Noah's Schizophrenia: Review
Like many memoirs about a mother's experience with her son's schizophrenia, this rang true on so many levels. The love, the shock, the despair, the hope, the searching for support...all of us with loved ones struck by the brain illness called schizophrenia will nod our heads in solidarity - the club we never wanted to be in.
What sets this apart is how the author weaves information and resources into the story: read it to understand acronyms and issues such as AOT, CIT, NAMI, Board and Cares, homelessness, drug use, conservatorships, IMD, Clozapine....a primer for the vast education a family needs to cope and help.
For me, this may not have been the easiest read on this day when my own son's Court Hearing to apply for right to commit and right to medicate is happening in a few hours. I face the difficult decision, as does the author Kartar Diamond so many times in this story, of refusing to let me son move back in with us. Her son Noah cycled through so many forms of alternative housing...what will happen to mine?
In one terrifying and frustrating scene, she shares her thoughts as Noah's symptoms worsen:
As a small boy, he made a Mother’s Day card that read, “Don’t ever die I love you so much.” Now, 25 years old, suffering from schizophrenia and fueled with crystal meth, he wants to “crush my skull” because I didn’t bring him ten dollars.
Minus the threats, we have been there. As for the threats? Well, you just never know. With treatment, Ben's sweet nature abounds. When he refuses meds? I don't know how long before the voices take over.
The author's son Noah is a talented musician (mine a promising writer, a grim reminder of what this illness steals from the world as well as from the person diagnosed with it and his/her family). This is not sugar-coated at all; it reveals the disparities in the mental health system through the frustrated eyes (and pocketbook) of one mother who loves her son with all her heart, but is left almost helpless by the illness and the system that is supposed to help. It also ends with some hope, and a look at what can happen when the system does work.
I can relate. You, I hope, will too. She searches for "the truth" throughout this book, and all of us hope and pray it can be found.
