Should I Help My Aging, Ailing Dad Access His Toxic Web Feed?
My father and I have not been especially close for all of my adult life because of his inability to communicate or relate to me, to others or to the world in general in a meaningful way. As he has aged, his danger and menace have pretty much disappeared, and he has... How Much Must I Give Up for My Schizophrenic Brother?
One of my brothers is moderately schizophrenic; he does well on his medication but is increasingly unable to live alone. He and I are not close and are very different people, but when our mother went into a nursing home several years ago, he came to live with my wife...
How the Criminal Justice System Fails People With Mental Illness
Michelle Durden “has struggled to understand a criminal justice system that she feels has aggressively ignored her son’s deepening mental health crisis, which is also what she believes prompted him to flee the cops in the first place. “Where’s the common sense...
What to do about Ahav?
How would she get help for a boy who is Black and mentally ill and already vulnerable to some of the worst disparities in the U.S. health-care system even before the pandemic made things worse? Who fixes a boy when his family is on government assistance and the...
Police Violence Against Black Disabled People Can’t Be Ignored Anymore
Deborah Danner was a 66-year-old Black woman with schizophrenia. In 2016, an NYPD officer shot her in her Bronx apartment while responding to her neighbor’s call that she had been behaving erratically. She did not survive. Chillingly, Danner wrote an essay four years...
I Can’t Die Before My Son
What she feared more than death was the thought of leaving her son alone in the world. After all, Anthony was not like other children. He was really not a child, at all. He had just celebrated his fortieth birthday. Anthony has the mental capacity of a five-year-old....
I was a child caring for a mum with schizophrenia
I’ve been a carer since I was 12 years old. At the time I didn’t realise that was my role, because to me I was just looking after someone I cared about. I did it without being asked. As a child, my role as a carer wasn’t actually looking after my mum. It was more...
Mr Rain Jacket
How my brother survived so long out on the street eludes me still. Much of it, I’m sure, had to do with his own strengths. Since adolescence, Tom had been deeply concerned with how to live, how to do right by others, how to be. He was quick to defend the weak, to tell...What it means to be a Caretaker – You’re not Alone
I was asked by people to share what it means to be a caretaker several months ago. What does it mean, had me reflect back to the start. Twenty years ago my wife was diagnosed with borderline functioning disorder and schizophrenia. Started with revelations of sick pets...
Learning to breathe again
My son is no stranger to the local hospitals. His mode of transportation is usually in the back of a constable’s car while in the midst of a bad positive presentation of his paranoid schizophrenia. Why can’t we just take him in ourselves or call an ambulance? We...
Crazy in love
What is crazy? In practice, madness is defined functionally rather than with reference to some absolute cognitive distinction. You can be as unhappy as you like if you can still make rent. You can be convinced that every streetlight is an angel as long as you walk...
A Life
by Katherine Flannery Dering, author of Shot in the Head, a Sister’s Memoir, a Brother’s Struggle When I started working on my memoir about taking care of my brother Paul, who suffered from schizophrenia and then lung cancer, I didn’t know how people...The Proverbial Campfire: Support for Those Caring for Loved Ones with Schizophrenia
Here is the thing though: I am not alone. WE ARE NOT ALONE. We have this fire, its warmth, and we have each other.
Taking your medicine
The deep, undeniable anger I was struggling with came out of nowhere, and I couldn’t understand why it was surging through me now.
A Caregiver’s Easter Story: Creating Memories When A Loved One is Fading Away
Whatever happened in the future, no matter how hard things got, we’d always have this moment with him.
Channeling Martha Stewart: Getting Crafty with Caregiving
Now that he’s gone that rug is a warm reminder of the many quiet hours I spent with him, weaving strands of yarn to make a vibrant pattern representing innocence and beauty.
Are You Sure You Want to Do That? The Decision to Become a Caregiver
When I first told people that my ill father-in-law was coming to live with us the most frequent comment was, “Are you sure you want to do that?” Would I do it again? You bet I would.
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