In light of tragedy that struck in my own metro area and subsequent tragedy which transpired in Connecticut, I came across an exceptionally well written essay authored by a mother, Liza Long, a mother of four children: of whom one suffers a complicated set of debilitating mental illnesses.
The following essay (see link below) was picked up and published by
The Blue Review an non-profit publication affiliated with Boise State University.
I feel compelled to share this particular article for two reasons: One, because mental health issues (illness) can range from treatable cases to cases where it is terribly hard to come up with the best possible solution to help individuals, and family members who are their care givers or overseers in daily life or even lay persons or mental health professionals who deal with or try to help people, who suffer debilitating types of mental illness. Two, because in my own family, I have a brother who suffers severely from mental illness and to this day, not even my own mother who has devoted her entire career and life as a highly skilled Psychiatric Nurse, not even my mother is able to clearly see all that is wrong with my brother and not even, by today's standards, medical doctors specializing in care and treatment processes for people like my brother, have one clue how to go about narrowing in on a diagnosis that might help bring some sort of relief to my brother's life or even my mother's life.
I am not sure how many people or families are affected by mental illness; but I know my own family is not alone in the daily struggle to oversee my brother's care and we hope that we live to tell about a day that our family could find the right set or combination of treatments to bring relief to not only one of my brothers, but relief for my mother; and for all of us who are affected by the perilous struggle in caring for someone who's afflicted with some form or another of mental illness.
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LINK to The Blue Review article >>>