I want to share the story of our family – once intact, and now forever changed.
We have two sons, born a year apart. When one of them experienced a psychotic break as a teenager, we thought it was a tragic fluke. But less than a year later, it happened to our other son as well.
Thankfully, after one hospitalization and years of persistence, our first son is now stable. He finished college, has a job, and supports himself.
Our other son’s journey has been far harder. He was considered the “golden child”: kind, respectful, handsome, and popular. His break shocked everyone, especially us.
We threw ourselves into learning everything we could about severe mental illness. When we read I’m Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help by Dr. Xavier Amador, we finally understood that our son has anosognosia, a lack of insight into his illness. He truly believes he’s fine.
To date, he’s been hospitalized thirteen times. Again and again, he’s discharged, often back to the streets, before he’s ready because insurance runs out or someone decides he’s “not sick enough.” He’s been diagnosed with schizoaffective bipolar disorder, a condition resistant to medication. He masks extremely well, but by the time he’s hospitalized, he needs weeks or sometimes months just to begin stabilizing.
We’ve tried everything, sent him everywhere, and spent a small fortune trying to save him. But nothing has worked. When you don’t know you’re sick, you stop taking your medication and the illness takes hold again.
People tell me to “let him hit rock bottom,” but when someone is this ill, there is no bottom.
He’s lost all his friends, which breaks my heart. Sometimes he says he hates his father or lashes out at me, but I know it’s the illness speaking. Other times, he’s still just my sweet, loving boy – living in a world of florid psychosis and paranoid delusions.
In some of my darkest moments, I found Treatment Advocacy Center. I joined TAC’s Ambiguous Loss support series, led by Jerri Clark, and it has truly changed my life.
Jerri is extraordinary. The other parents understand what we’re going through because they’re living it too. For the first time, I can talk openly and feel understood. It’s a community I never imagined needing, but I am endlessly grateful to have found it.
These sessions are heartbreaking, real, and profoundly healing. They give me strength to keep going, to keep fighting, not only for my son, but for better laws and better care for all families facing the most severe forms of mental illness.
Our loved ones don’t need the “right” to be sick. They need the basic human right to get treatment.
Being part of TAC’s community has renewed my will to advocate – and to give what I can to ensure this work continues. As the year comes to a close, I hope you’ll join me in making a gift to TAC, so more families like mine can find understanding, support, and hope when it’s needed most. Together, we can bring light to those still living in the darkness of this illness.
With gratitude,

A Mom in Massachusetts

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