Patricia cooperated with treatment while in prison. Of course, confronted with the inability to get her cooperation, the prison decided to release her to Probation and let them deal with her.

Now Probation, confronted with the inability to get her cooperation, wants to shuffle her off to the state mental hospital in Las Vegas.

Unfortunately, there is evidence that the prison already tried this as I believe this is where Patricia went when first released from prison. I imagine Las Vegas will decline and shuffle Patricia back to Probation.

And who the hell know where we will go from there.

For my dear friends who wish we could put this all behind us, the children do not think it is that simple, they would like some stability so they can put it behind them.

Relatively speaking, this was a quiet year with only a few incidents.

In January, Patricia wrote Glen and told him nothing was her fault, how much she loved me, and how she had learned to whack people in prison (Love like that I can do without).

In June, Patricia, fresh out of prison and Vegas, filed domestic violence charges against me alleging that I was calling and harassing her. The case was dismissed but not without a great deal of aggravation and work.

In September, I am awakened in the middle of the night and informed Patricia is in the hospital with an overdose. Is she dying? If she is dying, do I take the children to see her? On top of this, Glen’s maternal grandmother vests him with the family responsibility to oversee his mother’s care while she is in a comma and in ICU.

Within a few days, Probation yanks Patricia out of ICU and places her in the county jail for probation violation.  At the hearing in October, both Patricia’s attorneys and the State take the position she is legally incompetent. The judge orders an evaluation and a new hearing is scheduled for January 2, 2008.

At brunch on December 30^th, I express surprise that there is going to be a hearing. Based on my previous experience, I was honestly surprised that they had even started the evaluation.

Glen and I head down to Court yesterday only to discover they have not even started the evaluation and we are rescheduled for January 30^th.

And people wonder why I want change?

Debi had it right. This is never going to end until one of us is dead.