This is a book I bought for my sister when her husband's medication for Parkinson's sent him into an episode of paranoid schizophrenia. He's still in it somewhat, but he has learned not to say everything he is thinking around us or bad things happen. She gave it to my husband and said he NEEDED to read it. Well, I read it first.
The subtitle is How to help someone with mental illness accept treatment. I saw that as something we needed to know, which is why I bought the book in the first place. What do I think after reading it?
Wow. Oh wow. The doctor, who has a brother with schizophrenia, talks about how not seeing that one is ill is a Symptom of the illness, not stubbornness, not willful meanness. A Symptom. And the doctor gives a variety of ways to have conversations with the mentally ill that will not demean or further frighten the person who knows (the government, the drug lords, the aliens) are after them.
I feel enlightened.
Everybody who has to deal with someone with schizophrenia NEEDS to read this book. No, really. They do. I'm going to buy some more copies to give to relatives.
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