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    After Schizophrenia: The Story of How My Sister Got Help, Got Hope, and Got on with Life after 30 Years in Her Room
    Unavailable
    After Schizophrenia: The Story of How My Sister Got Help, Got Hope, and Got on with Life after 30 Years in Her Room
    Unavailable
    After Schizophrenia: The Story of How My Sister Got Help, Got Hope, and Got on with Life after 30 Years in Her Room
    Ebook292 pages5 hours

    After Schizophrenia: The Story of How My Sister Got Help, Got Hope, and Got on with Life after 30 Years in Her Room

    By Margaret Hawkins and Carolyn S. Spiro

    4.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Schizophrenia affects more than 3 million American adults. Despite being classified as a severe mental illness, a brain disease that can be treated, it remains misunderstood. Schizophrenia still carries a stigma that too often devastates and silences families.

    For 30 years, Margaret Hawkins’ sister Barb lived cloistered in her family home in suburban Chicago, a prisoner of undiagnosed schizophrenia. Hearing voices and paralyzed with fear, she was never evaluated, never treated, and refused to leave the house.

    After Schizophrenia is the story of Barb’s descent into severe mental illness and the healing that has come only in recent years: after her parents’ death when Margaret became her guardian. With uncanny grace and humor, Margaret chronicles her family’s struggle with Barb’s mental illness, the love that carried them through, and the virtual army of healthcare angels willing to come to Barb’s aid. This is an extraordinary story of severe mental illness and the healing that is possible with prompt diagnosis, good drugs, good care, and a fierce belief in the power to get well.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRed Wheel
    Release dateOct 1, 2011
    ISBN9781609256128
    Unavailable
    After Schizophrenia: The Story of How My Sister Got Help, Got Hope, and Got on with Life after 30 Years in Her Room

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    4.5/5

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    • 4/5
      The story of Barb Hawkins's life is nothing short of extraordinary. Barb developed schizophrenia in her early 30s, and became incapable of leaving her home. Her father, an overbearing control freak with a paranoid fear of modern medicine, refused to seek help for his daughter. The result was that Barb Hawkins lived trapped in her family's home for thirty years without treatment. It was not until Barb's father's death that she received any help. When their father died Barb's sister Margaret (the author) assumed guardianship, and for the first time was able to seek treatment for her sister. This is a tremendously sad story. It was astonishing to me that Barb's father was allowed to do this to his daughter. His actions seemed to me to amount to criminal neglect. The author was unable to deal with her father's issues, and essentially washed her hands of the situation until his death. Still, the family did have to appear before a judge at least once to assume guardianship, and I was shocked that the judge did nothing to help. By the time Margaret was able to take over her sister's care everything had to happen in-house, as it would be too traumatic for her to leave after thirty years. The stresses of arranging this sort of care, and the financial toll it took, show that even once Barb's father was gone there were no easy answers, and there was no simple solution. By the end of the memoir Barb has experienced some improvement. She is willing to spend time sitting on the porch, for example. The tone is meant to be hopeful, but I was never able to separate that from the sadness that comes from knowing that so much of Barb's life may have been needlessly wasted, literally holding her prisoner. This book provides an interesting look at how schizophrenia affects a family, but it is difficult to forget the fact that so much could have been mitigated if Barb had been allowed treatment decades earlier.
    • 5/5
      Very good book. As a spouse of a recently diagnosed schizophrenic it has given me hope that my spouse will return and our lives can be lived together.