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What Role Should A Family Play?

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What role should a family member play when someone shows symptoms of a mental disorder?

It seems like an easy question. If someone becomes sick you would assume their family would gather around and help them get well.  But as we all know, mental disorders are not like any other illnesses and families…well, if you want to know how complicated family relationships can be just read a recent comment by Leslie Khalsa on my August 2nd post on facebook. She wrote poignantly about how she feels her family has abandoned her and doesn’t want any extra “drama” in their lives because of her mental issues.

It would be easy for me to dismiss what Ms. Khalsa has written if I had not heard similar  Click to continue…

Family Seeking Missing Son

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I was asked by a reader to post this Missing Person’s Poster  and am happy to do so. This is every parent’s nightmare — a child off medication disappears.  For updates, you can visit the family’s Facebook page. 

Daniel Goldstein Daniel Goldstein
 
Name: Danny Goldstein
Age: 34 (date of birth: 7 August 1976)

Real Hannibal Lectors, Brain disorders, and A New Book

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I’ve been asked what I am writing now and while many authors are reluctant to talk about projects before they are completed, I am going to share some news with you. My new book is tentatively called The Serial Killer Whisper  and will be published by Simon and Schuster next year. 

I don’t want to give away too much because there should be tremendous media interest when the book is released and I do not want to undercut that.

But here are some highlights.

Click to continue…

Mental Illness, Money, and Cheats

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If you read my book, CRAZY, you may remember Ted Jackson who lived in South Beach, had a mental illness, and was convinced that Jesus was returning to earth in 2007. Ted said God had ordered him to warn people about judgment day so he spray painted “Jesus 2007” graffiti  everywhere he could. He was caught several times and when he refused to stop, he was beaten by a police officer before being booked into the Miami Dade County Jail. That’s where I met him.
Ted received a small stipend each month from his family to pay his bills. He got his medication from the Veterans Administration, so even though the monthly cash payment was small, it was enough for him to live independently — until people started stealing from him.
And that sadly, that happened regularly in South Beach.

Mental Illnesses Never Take Vacations

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Patti and I took six of our children on vacation to the Outer Banks of North Carolina last week along with three of their significant others, and I witnessed something that I wasn’t certain I would ever see. 
While sitting comfortably in my beach chair with a cool breeze blowing ashore from the Atlantic Ocean, I watched Mike ride a boggie board on top a wave. 
Four years ago in August, Mike was on a downward slide that would end badly with him becoming psychotic, being picked-up by the police and hospitalized for a sixth time because of his brain disorder. That would be his fourth major psychological break from when he was first diagnosed and when it happened, I had reached a point where I wondered if he would ever find a way to manage the symptoms of his illness. I felt helpless and, quite frankly, without hope. 
Watching him at the beach last week, I turned in my chair to Patti, who was reading nearby, and said, “This is one of those rare moments in life when I can honestly say that I am totally and truly happy. I don’t know what will happen tomorrow, but today, I am happy.”

Of Your Books, Which Is Your Favorite?

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Which book that you’ve written is your favorite?
It’s a question I get asked a lot. 
Answering it isn’t as easy as you might think. For an author, picking a favorite book is a little like asking a father if he loves one of his children more than the others. That’s an exaggeration, of course, but when you spend several years of your life consumed in writing a book, the finished manuscript becomes much more to its creator than ink, paper, or in today’s world, electronic text.