Susan Inman's memoir describes her family's nine year journey to help her younger daughter recover from a catastrophic schizoaffective disorder. "Highly recommended" by Dr. E. Fuller Torrey author of Surviving Schizophrenia and described by him as "...one of the best accounts I have read of serious mental illness as told by a mother." From the introduction, Michael Kirby, Chair of the Mental Health Commission of Canada and Ella Amir, the chair of the Caregiver's Advisory Committee state "Susan's heart wrenching account is an important reminder of the work we still have to do to ensure that people with mental illness and their families get the same treatment and respect that individuals with physical illnesses receive. It is also testimony to the devotion and dedication of families, which sadly often comes at the expense of their own well-being" Harvard psychiatrist, Dr. Stephanie Engel said "Susan Inman has written a much needed book about her experience as a mother coming to grips with her daughter's devastating mental illness. Other parents will recognize and take comfort from her courageous and persistent efforts to learn what is known about psychotic illnesses and their treatment, while holding tenaciously to her own personal knowledge of what it means to be a loving, humane and thoughtful parent. Believing in one's own instincts as a parent in the face of expertise, myths and prejudices is a monumental task, and Ms Inman does it with grace and conviction." Emergency room physician and international best selling author, Dr. Daniel Kalla said "After Her Brain Broke is a harrowing, heart wrenching, and ultimately triumphant story of one family's struggle with a child's mental illness. It's impossible not to be moved by Susan Inman's honest and touching account of her daughter's sudden descent into mental health turmoil and the family's long hard battle to overcome it. A must read for families coping with a mental illness, and a wonderful eye-opener for those of us lucky enough not to have been affected."
Susan Inman is a longtime drama and English teacher at a secondary school in Vancouver, BC. Following the onset of her younger daughter's catastrophic schizoaffective disorder, Susan began to write about serious mental illnesses for a variety of Canadian publications. Her memoir, After Her Brain Broke, Helping My Daughter Recover Her Sanity, was published by Bridgeross in February 2010. Susan speaks publicly in a variety of large and small events across Canada and in the US about the situations of families helping to care for a family member living with a serious mental illness.
Susan's articles about issues related to psychotic illnesses can be found in Huffington Post Canada, The Tyee, The National Post, and BC Teacher. For a complete list of her articles, readers can visit her publisher's website. On the site, they can also learn about her presentations as both a keynote speaker as well as a workshop presenter. Some of the recent conferences where Susan presented keynote speeches include the Toronto conference of the Canadian Association of Psychiatric Nurses and at annual schizophrenia conferences in Edmonton and in Vancouver. Recent workshop presentations include the annual conference of the British Columbia School Counsellors' Association (on how school counsellors can better support students living with psychotic illnesses and their families), the National Shared Care Conference (on the typical problems confronting family caregivers at this conference sponsored by the Canadian Psychiatric Association and the National Association of Family Physicians) and the National Alliance of Mental Illness (NAMI) Conference in Seattle (on helping families develop their own stories in order to improve mental health services).
Some of the issues that Susan's advocacy efforts focus on include:
> requiring all programs training mental health professionals to include science based curriculum on psychotic illnesses
> public education about psychotic illnesses
> improving mental health legislation and policies so that people experiencing psychosis aren't left to deteriorate and don't end up homeless, victimized or incarcerated
> expanding cognitive remediation programs in Canada
