She failed to seek treatment.

Inability to seek treatment voluntarily is part of the disease.  In
traditional abuse scenarios, the abuser sought voluntary treatment less
than 1% of the time.  This would be magnified in the IED scenario.

Of course the thought occurs to me that this is because abusers are bad
people.

Forgive me for saying this, but that's the sort of attitude that's made
mental illness the twentieth-century equivalent of leprosy.  "It *must* be
*their* fault that they're sick!"

Read up on the subject, David.  Part of mental illness is the inability to
admit that it's *you* that's messed up.  Most often, people with a mental
illness believe that the rest of the world is screwed up, and they're the
only sane ones.  Zen portrays this attitude on Akane quite nicely - and it's
quite accurate.

In my research on mental illness for this and "Roses of Shadow", I came
across some frightening first-person accounts of mental illness.  Usually,
such accounts came from people who, with medication and treatment, are now
able to function more or less normally.  But while they were ill, very often
admitting they were ill was the last thing on their minds.  Almost
invariably, it was their families that got them treatment against their
will.

*That's* the real tragedy of "The Bitter End".  I was much more angry at
Ranma, Nodoka, Kasumi, Ukyo et. al. for not forcing Akane into treatment
than I was at Akane for beating Ranma.

-Richard