As they travel around, they make a frightful mess, financial and otherwise. You feel you can't sit back and do nothing. So you follow them, overnight bag in hand, in an attempt to clear up the mess.

They become increasingly fixated, as their paranoid delusions take control of their mind. In turn, you become obsessed with your campaign to save them.

Your paths cross and recross. Sometimes, you find yourself sleeping in the motel or hostel they recently vacated, after the "gremlins" caught up with them. Once, while following my daughter, I even spent a night in her former room, on the same lumpy mattress.

At such times, as life takes on a slightly surreal quality, you wonder about where the world of "madness" ends and the world of "normality" begins. And when you go out for a walk, and see a poster screaming "Who will control us in the 21st century?" on a roadside wall, you realise there is a lot of paranoia floating around in the community, probably only slightly removed from the pathological.

This is the side of caring for the mentally ill that the professional carers — the psychiatrists and nurses — often know little about.

That is why there is not much point in going to anyone for counselling. You are the expert. Over the years, you probably learn more about your loved one's state of mind, and about how to handle the problems that arise from it, than anyone.

So it's disappointing to find that, in some professional circles, one's opinions aren't taken seriously.

In early 1995, after witnessing my daughter's increasingly irrational behaviour over a period of four years, I finally realised she was not only mentally ill, but that her already alarming condition would continue to deteriorate. And naively, I assumed that, as this was obvious to me, I would have no difficulty in convincing mental health professionals of the seriousness of the situation.

I was wrong.

"It's only natural for us to worry about our children. I know. I'm a father, too," was the soothing brush-off from a member of the crisis team at North Shore Hospital, where my daughter had a room in the staff residence.

He seemed to think I was an over-anxious person, who was having difficulty in adjusting to his daughter's departure from home. Of course, I was nothing of the kind. I was just a person who didn't want a girl with a good science degree to end up living in a cardboard box under a bridge, waiting for the neighbourhood rapist to pay her a call.

Eight months later, after my daughter entered the acute phase of her illness, and after I rushed to Auckland to try to sort things out, I still made no progress with the mental health professionals.

"There's no way she can be committed," I was told by two people from St Lukes Community Mental Health Centre who interviewed her, after I told them about her delusions. By this stage, she thought the traffic jams on Auckland Harbour Bridge were part of the insidious plot against her. Later, she would think she was the daughter of opera singer Kiri Te Kanawa.

Another professional wanted to know how close I had been to my daughter, and suggested her problem was a family problem — to be worked through by the whole family, in sessions that could be arranged by the centre.

I was desperate. Time was running out. If we didn't do something, she would, I knew, flee the country — to make yet another "new start". And I had noticed that, with the stress of each "new start", she went further downhill. This is common in cases of schizophrenia.

Days later, she went into hiding, flew to Sydney with an estimated 200kg of luggage, became destitute, was picked up by friends of the family, walked out on them and went to Melbourne, became destitute again, was sent a ticket for her return to Sydney, and was eventually persuaded to return to New Zealand — minus nearly all the luggage, and with a big debt to the company that had airfreighted it to Australia.

During this incredible odyssey, she continued to claim to the New Zealand Consulate in Sydney, and to anyone else who would listen, that a merciless "vendetta" was being waged against her.

After she arrived in Wellington in a manic state, I successfully applied for a psychiatric assessment. But she was able to get out of Porirua Hospital after less than two days — long before any diagnosis could be made — by appealing for a judicial review of her case.

"I think I'm all right. I can't understand why I'm here," she told the judge, who promptly ordered her discharge. (My opinion was not sought. In fact, I was not even informed by the Family Court of the hearing.)

She disappeared again, and had to be painstakingly tracked down.

The police deserve a medal for their efforts. They had me play them a mysterious message, which had been left on my answerphone by a worried landlady.

The woman gave a name, but this was unintelligble. And she was so upset by the behaviour of her young tenant, she forgot to leave a telephone number.

The police re-recorded the message, and played it to everyone in the police station. Although the accent was distinctive, no one recognised the voice. But they didn't give up. They called the local taxi companies, and played the message to them — until they finally found someone who could tell us who the woman was.

The Motels Association was also helpful, unlike Telecom and the Bank of New Zealand, which took cover behind the Privacy Act.

But it wasn't until my daughter reached the end of the road — and was suffering not only from delusions and hallucinations, but breathing difficulties, trembling limbs, and "heart attacks" (not real ones) — that I was able, with the help of a hostel manager, to get her into hospital and ensure she stayed there. A full assessment was made, treatment was started, and within a month she was able to come home.

Now, apart from a lack of motivation, she's the same delightful person she was before she became unwell. Her personality is unchanged, and her intellect is intact. She definitely has a future.

But as I reflect on the course of her illness, I still feel frustrated. The whole "rescue operation" cost the family $6000. In addition, my daughter lost about $5000 of her own money, and nearly all her possessions. And finally, she spent thousands of dollars — money that came from the taxpayer, through Legal Aid — on insane court actions to delay the medical treatment she desperately needed. Altogether, more than $15,000 was wasted.

All this happened because it is almost impossible, under the current Mental Health Act, to compel a person to accept treatment until they pose "a serious danger to themself or to others" — as defined by people who sometimes have a poor understanding of mental illness.

I am particularly critical of the Family Court in Wellington, which acted in an irresponsible manner and treated me with contempt.

After my daughter's recovery, I wrote to the judge, and told him I wished he had received some of the distraught telephone calls that came to me at all times of the day and night during the two weeks that preceded my daughter's final hospitalisation.

They might, I told him, have made him think again about the wisdom of his decision.

Of course, there was no reply.