Welcome to my world. It’s also the world of millions of other family members who are frustrated that they cannot expediently cure the suffering of their loved one with serious mental illness. Blame can be placed in more than one area, to include the under-funded and understaffed mental health care industry. We can blame the disease itself, lack of research or lack of insight and cooperation from the very person with the disease. And in our darkest hours and private thoughts, parents often blame themselves.

Noah’s Schizophrenia is my memoir, about both mother and son struggling with the reality of what the rest of the world calls “insanity.”  It will be published soon and share the title with an on-going Blog. Noah is not my son’s real name, but chosen to protect his privacy. I even debated whether or not to use my real name as the author, in order to further protect his privacy.  But that would be counter-productive to helping end stigma around this issue.

My goal is to educate and console, and try my best not to be “Debbie Downer.”  I will also share the wisdom and advocacy efforts of others in this same fight for justice.  I plan to be topical, with COVID-19 and the economic lock down being just one example. This pandemic has put a spot light on mental illness, now that so many people are under severe psychological stress. That is the good news.  The bad news is that financial resources earmarked to help people with disabling, chronic mental illness, may yet again be disbursed to those who are not really seriously ill.

The pandemic has shone a light on the homeless population, with a high percentage who have schizophrenia. Providing the mentally ill with shelter because of a public health emergency would seem like a win/win, but there has and will be negative fall-out. There are people who need to be hospitalized for psychotic episodes, who cannot be admitted at times when services deemed “non-essential” won’t allow it. And there are those who need to be discharged from psychiatric facilities, but they may be denied their release because there are no openings for out-patient residential care. Yep, it’s complicated.

It’s no coincidence that this first post has been published on August 20th. This is a day which has bad memories for me and my son on more than one August 20th in years past. And so, it is with conscious intent that I turn a negative into a positive and that is also the essence of my memoir. This is the fuel and inspiration which I share with other mothers in particular, in the trenches, fighting a war on mental health care reform to save our loved ones and others we will never know.