Dec 16, 2012,

I forgot to say I am a mother of a child who is schizophrenic.  I, like so many people, paid very close attention to the recent tradegy in Conneticut and want to ask all the same questions.  I think the one person able to answer those questions is gone, his mother.  Working on my doctorate in forensic psychology I have read many accounts of individuals who have gone manic and lashed out at others in a violent way.  I am amazed at the lack of good mental health care in this country and the lack of support for parents who have children who sometimes have the appearance of being possessed. You know you are not looking into the eyes you gave birth to and you know as a mother you did not raise the child to respond and lash out like a paranoid schizophrenic will when experiencing a manic episode.  Then you go to get help and its just not there.  Sometimes after fighting a manic battle, going through the emergency room, then following your daughter to a mental hospital that is usually at least 160 miles away and then waiting for that phone call after a couple of days, "Hi Mom I'm fine I feel better" I just want to have a nervous breakdown from sheer exhaustion.  But we as mothers cannot give up on our children.  We look into their eyes for signs of that little one, that child we know is still in there and when we see it, even a glimpse of it, it strengthens us to continue on.  My daughter is 27 years old and after a car accident when she was 21 years old that included severe head trauma, our lives were changed and the road began.  But she's mine and when I get to spend time with her, the real her, it so feeds my soul.