Battling Schizophrenia

By Terrye Harris

On December 13, 2004, my world shattered into a million pieces. After a 2 year long battle with schizophrenia, my youngest son, Jonathan took his own life at the age of 19. The day Jonathan died, I kept telling myself this is the worst day of my life. Little did I know through the haze of shock that surrounded me,that there would be many more worse days to follow.

The first six months, it was all I could do to keep breathing. During this time I believe I could have actually laid down and willed myself to die. The only thing that stopped me was knowing that I could not leave my remaining sons and my grandchildren, as they also were trying to deal with this horrific loss. I was acutely aware that they needed me, their mother, now as never before. So somehow, I managed to keeping breathing and keep moving through life one step at a time.

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By Matthew Robert Payne

There seems much written by professionals on these two illnesses, there is much being spoken about at conferences by professionals on the subject and every good conference will have a consumer speak. I am a consumer who suffers from both these mental disorders and I want to give you some light into my mind and perhaps a positive spin on what seems a very sad subject for some.

The first Good thing

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The voices made him to do it.

One blistering sub-zero January night Bill MacPhee went wandering naked on a four-lane highway against speeding traffic, convinced he was Christ. When police picked him up and took him to the local psychiatric ward, he thought they were ancient Romans, taking him away to be crucified.

“That’s what it’s like to be mentally ill. When you’re psychotic, you don’t realize you’re sick because you’ve split from reality. You don’t respond to logic because your reality has its own logic,”said MacPhee, a leading mental health advocate and founding publisher of Schizophrenia Digest.

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