"For many years my wife and I have struggled to help our 38 year old son fight his battle with paranoid schizophrenia. We lived through his attempts to overcome his anguish by using alcohol and street drugs. Finally sober, we watched helplessly as he fought his demonic "voices" and delusions that people were coming to kill him. We took him to one inept, indifferent professional after another winding up with psychiatrists who (while refusing to communicate with us) mis-medicated and over-medicated him. The drugs they prescribed not only did not work but often caused side effects as bizarre as his illness—muscle rigidity, slurred speech, loss of balance, and even nightly bed-wetting!

We waged this battle in ignorance of his disease and what if anything could be done to help him. Then in 1988, an article in a magazine led us to AMI. That was the first small victory for "our" side. Since then AMI has educated us about the disease and taught us to lead, sometimes push, our son through an almost non-existent treatment system to the degree of wellness which he has today. He has not recovered, but due to his spunk to endure weekly blood tests, a selfless, truly caring psychiatrist and the wonder drug, Clozaril (clozapine), of which AMI gave us the knowledge and the drive to obtain for him, we have seen some "old self" return: calm reactions, a sense of humor, better reasoning, even glimmers of motivation—and we have seen the worst of the symptoms and the crippling side effects disappear! It’s as if our son has returned home from a long, exhausting journey: he is tired but it’s wonderful to have him with us again—truly with us.

You can see why AMI means so much to us and why we give our time to help others as we have been helped. We hope your coming to AMI will be the beginning of good news for you and your ill loved one.

Imagine what it’s like when you dream. In your dreams, you see and hear things that are not real but they seem so real they actually fool your emotions. In dreams you feel real passion, real fear, real terror. You may even wake up drenched with perspiration, crying real tears.

That gives you an idea of what it might be like to have a mental illness. The brain plays tricks that make the unreal seem real! But victims of mental illnesses can’t wake up. They’re already awake! If you can imagine having a nightmare and being unable to wake up, perhaps you can imagine what it’s like to have a mental illness.

In the last several years, due to improvements in brain scanning technology, scientists have learned that what we call mental illnesses aren’t "mental" at all but are caused by broken brain mechanisms and that these illnesses are just as physical—just as real—as Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s or epilepsy; just as organic as diabetes, heart disease and cancer! These "mental" illnesses are really biological brain disorders!

The knowledge that these diseases are the result of broken brain mechanisms—and are not "just imagined" or "all in the mind"—is very important. It leads to two conclusions that are basic to the way we see and deal with these diseases and our loved ones who suffer from them:

First, it means that the primary treatment for these diseases is medication: the right medication(s), properly taken.

Second, it frees both the patient and the family from feelings of guilt and blame that they somehow "caused" the disease. It is now known that a person who gets a major mental illness brain disorder was born with a vulnerability for the disease, but, for reasons not yet clear, the disease usually does not appear until adolescence or young adulthood. Bad parents, bad thoughts, bad habits (even substance abuse) do not cause these diseases! (Professionals used to blame dysfunctional families for causing these diseases. This is now known to be untrue! It is more likely that the family becomes dysfunctional from living with an untreated mental illness brain disorder rather than the other way around.) Biological mental illnesses are just as blameless as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, or epilepsy. They are not caused by anyone: not the patient, not the parents, not other family members. "Blaming" is a false and harmful stumbling block on the treatment path. Push blame (and guilt) out of the way, once and for all!

Not only do our loved ones suffer from some of nature’s most agonizing diseases but we live in a time when the treatment system is grossly inadequate.

Most private sector psychiatrists choose not to treat people disabled by these diseases because these patients usually do not have money or insurance. Even if fees were not a problem, many psychiatrists seem ill-equipped or unmotivated to use the latest medications and treatment protocols not based on the psychotherapy approaches in which they specialized.

The public sector mental health system, where most of our ill loved ones must be treated, is grid-locked by ever-increasing patient loads and ever-decreasing budgets, and is further hampered by being a slow-moving, vested bureaucracy ill-suited to quick adjustments demanded by advances in new medications and treatment techniques.

As if that were not enough, as you may realize, mental illness brain disorders often impair the judgment of their victims causing many to deny their illness and to refuse to seek or participate in their own treatment.

Thus, the burden of care comes down to those who love and care too much to turn away: the family. Although we can’t actually treat our loved ones, it’s left to us to guide them through the treatment maze. AMI is here to help you do that. Use our library, newsletter and meetings to become informed. Use the love and emotional support of other AMI members to help you cope.