ON MENTAL ILLNESS: Parents are not to Blame for Schizophrenic and Bipolar Illnesses
When someone becomes mentally ill in their young adulthood or late adolescence, the episode can be as devastating for the parents of that person as for the afflicted. I recall that my first episode of psychosis was a very wild ride, and not in a good way. At the end of this episode, I was finally stabilized, and I received a diagnosis of Schizophrenia, Paranoid-type. The psychiatrist, Doctor Trachtenberg, had my mom and I seated in a room, and he told us the diagnosis as well as the prognosis. I remember that this diagnosis was very upsetting to my mother and that I was too "out of it" to be upset about it. -more-