Forty-six percent of the respondents said that they feel shunned by friends and neighbors because of the illness. Fully 50 percent said that they felt that others blamed them for their children's conditions. No wonder that 59 percent of the respondents said that caring for their sick children often feels as if its pushing them to the breaking point. It is not just the caregiving parent who is suffering. Fifty-six percent of the respondents said that stigma and prejudice were exacting a serious, negative impact on their families and their children.
Marriages are strained.
Seventy percent reported that their marriages had been severely stressed by the experience of caring for a sick child. Eighty percent said that the experience of a sister or brother with a serious mental illness has been extremely stressful for siblings. In short, the challenges of caring for a child with a serious mental illness are falling largely on the shoulders of caregiving parents and families-with an enormous toll for all. Support for these caregivers, which the families view as inadequate, could do much to help assuage their burden and strengthen families confronting these illnesses. But we also must end the stigma and isolation that a diagnosis of serious mental illness so often translates into.