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As a teenager, Robert Dart fancied himself a Renaissance man, and he was indeed exceptional by nearly every measure: co-captain of his high-school football and track teams, co-president of the academic club, science-fair prize winner, literary awards.

“He was an easy child,” said his mother, Sherry Dart. “He always found a way.” Dart, who everybody called Rob, married a classmate at the University of Chicago Law School in 2007. He had a son and lived as a successful lawyer and family man in Southern California.

Rob was 35 years old when the voices started. His marriage had unraveled, and he looked to his family for help. He returned home to Vienna, Va., convalescing from psychosis in his childhood room, among his trophies, in the care of doctors and his mother. He visited his young son regularly. After two years of medication and therapy, Rob returned to California as an award-winning lawyer with an apartment in South Pasadena, Calif. 

In 2022, working from home in the pandemic, he stopped therapy and quit his medicines. The voices returned. Within a year, he was homeless, drifting in and out of reason. He ranted gibberish one moment and spoke with a lawyer’s clarity the next. On library computers, he posted online messages, by turns indecipherable, ominous and poetic. 

“When I used to see homeless people, I thought, ‘Where’s their family? Why won’t their family come and help them?’” said Rob’s sister, Jennifer Dart.

Last July, she flew from Raleigh, N.C., on Rob’s 44th birthday, hoping to find her kid brother and persuade him into treatment. Jennifer and her fiancé spotted him at a Starbucks. He was sitting alone with a cup of water, hair matted, staring at nothing. “The only thing I could recognize were his eyes,” she said.

Rob saw her and got angry: You shouldn’t be here. I didn’t ask you to come, he said. She followed him out of the coffee shop and asked if she could hug him. Rob pushed her away. Jennifer collapsed to the ground, sobbing.

Disruptions in mental-health care during the pandemic left many Americans vulnerable. Among people ages 18 to 44, insurance claims related to psychotic episodes rose 30% to 2 million in 2023 from 2019, according to LexisNexis Risk Solutions, a data-analytics company. Around the U.S., hospitals are overwhelmed. Emergency rooms are adding security guards. Jails serve as a last resort for those unable to care for themselves. 

“You should understand by now that I had quite a stable and productive life before I underwent any psychiatric treatment or therapy,” Rob Dart said in an email to The Wall Street Journal. “I believe people in your position often use medicine to try to keep people from learning what they otherwise could.” 

Rob’s 75-year-old mother, Sherry Dart, finds solace on Monday nights at her church, meeting with others who have loved ones with mental-health troubles. “I don’t believe God gave me this as a punishment,” she said. “God is with me, walking me through this.”

Sherry also put faith in California’s new CARE Court. Under a 2022 law creating the system, judges have broad powers to order those with serious psychotic disorders into treatment. In most states, people are largely powerless to get mental-health care for friends or relatives without their consent. In California, family members can petition the court to step in.

Sherry started the process but has found it difficult to navigate alone. “I don’t know if I have all the papers,” she said. “I need to do it, but I feel like I’m going to be a failure.”

After spending her savings trying to shield her son, Sherry, a retired first-grade teacher, fears she is running out of people willing to help a troubled man who pushes them away. 

“It’s almost like everyone is tired of Rob Dart. The police. His friends. It’s too hard, too complicated,” she said. “People are just giving up.” 

This account is based on interviews with Rob’s friends and family, court records, police reports, medical records and people familiar with his situation. 

In knots

Rob phoned his sister on most days during the pandemic. They ended their calls saying, “I love you, I miss you, and I’m proud of you,” Jennifer said. She had gotten sober around the time of Rob’s recovery from what was diagnosed as a bipolar condition with schizoaffective disorder. 

In early 2022, Rob’s calls tapered off. When they spoke, Jennifer thought he sounded off kilter. When she asked if he was taking care of himself, he changed the subject.

Alison Bloom, Rob’s neighbor, also wondered what was happening to the smiling man next door. Through an open window she saw trash piling up in his apartment. Rob lost weight and walked around the apartment complex wearing only underwear. Through the walls, she could hear him arguing with himself about baseball and movies.

Within months, Rob lost his law-firm job, his car was impounded, and he quit paying rent. In October 2022, he stopped answering his phone. Then his service was cut off.

“I got on a plane,” his mother said. “I thought I was going to find a dead body.” 

After Sherry landed, she went to Rob’s apartment complex and waited by the pool. She knew it was Rob’s day to have his son over for a visit. When Rob saw her, he got angry. He allowed her a few minutes to greet her grandson then took him away. Sherry spent the next few days calling Rob, asking him to please let her visit. He refused.

