Dr. Lorcan Martin:

That lady I spoke of is a real case. There was another lady under my care who was always very particular about her appearance and social standing but when she became unwell she would become unkempt and would wander around looking like a homeless person. She would go into shops and steal, which would be completely antithetical for her, and she would get herself in terrible trouble locally. There is a level of social embarrassment and difficulty in that. Then there are also people who do not develop the more dramatic presentations but who maybe just do not look after themselves, sit at home, do not eat properly, do not exercise, become socially withdrawn, do not go out, do not take care of their personal hygiene and develop ulcers and do not get seen to. These are all real cases; I have not manufactured them for an example. This is the sort of stuff you are looking at. For example, recently I saw someone who did not come to the attention of the services, unfortunately. When we saw her she was not an immediate and serious risk of harm to herself but she had dreadful leg ulcers and was ferociously malnourished because she had not been minding herself and that was secondary to her depression. You can have these situations where people wind up suffering and in trouble because of mental illness, even though you cannot identify an immediate and serious risk of harm to self or somebody else. These are the sort of examples I would be thinking of.