when i was a teenager back in one thousand nine hundred fifty s my mother started acting very strangely it eventually became clear that she had paranoid schizophrenia when he was about three i noticed something was wrong with him he was in socializing i first learned of my daughter's illness my ten year old when she was three teachers would frequently tell me she often became overwhelmed or would hide under the tables he w college our way home and even when he returned home thanksgiving freshman year he seemed dark and different was a thursday night in january he was a senior in college straight a students ready to graduate one of my children and i could see symptoms citing to manifest early on i wasn't really sure what it was or how to pinpoint it i first realized i had a mental illness was ten years old i was diagnosed with a d h d a year later i was diagnosed with dyslexia and then a year later i was diagnosed with a major d absolute worst day of my loved ones illness was having a police officer come to my door and tell me that that my child was threatening suicide the worst day was without a doubt when he was sixteen on the psychiatric  and one day he did something that was against the rules and he was restrained and put into onto a str face down confined with his hands and they called me and i went in and i saw him like that and i the pain was unbelievable i and it just still all these years later twenty years later it's still pains me to think about it and i went over to him and he was really thirsty and i i got television and the whole house and she ended up in the state mental institution after across a classified film wire performers for porn and so as a form of self punishment i cut my arm for two years different hospitals we went through this whole list a whole day waiting for my son to be well enough to sign his name the nurse came and she asked him if he was ready to sign for them to talk to his mother and sailor mentally ill child has affected all of my relationships it did cause a rift between my husband and me it did put too much of a strain on our marriage and the marriage broke up it is certainly  now the networks it is to get us out of the regular stream of life because we are so preoccupied that my daughter and my son who are quite close growing up they fell out they became a strange thing i think partly because my daughter illness she was in denial that anything was going on it was us you know the family you know his parents it's a very complex family the whole family changes and reacts and in many different ways you're always on edge it's a big financial commitment  to it and it's a time commitment to have to run around to all these appointments every month we spend hundreds of dollars on even with medical coverage on mental health treatments no more exercise no going out no more having fun the anxiety is particular the worst it's cost me years of worry in school it cost me jobs it cost me my childhood it cost me relationships you're urban areas in your community colors and it's criminalized we have a lot of men and women who are struggling with mental illness who end up in prison anybody found out my son wasn't going to school they say just pick him up and put him on the bus and the psychiatry said if you did that they would find him in a bathroom hanging you sometimes feel like you don't fit in or are people looking at us like we're different i saw a billboard once it and said you never tell someone cancer to just get over it so why tell someone with depression the same thing people who read newspaper articles about someone doing violent acts that stigma is real and that stigma is powerful and i think it keeps people from getting treatment it keeps people from being well i like to think of myself as a a i feel like if it hadn't been for an army i i don't know what would've happened to me meeting with so many great people really understand what it's like has made all the difference and i'm very excited to be able to share our story and also help educate other people and and also hopefully to not be dami become involved in programs to bring families together it helps families to live and families to understand my biggest hope for her is that people can appreciate all the wonderful things about her my goal is if i can help just one other person come to be their resoluteness or to help  to say to be worth going all through and be worth going through all that i just would like can change get treatment adequate treatment get his illness under management independent and be a really nice person and maybe reach out to others so i dream now for my son to have me for feeling a life in recovery in whatever way he would define for me so