In December 2022, Rob’s neighbors called Sherry to tell her that Rob was delusional and screaming. From Virginia, Sherry reached South Pasadena police and said her son needed help. Police sent a crisis unit that pairs officers with mental-health workers. A social worker persuaded Rob to get help at Huntington Hospital in Pasadena.

Sherry flew to California the next day. The apartment manager unlocked Rob’s apartment for her, and as soon as the door opened, the smell hit. Sherry collapsed into sobs so loud that Alison came out to console her.

Inside Rob’s apartment, Sherry found his notebooks: He could hear the voice of Satan. He was the invisible Obama. He was being hypnotized. People were trying to steal his work. “There is a slim chance that this is in fact satan, I can’t take that chance,” he wrote, sometimes signing his entries “John Lennon” or “St. Nicholas Cage.” 

For three days, Sherry cleaned his apartment. She washed 27 loads of laundry, tucked away his loafers and dress shirts and folded clothes into suitcases. She packed his Head & Shoulders shampoo, shaving cream and Nivea skin lotion.

A family friend helped her move some of Rob’s belongings into storage—his law-school degree, favorite books and artwork, photos of his son, some furniture. Sherry kept cards and drawings from her grandson, whose room had been the apartment’s only clean spot.  

Sherry called the hospital each day to ask about Rob, but he wouldn’t let her visit. She sent the hospital a letter on Dec. 11: “I understand that Rob has not yet given you permission to speak to me about his condition, but when he begins to get better, I know he will. While I am in knots while not knowing his condition, I know I have to be patient.” 

Sherry stayed in town until Dec. 23 and flew home without learning whether he was getting better. She called the hospital on Christmas Eve and asked to speak with Rob. “We have no one there by that name,” a staffer said. He was already gone. 

Court orders

On Dec. 28, Rob visited his son on the porch of his ex-wife’s house. He was frenetic and giggling to himself. He showed up unexpectedly the next day and asked to take their boy overnight. His ex-wife said no. He had just been hospitalized, she told him, and he was getting evicted. He said that wasn’t true.

Rob submitted a court brief in March 2023 seeking “an order of enforcement, findings of contempt, and monetary, punitive and otherwise appropriate sanctions” against his ex-wife for failing to follow their child custody arrangement.

Rob served as his own lawyer and told the judge he was “hospitalized under extremely dubious circumstances,” and that it hadn’t disrupted his ability to be a good father. A 2020 addendum to the divorce agreement said Rob would temporarily lose custody rights if he became mentally incapacitated. The judge, persuaded by Rob’s argument, agreed to a hearing.

Rob’s ex-wife filed for a protective order for their son, saying Rob showed up at all hours demanding to see the boy. Rob’s apartment had become unlivable, she said, and didn’t want their son staying there. Her motion was granted.

Last spring, Rob’s neighbors gave Sherry updates: Rob’s hair had grown long and wiry. He looked unwashed. Some residents were scared.

“I didn’t feel afraid of him, but I felt like I probably should,” his neighbor Alison said. She saw him once lying on the sidewalk and stopped to talk. He perked up, she said, as if he knew how to act normal.

“I think he’s just riddled with imbalances that he can’t control,” Alison said. “But he would prefer that you not know what’s going on.”

Sherry had groceries delivered to his apartment, but Rob wouldn’t take them.

During the first week of June last year, Sherry came to see her son, and Rob opened the door of his empty apartment. He hugged her and said he was sorry for all that had happened and for causing her so much worry. Sherry mentioned his eviction, and Rob’s mood turned. He denied he was being evicted and wouldn’t let her stay.

On June 15, sheriff’s deputies took possession of the apartment.

Try again tomorrow 

Jennifer flew to California with her fiancé a month later.

She had spent months trying to convince herself that Rob was safe. “I was making stories in my head,” Jennifer said. She wanted to believe that he was staying at someone’s apartment, that he had found someone to help him, that he wasn’t alone.

Jennifer had filed a missing person’s report, but police came up empty-handed. “I had to see him,” she said. 

She arrived in Los Angeles exhausted. The flight had been delayed, and she hadn’t gotten any sleep. Jennifer brought a Duke University T-shirt and a bag of snacks for her brother. A neighbor at Rob’s former apartment complex said she had seen him earlier at Starbucks.

Rob was still there when Jennifer arrived. She called out to him and asked if he knew who she was._ I know who you are,_ he said in anger. Jennifer’s fiancé told Rob they had flown across the country for his birthday. Rob said he didn’t want to see them.

The next day, Jennifer’s fiancé followed Rob at a distance and saw him enter the apartment complex. He persuaded the apartment manager to call police and report a man who needed help. The social worker from Rob’s first trip to the hospital arrived with police officers. They took him to Huntington Hospital, and he was admitted. 

