Fix What You Can: Schizophrenia & A Lawmaker'S Fight For Her Son - Paperback
SKU
9761517909590
ISBN
9781517909598

Fix What You Can: Schizophrenia & A Lawmaker'S Fight For Her Son

$19.95
Author
Greiling, Mindy

One motherā€™s fight to support her son and change a broken system

In his early twenties, Mindy Greilingā€™s son, Jim, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder after experiencing delusions that demanded he kill his mother. At the time, and for more than a decade after, Greiling was a Minnesota state legislator who struggled, along with her husband, to navigate and improve the stateā€™s inadequate mental health system. Fix What You Can is an illuminating and frank account of caring for a person with a mental illness, told by a parent and advocate.

Greiling describes challenges shared by many families, ranging from the practical (medication compliance, housing, employment) to the heartbreakingā€”suicide attempts, victimization, and illicit drug use. Greiling confronts the reality that some people with serious mental illness may be dangerous and reminds us that medication worksā€”if taken.

The book chronicles her efforts to pass legislation to address problems in the mental health system, including obstacles to parental access to information and insufficient funding for care and research. It also recounts Greilingā€™s painful memories of her grandmother, who was confined in an institution for twenty-three yearsā€”recollections that strengthen her determination that Jimā€™s treatment be more humane. Written with her sonā€™s cooperation, Fix What You Can offers hard-won perspective, practical advice, and useful resources through a brave and personal story that takes the long view of what success means when coping with mental illness.

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