Course Empowers Families
of Mentally Ill

Sessions tackle gap in public services

(February 21, 2004) -- Sarah Ann Brooks was 29 when she climbed over the railing of her 21st-floor apartment and launched herself into another world, desperate to escape the torment and confusion she felt in this one.

It was July 5 last year. Ironically, her father remembers, the week before she and her family had spent the best time they'd had together in ages. Sarah, once an avid traveller and keen soccer player, had helped her dad in the garden. They had talked about reincarnation, a subject that increasingly fascinated her.

"I think she thought if she could just leave this life and start again fresh, maybe everything would be okay," says Martin Brooks. "She was at the time she jumped deeply psychotic, off her meds, convinced that she was fine and everyone else was crazy."

For more than four years, schizophrenia had torn at the fabric of the family. Next month, in Sarah's memory, her parents hope to be among those helping other Canadian families struggling to cope.

Every Wednesday evening for 12 weeks, they will be part of a family-to-family course developed by the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI), a Virginia-based not-for-profit group (http://www.nami.org).

The course is for families dealing with major mental illnesses like schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, borderline personality, obsessive-compulsive disorder and panic disorder. And the aim, as NAMI puts it, is to orchestrate a transformation from personal devastation to action and power.

advertisement

Sessions cover methods of handling crises and relapses, techniques for listening and communication, problem-solving, learning how to deal with chronic worry and stress, connecting with community services, fighting discrimination and advocating for services. There is no charge to participants.

A similar course is held in many cities throughout the United States. You can contact the NAMI group in your community or go to the agency's website.

"There's a big hole in services for people like Sarah and their families," says Brooks. "There's tremendous frustration with the system and its inability to deal with such cases. You have to be a serious danger to yourself or others before you can get help."

"It's so hard to describe," her father says. "They lose their personality and you find yourself dealing with this monster and you grieve the loss of the daughter you knew.

"Sarah had a good job and things were going well but it all fell apart as she developed schizophrenia."

top ~ next ~ articles table of contents ~ send page to a friend

top ~ next ~ articles table of contents ~ send page to a friend

We subscribe to the HONcode principles. Verify here.