Hospital staffers told Jennifer that Rob didn’t want to see her. Try again tomorrow, they said. One of Rob’s social workers said she would try to keep him there. Jennifer bought Rob a backpack, clothes and shoes at Target and dropped them off at the hospital.

Then she and her fiancé flew home, expecting to return to California as soon as Rob was feeling like himself. “We thought he was going to get the help he needed,” she said.

Rob was released after 72 hours and wandered back to his old apartment complex. Neighbors sent Jennifer a photo of him wearing the new backpack.

On Sep. 10, 2023, Rob messaged a friend for help. He said he had been shot.

Gone missing

“Hollywood Walk of Fame Shooting,” a local TV station reported. Camera footage showed Rob on a gurney being lifted into an ambulance. Los Angeles police said he had been meditating on a Hollywood sidewalk around 3 a.m. when he was struck by an errant bullet. He refused to be admitted to a hospital.

Rob instead asked a friend for a ride and a place to stay. The bullet had passed through his calf. The friend brought him home and cleaned and dressed the wound with drugstore disinfectant, gauze and bandages. Rob posted photos of his leg on Facebook.

Around the end of September, Sherry paid for an Airbnb, and Rob’s friend brought him there. At the end of his stay, Rob refused to leave. He camped on the grass. “How can you let the person be on the street like that?” the Airbnb host wrote to Sherry. “If u truly cared about him you would get him some help.”

Rob’s friend tricked him into returning to Huntington Hospital, and a psychiatrist sought a court order to have Rob committed. After a judge ordered him into treatment, Rob appealed with lawyerly precision. He submitted a petition for a writ of habeas corpus, a legal request for release. A second judge allowed him to leave the hospital in mid-October. 

Friends put Rob up in a hotel, and Sherry paid for him to stay until she could get a flight to California. When she arrived, Rob wouldn’t agree to see her until a friend persuaded him to meet Sherry for brunch. He showed up angry and looking like he hadn’t slept.

Sherry and the friend drove Rob to Huntington Hospital after he agreed to seek treatment. He changed his mind when they arrived, and they took him to another hotel. Sherry stayed a few days hoping to see him. After Rob put her off, she returned home to Virginia.

The next day, Rob tried to admit himself to Huntington Hospital but was turned away. He got into a hospital in Culver City, Calif., about 20 miles away, and stayed a week. He posted a message when he left, thanking friends for “all your expressions about the whole mess.”

Two days later, he posted a photo of himself and said, “I will no longer disclose my locations.”

In early November, one of Rob’s former neighbors sent Jennifer a photo of him sitting in front of his old apartment complex. Before Thanksgiving, Sherry got Rob into a $130-a-night hotel. He had been posting nonsensical messages online at all hours. He occasionally texted Sherry, asking her to get him a burrito via DoorDash, the delivery service. The hotel evicted Rob after he got into an argument with the manager.

On Dec. 23, South Pasadena police got a call from a passerby about a man lying in a doorway on a cold night. Officers brought Rob a comforter, according to the police report.

Rob wrote in a Dec. 27 public Facebook post, “Hey guys, I’m looking for a place to crash in Los Angeles. That’s because I’m homeless. If anyone has some space in their apartment or anything, please DM me. Thanks.” Then he went silent for nearly three months.

On March 16, from a public library in the Silver Lake neighborhood of Los Angeles, Rob wrote to his mother, telling her to stop trying to reach him. That day, he also responded to messages from the Journal, saying he needed food and shelter. “It would be great to meet in person,” he said, but added he would have to be paid for his comments. The Journal, which doesn’t pay for interviews, declined the offer.

Jennifer listens to Rob’s old voice mails, she said, wishing she could call him. She hopes he has found a safe spot in the sprawl of Los Angeles County, among the estimated 75,000 homeless people living in shelters, cars, vacant lots and freeway underpasses.

At home in Virginia, Sherry sat on Rob’s bed in his childhood room on a recent day, looking through old photos. She stopped at a picture of Rob at Walt Disney World, wearing Mickey Mouse ears and a big grin. She cried.

“I adored this child,” Sherry said. “I still do.”

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5508385&forum_id=2#47521844)

Author: ""''"

mine didn’t start until 40 not even kidding

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5508385&forum_id=2#47522463)

On library computers, he posted online messages, by turns indecipherable, ominous and poetic.

0n library computers, he posted online messages, by turns indecipherable, ominous and poetic.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5508385&forum_id=2#47522207)

What's the problem here.

(http://www.autoadmit.com/thread.php?thread_id=5508385&forum_id=2#47523341)