By Andrea Vale

People tell me that looking at me is like looking at a ghost.

I’m an exact replica of my older sister – 5 feet tall, blue eyes, curly brown hair. It brings a new meaning to the term “dead ringer”: she died when she was 21.

I’ve always been her twin. The doctors and nurses used to call me Little Lizzie. I would accept their flattery uneasily as they smiled down at me – at 8 years old I recognized the forced enthusiasm with which adults spoke when trying to mask an ugly reality from young eyes.

Years after the fact, at age 17, I sat down with my parents and learned the whole truth of what those looming Victorian edifices contained.

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I have been dealing with schizoaffective for thirty two years.  I have a Husband and two grown kids.  It hasn’t been easy.  You can have a happy life.  

She’s back
She fills the room with her smile, her laughter
I love her unconditionally
She feels better, meds sleep food shelter
3 beautiful children

She feels so good, she thinks she’ll be ok
She skips her meds, thinking shell take them every other day
A little more tired staying in bed late, the room kept dark as her mood

She dosent need her meds damn it ! Who do you f——-g people think you are? I think I am going to see my old friends
She walks away again, the children their father feel that vast void of
The emptiness of her leaving. It hurts more every time she leaves .

She’s gone back into her addiction of meth
She calls and texts painful delusional things
She tells you she hates you

I know this is not true
I know she is feeling lost
I have tried to help her

I try to draw the line, tell her this is it I can’t do this any more
I tell her I love her
She needs help

My daughter is bipolar. She is a sweet soul with a laugh that makes every one else laugh. When she’s on her meds that’s how it is.

The other part is painful. She says the most hurtful things and terrible things that she has delusions about. It has been 20 years of her abusing
drugs on and off. She has a record. For stealing to get money for next high.
She has had a man that loved her and had 3 children with her. For a few years life was good.
She keeps leaving him and the children, she comes back sorry then she repeats this at least 3 times a year. Now the children are upset and realize she is ill. They need her, the mother that cares. She has left them.
Thank goodness instead of taking them with her.
She is gone again, I am 2000 miles away and can’t just relocate to try to care for them. I feel sad and guilty that I can’t up and leave. I have some heart issues and really need my job and insurance. I need to know its ok.

I’ve been with my husband 28yrs and have been through a lot of heartache but learned along the way about bipolar disorder as his sister was diagnosed 22yrs ago, then his daughter 15yrs ago and finally his sister’s granddaughter. All of these ladies are more extreme cases who have had train wreck ups and downs. However, I know that there are many others in his family who would be diagnosed if they didn’t have the belief that there is nothing wrong with them, it’s everyone else who has a problem.

I know several other people who are bipolar and have learned from them as well as speaking with qualified psychiatrists. The pieces I have been able to put together show a common denominator=an addiction of some sort. Not always a drug addiction but some are addicted to food, sex, positive attention (hey look at me, I’m the smartest, toughest etc.), negative attention (poor me, come feel sorry for me, my problems are the only problems), sexual attention (not sex itself but being desired sexually).

I feel that drug rehabs should pay more attention to checking for mental disorders and include this as a preliminary focus. I see too many rehabs keep people 28 days and little or none of that time involves a qualified psychiatric evaluation. It took until my stepdaughter was in her 20’s to be diagnosed properly and once she was put on the appropriate combo of meds for bipolar disorder, the drug addict disappeared. Now she has manageable highs & lows with occasional tantrums if feeling overwhelmed but the self destructive side has not come back and she is now 35.

I hate seeing the only options for drug addicts consist of rehab or jail. If the real core problem is determined and managed first, many more folks could be helped, there might be fewer people in jail and rehabs would have a better success rate.

