Schizophrenia: Three Moms in the Trenches

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Guests: Karen Comba, author of The Snipers We Couldn't See: A Memoir of Growing Up with My Mother's Schizophrenia And Christina Lord, mental health advocate (Canada) daughter of a dad with SZ,  First, your stories. How has the experience impacted you (Karen writes about life “with footprints on her...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Problem: Getting our  Homeless off the Streets and into Housing Many of our seriously mentally ill wind up in jail, dead, or homeless. It doesn’t have to be that way - and solutions in places like Trieste, Italy can show us the way, Heart Forward. Meet Kerry Morrison, and discover a cost-effective, empatheti...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! We invited listeners to come on board for this episode, for some Q and A, and wow did they come through! This is one of our most powerful shows ever, thanks to you. Yes, if you want, we will do this again. We discuss: how we wrote our books How to help the Treatment team include us - even if they are relucta...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! If you have a mental illness, how does isolation add to the challenges you face? Guest (and self-described schizophrenic) David "Eli" Israelian talks about his story, and two incredible projects: Painted Brain | Putting Brains To Work! We're building community-based solutions to mental health...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! We talk a lot about the emotional stress and shock of caring for someone with SMI, but what about the financial shock? Is debt an issue? How does your loved one handle money? How do you get services? Do the wealthy have better support? Do families have to go broke to have support, and what is the additional...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Rachel Streiff: Mental Health Advocate, Mentor to SMI Caregivers, Data analyst for Team Daniel Running for Recovery from mental illness, (Dr. Robert Laitman’s organization),  chemical and biomedical engineer with a legacy six sigma black belt certification - Mother of our guest in episode 22, who is currentl...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! “Does anybody have a map?...” - a lyric from the show Dear Evan Hansen , sung by the parents of the show’s adolescent children. If you are a “Mom in the Trenches” of serious mental illness in your child, you also know the feeling - all too well . Judith R. Smith, (mother, psychotherapist, professor, research...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks!  Focus on BIPOC Mental Health Challenges and Outreach - guest, Sabah Muhammad, DJ Jaffe Advocate Sabah has a brother with mental illness, and is an advocate for him, and more: she  is legislative and policy counsel with Treatment Advocacy Center (see episode 31). SMI is challenging enough, but what does raci...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks!  An Acid Trip in college led to “never feeling the same again” - to actions to feed drug habits, to inner thoughts of suicide and harm, a diagnosis of schizophrenia, treatment - and now, a Master's Degree and full-time work. The 3 Moms ask Ryan the questions our sons aren’t ready to answer. What does ps...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! “Housing…employment…daytime structure. There needs to be something for people in between all those medical appointments in order to really have a positive meaningful life.” -  Guest Mary Guerrera, Exec. director  After hospitalization - what? Many people with mental health issues, and their families, struggl...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! What if: the mental health system would pay more attention, take more steps to help , before tragedy, violence, or crime finally calls attention to symptoms of SMI (serious mental illness)? What if Darrell Brooks (charged with murder after plowing his mother’s car into a parade in Wisconsin) had been helped,...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Lack of involuntary treatment, hospital bed shortages, anosognosia, criminalization of mental illness, public service costs… Where do we turn when we need to change the system of mental illness treatment? How to break open the barriers? How do we advocate for change? The Treatment Advocacy Center is a nation...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Guest Joel Corcoran, Executive Director of Clubhouse International WE are registered on Podchaser: 1JYHu8EZSiGN2dxr1Oz7 Clubhouse International: A Clubhouse is an evidence-based-practice founded on the belief that even the most disabled can sufficiently recover and improve their lives with the help of a supp...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Getting personal on this episode about the effects of addiction (drugs or alcohol) on the family - and the double challenge when it co-occurs with SMI (Serios Mental Illness) - in our sons’ cases: schizophrenia. Are we ever really out of the woods? Are our loved ones? What can we do? What must we let go of?...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Guest: Katie Sanford , blogger, "Not Like the Others" “You raise expectations, and raised expectations are what people need.” - Mindy From Katie's blog: " Throughout the course of my life with schizoaffective disorder, I have always been considered high functioning. But high functioning d...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! If you care for someone with a diagnosed serious mental illness (SMI) , you know that it isn’t easy to help them begin, or continue, treatment. You hear “I’m not sick! I don’t need help!” That phrase inspired our guest to find a way, write a book, and create a movement. Dr. Xavier Amador is a world-renowned...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! “Collaborative partnerships between law enforcement, mental health service providers, advocates, family members, and people with lived experience.” - Amy Watson Sound good? That’s the foundation of the CIT Model. “I could treat people like human beings” - Amy Watson Police Activity is very much in the news t...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! To end our first season with episode 25, we present the interview that started it all: Mimi and Randye interview Bob Kolker, and are joined by fellow activist/mom Laura Pogliano. A conversation about #Schizophrenia and the Family: Is There Hope Beyond #HiddenValleyRoad ? with Robert Kolker, Miriam Feldman, R...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! “Mom, the voices are telling me I need to kill you right now.” -  What can a parent do after hearing that from a child?  How can we educate mental health providers so they really “get” what it’s like to have a serious mental illness, or to be a family   member of  a loved one who has one? Ever wonder what yo...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Are you dealing with SZ in a loved one? Feeling confused? Scared? Angry? Overwhelmed? You are not alone. We've been there...and how. There are stages in the emotional journeys of families dealing with Schizophrenia in a loved one. Mimi, Mindy and Randye are now often at the "advocacy/Acceptance&quo...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Episode 22- From Schizophrenia and Pot Addiction, through Treatment, to Success: Carson's Story Today we  talk with  Carson S. , who has an inspiring story to tell, from schizophrenia/addiction to sobriety/recovery success.  We talk about his life….what it used to be like, what his challenges have been...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Today is about solutions -( we’ve done a lot of episodes about problems) - and at the end we’ll share some free resources to help you if someone in your family has schizophrenia -  Guest: Michael Mackniak, JD Free resources: https://myfenow.com/3moms/   https://myfenow.com/tools-of-hope/ Other Links: https:/...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! Catch-up chat: re future episodes; people who call us “overbearing moms” and blame the family; patients’ “rights” vs. family caring;    Themes: What does entertainment media get wrong? Lack of named diagnosis - UnReal, Girl Interrupted Inaccurate/unresearched portrayal of SZ - Words on Bathroom Walls Madness...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! In this episode, we talk with our own daughters about the lived experience of the sibling when schizophrenia hits the family. The emotional toll on this group of family members is often swept aside in the wake of the crises involved in SMI. We give them a chance to speak.   Guests: Our Daughters - Angela, Lu...

Send a Text to the Moms - please include your contact info if you want a response. thanks! In this episode, we talk meds with an MD. Specifically: Clozapine. Many of us are told that it’s the “last resort” medication, “when nothing else works”. Is that really true? Guest :  Robert S Laitman, MD, is an internal medicine physician at Bronx Westchester Medical Group in New York. Over the last 10 year...