I'm not sure why I'm writing here - whether it's for advice, or just to vent. I just don't know what to do...

Over the weekend my ex-wife and mother of my son developed what appear to be paranoid delusions. She is convinced that the government has hacked her phone and put her under surveillance for welfare fraud and that all her friends and clients (she's a private art teacher) are in on the conspiracy to ruin her reputation. People she loves and who ostensibly love her are now objects of terror and sorrow. She has always had problems concerning self-esteem, but almost overnight it became pathological. She has never presented as schizophrenic, although she does have depressive disorders and possibly mild, atypical bipolar.

On Monday we took her to the emergency room, trying at the very least to get some insights and maybe emergency medication. We just didn't know how to approach the problem, and since we're not experts we figured seeking professional help was the most responsible to do.

I have had enough of a relationship with the psychiatric system to know that psych wards usually make people worse, but we were aware that this was a possibility. She waited 8 hours in a freezing ER before being called back to wait another two hours for a psychiatrist. She was terrified, constantly weeping, thinking that the government was going to scoop her up. Given her extreme fear of authority, they decided it would be a good idea to stick her in a dismal back room where a security guard was on break. I mean, he wasn't there to guard her since she wasn't a danger to anyone. He just happened to be there, rambling endlessly on to some nurse about his vacation plans. There was another guy there too. They all sat with their back to her while she cried. A man in the neighboring room was yelling about how he was going to eat everyone's penis. This was at UCLA hospital, a well-funded institution with a good reputation.

Anyway, finally, the psychiatrist came. I was with her by then. He listened carefully to her. She was 100% honest, even willing to be admitted if it came to that. Instead, he just said that a restrictive setting would be overkill and that she should call her psychiatrist. He handed us what was essentially a  handout he'd printed from Google with incredibly obvious advice.

1. They did not make any appointments for her.
2. They did not diagnose her.
3. They did not tell us, her loved ones, how we should communicate with her.
4. They did not tell us what to expect.

In short, they did nothing. Less than zero and the only outcome was her feeling exhausted and more hopeless than ever. At three in the morning I went back to her apartment with her (my son was with my parents), and just held her while she slept.

I just don't know what to do. I have a child. I work full time. We are not wealthy.

Does anyone here have any experience with this? Anything that might help my family and I?

My ex-wife is a special person. She's almost universally loved. She's in constant pain, and it's impossible to watch. She doesn't deserve this, nor did she do anything to precipitate it. I just don't see how the world can work like this. And to make matters worse, our society's mental health infrastructure is appalling--not only in its lack of resources and efficiency but in the impersonal, almost cruel ways that it approaches the sick with indifference at best.

Anyway, it feels better to vent.