Hi. I am sharing this story in the hopes that others have had similar experiences and would like to know if you had a successful resolution. I have a history of family mental illness. One brother has schizophrenia and the other is showing signs of mental illness for some time now, however, his is complicated with abusing medication which continue to be prescribed by his psychiatrist. Anyway….he lives with my parents and last week he had an episode where he was at the house behaving very dilusional and aggressive toward my parents. My dad called 911 in the hopes that they would come and help calm him and get him to a psychiatric facility. In the course of the call my brother ran out of the house, jumped in a car, and took off. My dad followed him and told the 911 dispatcher where he was. Shortly later, three police cars pulled my brother over and instead of trying to help get him to a facility - they arrested him for a DUI because he admitted to taking medication that day. Kept him in jail in a freezing cold detox cell overnight until my parents could bail him out. Now, we are trying to battle a DUI on top of getting him the proper psychiatric/rehab treatment. Anyone else have similar experiences? What did you do?

She was always a little different, my Mother. I love her, even now, after all the lies, chaos and pain. I feel she has been dragging me down into her rabbit hole of insanity for awhile now, which is why I  distance myself. But the distance has only seemed to make her worse, yet me somewhat better. I do, however drown myself in work, so I don’t really call that getting better, but rather just covering up the problem. My Mother is mentally ill. Her mental pain has manifested into physical self inflicted wounds. She is a picker, most of the time creating her own wounds. She has changed her skin color from the picking, she is 90% scars…all of which she created. She barely leaves her bed, which has created skin ulcers and open sores. It has been 5 months since her last shower and this is a woman who once took two showers a day. She is a pill addict. She abuses this drug and all it does is enhance the insanity. My Mother is only 65 years old, she makes it seem like time is almost up, that she will soon die. I try to get her out of the house, when I do, it is very difficult. She never leaves her bedroom , so when we go out to eat , or to a store, it is very strange. Its as if she cant adjust to people and she just acts strangely, its just so hard to explain. I feel so lost, and the only tears I cry are for her because she is my Mother and I Love her and even through all the pain, I want her so much to get better.  

My son was diagnosed with schizophrenia 2 and a half years ago. Then was diagnosed with a brain abscess 6 months later. His thinking has never been clear since that time. It had been a battle to sort out how to help and get the right meds.
Today I was walking into Walgreens and saw a disheveled young man gleefully chugging Listerine with no shoes. I wanted to get him some shoes but when walked into the store I learned he had stolen the mouthwash and the police had been called.
I also know he has a mom or dad who worries intensely about him. They are afraid of just this.
I hope my beautiful boy keeps letting us help him. And people within the system step up to give him the help he so deserves.
Boy, did the guy on the street need that. I am hopeful that other people saw and understand how complex mental illness is and how hard it is to get help.

I felt heavy on my heart to share my story, a big part of which includes my mom. Our relationship isn’t the typical mom/daughter scenario. During my freshman year of college, my mom was medically diagnosed as manic depressive, also known as bipolar disorder. As I type these words, my heart is beating fast. Sharing this part of my story is hard. Sometimes it is downright uncomfortable, but it is through sharing my story that I find strength. Instead of allowing mental illness to keep me down, I keep my head above it’s crashing waves by keeping an open heart. I have decided to not let it beat me or my family.

My mom is one of 57.7 million people in America living with mental illness. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, one in four adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder. You would never know this because many people choose to keep it a secret. My sophomore year of college, I met a young woman named Kristina, the first person I ever met with a mentally ill family member, or at least the first person to acknowledge it openly. Kristina was the president of my sorority at the time. She literally saved my life. One night at chapter, she shared her story of having a bipolar mother in front of a room of more than 100 girls. What I remember most about Kristina was her courage. You could hear the hurt in her voice when she spoke about her mom, but you could also see calmness in her eyes. She was at peace  and I could see that grace had come into her life and filled the broken pieces of her story. I wanted that grace too.

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  A young man who suffers from paranoid schizophrenia woke up this morning tired from a rough night’s sleep and feeling the after affects of his medication, a sedation he can never seem to shake.

  He brushed his teeth, cleaned his retainer that has been chewed through from nights of grinding his teeth because of stress. Then he used the bathroom and went back to his room and got dressed in his Carhart work pants and an old t-shirt, laced up his work boots and then lumbered into the kitchen for a hug from his mom. She gave him the hugs all while asking questions about his night, like whether or not he slept well, how he felt and others, all asked with a tiny bit of worry leaking into her voice that she tried to keep steady so as not to make him feel like he has to take care of her emotions too.

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