Bestselling Author and Mental Health Advocate
I have been inundated this week with emails, mostly from parents and family members, expressing frustration and anger about our broken mental health care system. 
Here is a sampling:
*You touched my heart today on Sunday’s CNN show. I tried to get my son help over and over. He is now in prison. .. What now? No education, no job, a criminal record….no help.
I had about five minutes to read, answer and then email my responses back to USA Today yesterday during a live, Internet chat about my article: Don’t Blame Jared Loughner’s Parents. 
It was the first time that I have ever participated in such an exchange with readers and I found myself scrambling to keep up. I was only able to answer about half of the questions that were sent to me. If you think five minutes is a long time to do this, well, then you are quicker than I am.
Here is a copy of the questions and my answers if you missed the discussion. For those of you who participated, thanks! I hope it was helpful.
USA TODAY is now accepting written questions for Pete . He will be answering them on line starting at 1:30 p.m. EST on Monday, January 17, 2011.
You can ask your question by clicking here. 
Pete’s Op Ed piece, Don’t Blame the Parents of Jared Loughner, has garnered more than 300 comments since it was posted Friday on the Internet. Many of the comments showed a profound ignorance about mental illnesses and the struggles that parents face when an adult child becomes sick.
What sort of questions will be asked Monday? Will you be asking one? Join the discussion, share your story, and help educate readers.
As I write this, we still don’t know if Jared Loughner had been diagnosed with a mental disorder before his weekend shooting rampage. Loughner is the 22 year-old accused of wounding U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D.-Ariz.) and killing a federal judge along with five others in Tuscon. 
The Washington Post and New York Times both reported that officials at Pima Community College told Loughner and his parents in October that he would not be able to continue as a student until he obtained a clearance from a mental health professional that certified he was not a danger to himself or others.
That revelation certainly implies that Loughner was exhibiting symptoms of a mental disorder, but no one should automatically assume that.
Stories such as Loughner’s are upsetting to those of us who have loved ones with mental illnesses. That’s especially true if your loved one has tangled with the police while psychotic because you know how quickly an incident can turn violent.
If it turns out that Loughner did have a diagnosed mental disorder, I hope the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI), Mental Health America (MHA), and other leading advocacy groups do not run for cover.
Instead, they should follow the example that NAMI Ohio set last week when Sheriff’s Deputy Suzanne Hopper, age 40, the mother of two children, was murdered by a man with a severe mental illness.
Pete Earley is the bestselling author of such books as The Hot House and Crazy. When he is not spending time with his family, he tours the globe advocating for mental health reform.
As a former reporter for The Washington Post, Pete uses his journalistic background to take a fair-minded approach to the story all while weaving an interesting tale for the reader.