MovieChat Forums > In the Best Interest of the Children (1992) Discussion > Why did they keep Callie in the hospital...

Why did they keep Callie in the hospital so long??


My uncle, who is manic depressive, was stunned that the hospital kept Callie there for years . He said when he was hospitalized (he was several times until he got the correct dose of his meds), that they never EVER kept you longer than a couple weeks. A month at most.


"In nature, I've found the only stupid animals here are us."

reply

Bi-polar isn't one size fits all. Her situation was fairly extreme because she was actually hearing voices.

Perhaps they had trouble getting her on the right meds. Perhaps the length of her cycling issues required a longer stay to see if they were managed correctly. Perhaps she wouldn't take her meds to start.

reply

The story took place in the 1980's; so I guess it was possible to stay in a hospital for a long time then.

reply

Your uncle is not everyone. Every person is an individual and it might take longer for someone to start showing signs of improvement.

Money isn't the root of all evil. Love of money is.

reply

What I don't understand is WHY she was even able to petition to get her kids back when she wasn't even done with her treatment yet? That seems to be putting the cart before the horse and I don't see why her lawyer even entertained the idea of her appealing to the court to regain custody of her kids when that clearly couldn't happen for quite some time yet. She'd have to recover, learn to manage her illness effectively, and actually make a suitable home environment before she could have any hope of getting them back. What was she going to do if the court did rule in her favor, bring them to live at the halfway house with her? It's called "halfway" for a reason, she was nowhere near ready to regain custody of her kids yet. And, since the ending revealed the kids were eventually adopted by the aunt and uncle, it appears she never did get to that point, so what was the point of all the heartache the kids went through? If Callie had just let her brother and sister in law help out from the beginning, none of it ever would've happened.

reply

I think the movie made it quite clear that she didn't want her brother to take the kids because that's a decision she made when she was sick.
Also it was kind of clear that her kids now hated her (too young to comprehend) and instead of putting them back in the system, she clarified the situation with her brother and let him take care of them.
Maybe there was a situation where the kids could stay with her mother while living in the halfway house, otherwise it wouldn't have made sense.

reply

Callie didn't only refuse to let the kids go with her brother because she was sick.
She used this as an excuse for a lot of her behavior.

She was incredibly selfish, as was evidenced ALL through the film, and didn't want her brother to have them & not give them back to her if she ever recovered.


I'd say this cloud is Cumulo Nimbus.
Didn't he discover America?
Penfold, shush.

reply