@magspierce, @sharlynn62 NAMI is a wonderful organization. My husband and myself took the 12 week Family to Family course (free) so that we could learn more about mental illness for my daughter's sake. She has bipolar and Borderline Personality Disorder. My husband is her stepdad and he never understood the disorders. He always thought she was just spoiled, or faking it, and should just snap out of it. his favorite saying was "She just needs to get over it." I wanted to strangle him so many times for saying that. The course was a real eye opener for him. I learned a lot also. To this day, I cannot get my daughter to go into therapy or get on medication. She is getting more odd by the week. She lives 7 hours from me, so it is hard to be with her much. On the upside, she does hold down a steady job and has for years. She just started a new job 3 months ago and loves it. She had two psychotic breaks while at her last job (while on the job) she was with that company for 7 years and had an understanding boss thank goodness. I was going to a support for awhile. Will get back into it again at some point. Have too much going on right now. For all of you that suffer from this; you have my heart. Hugs, Terri

Hi @windwalker Terri! Thank you for sharing, I'm glad that you and your husband went through the Family 2 Family class and benefited from it, and your husband having a better understanding of the illness. I haven't taken it, don't have any children dealing with mental illness, but two very good friends of mine teaches the class and I understand/and from what I know it's very helpful. Sorry to hear about your daughter, I do hope with this new job things will settle down for her and it goes well for her.
I hope things settle down for you guys too and you can get back into the support group.

Hi Terri, I agree with you about NAMI...

NAMI was our lifeline many 30+ years ago when our son went through some mental health issues. We were at the end of our ropes and just trying to hold ourselves together for him when we found the local NAMI support group. Our son was 12 at the time and had already spent a year in and out of the hospital and Mayo Clinic with not much help. He was eventually transferred to a state facility and was there for six months. We thought it was the end of the world at the time but the social worker at the state hospital told us their goal is to help the patients live a productive and as normal as possible life. It was not to keep them there forever. NAMI gave us the strength we needed with there support group meetings and allowed us to discuss our concerns with other parents with the same problems.

John

@johnbishop How is your son doing now John?

Hi Terri (@windwalker), Thank you for asking. He's 47 now and doing really good. Medications and treatments in general have greatly improved over the past 30 years. He's able to function with the medication he's taking and has been at the same job for about 20 years so that in itself has been a blessing.

@johnbishop John, that is wonderful!