Again I was more then sad when this show got canceled when you see the amount of garbage series that go on and on forever. United States of Tara was a really good series, a mixture of comedy and drama. Toni Collette as Tara Gregson, a housewife with dissociative identity disorder, gave us a tremendous performance. All of the alters she played are a delight to watch. Her alter Gimme made me laugh out loud. The other actors are also contributing in making this series more then enjoyable to watch. I can't really fault anyone, I thought they were all superb in their roles. I truly enjoyed every second of this show and I am more then disappointed they didn't continue with it.

I could totally relate to this show. I have a mother who has Borderline Personality Disorder (a person with BPD feels emotions 1000 times more intense than regular people, and will go into a meltdown mode when they can't handle the emotions).This show shed light on how hard it can be for a child of a person with a mental disease to live a daily life. I'm sure the show exaggerated DID symptoms, but the struggles Tara and her family were going through were very real. It can totally happen that the person with a mental disease can turn violent, during a 'phase', towards their spouse and even their children. As the child, you can get very confused about who the parent really is. For me, it was: is my mother the person who's very caring and loving? or is my mother the person that says hurtful words and sometimes become violent? And why can't I have a normal life? These are the struggles Kate and Marshall had everyday. We had to learn to stand on our own feet at young age because we couldn't really get much emotional support from our parents. We grow up thinking our childhoods were pretty normal, and don't realize they weren't until so much later. Some of us grow up thinking we're broken and at fault, and deserve unfair environment (abusive partner, abusive employer, or unkempt house). The children of a parent with a mental disease tend to grow up rather quickly. In the show, Tara is unbelievably lucky to have such a strong and supportive family. In real life, it's hardly so. My brother and I had moved out, but we still live fairly close (within 1 hour by car) to my parents. I still wonder if it's better for my dad to divorce and move on, and if it's better for my mom to go into a facility and get better.I thought Tara was very selfish by wanting her children to be with her. (which is very realistic BTW, the person with a mental disease often is very weak and desperately hangs on to any love/support they can get) The children have every right to declare their own space free from all the turbulence if they choose so.The show was incredibly healing and gave me hope. I could really relate to Kate and Marshall, and was relieved to know they too were having the same struggles I had, or still have to this day. I'm very happy that such show existed. I give my sincere thanks to the producers of this show.

My wife has DID (and PTSD, BPD, anxiety, ...) due to childhood abuse. There have been very few movies/shows about this disorder, and I found that I could really relate to this one. It does a very good job showing just what happens with someone who has DID, especially with the nearly immediate transition to alters and back. That was spot on. The dysfunction was also covered fairly well. Nothing is normal with mental illness. Normal day-to-day activities can turn upside down, and planning things can become impossible due to the unpredictability of it all. Even going to your job every day can be a challenge. Then there are days where everything seems perfectly normal.And that's an area they only lightly touched on. The suicide ideation/attempts, raging, depression, guilt, eating disorders, emergencies, money problems, lack of boundaries... these are much more severe and common than what they showed (but that probably wouldn't make for an as entertaining series.) And, at least in my wife's case, her alters aren't as well defined or as persistent. Some don't even have names, and frequently there is just dissociation without alters. None of them wear different clothes.The difficulty with getting proper treatment is also shown. But they didn't touch on the cost very much. Most insurances must "pre-approve" treatment for mental health issues, which is a joke. Break your leg, go to the hospital. Have a meltdown and need immediate counseling? Ask your insurance for permission first. And don't even think about paying for it out of your own pocket (unless you're independently wealthy, which you probably aren't since someone with DID isn't likely to be holding down a job).Overall, an entertaining but also educational look at DID. Someone did their homework.

I would have given this charming, quirky, compelling, interesting show a 9, but there were a couple of jarring, ignorant, political issues that made the ride come to a screeching halt. Really? Can't we have good entertainment without this claptrap coming up? I just couldn't even go to my standby and call it irony, it was too stupid. What the heck? How was I supposed to take this? They carefully got the audience to love these odd people then make them say unforgivably stupid things. What is it with Hollywood limousine leftists anyway? They ruined an excellent show. The acting and writing, other than previously highlighted, was super. Eddie Izzard was terrific. The whole cast was great. Interesting, unusual, made me think. made me laugh. Made me cry.