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Tell Me I'm Here: One Family's Experience of Schizophrenia

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Anybody who's read a lot about or even worked with afflicted clients and thought they have a good understanding of what it'd be like to have Schizophrenia will find this book a real eye opener! It's a MUST READ for all families, friends, workers and Doctors alike. It's written in a very easy to read and understandable format, as unemotional as could be possible in such circumstances. I personally think it is the best book on Schizophrenia that's available within a non-clinical context. I give it the highest of recommendations.

There are two books that should be ordered together, this one, "Tell Me I'm Here" One Family's experience of Schizophrenia, by Anne Deveson and "I am Not Sick I Don't Need Help" by Dr. Xavier Amador. "Tell me... is a story from a mother's perspctive of doing everything possible for a young adult, and her relationship with her son who had a duel diagnosis of both Schizophrenia and drug addiction. This mother did just about everything to bring her son to recovery. "Tell me...: is told with a good writing style and down under mater of fact blatancy. It is easy to follow the events of this woman's life and how the illness affected not only her son but the whole family that loves a person who has schizophrenia. "I am not Sick I Don't need Help" is the clinical method, which might bring a schizophrenic loved one into medicine compliance. The two together can be a powerful ally to both protecting not only the ill person but the caregiver as well. The two books together can give shocked loved ones of an ill person a fighting chance at surviving "the crisis event", and the initial treatment phase which is very emotional for all and exausting. According to one psychiatrist 99.99% of recovery in schizophrenia is medicine compliance. These books do not support stigma and fear, the first two hurdles when the loved one is diagnosed.

This book is one of the most heart wrenching stories that I have ever read. The author takes you into the world of schizophrenia. You feel the emotions and the heartache that she felt while seeing her son slip in and out of madness. It is the only book that has ever made me cry while reading it. It is the only book that I have been moved to share with people.I encourage anyone who has the chance to buy it, and don't forget your handkerchief, you'll need it.

This book is deeply heart-felt, and an honest, raw account of one family's struggle with schizophrenia. Anne Deveson writes a moving, beautiful account of her love and devotion to her son, Jonathon, and her desperate attempts to understand his illness, find hope and save his life.

This story changed my life. When I read "Tell Me I'm Here", I had only just begun to suffer from psychosis myself. Reading this book helped me come to terms with my own descent into madness, and helped me discover that I could still be loved in spite of living with a very misunderstood mental illness. This book ultimately gave me hope and the courage to accept an illness that takes away your sanity.

Anne Deveson is nothing short of an inspiring mental health advocate, and a wonderful writer and human being. I would encourage everyone to read this book.

New edition published 1998 by Penguin

The disgraceful lack of help that Anne Deveson and her son, Jonathon, recieved in the early-to-mid-eighties when Jonathon was seriously mentally ill with schizophrenia is a sad indictment on the psychiatrists and a system that was - and still is in a lot of ways, I believe - totally impotent.
Anne and her son's terrible experiences happened in Australia, but, here in the UK, every so often, we have seriously mentally ill people attacking and killing innocent by-standers.
It must also be strongly emphasized that these violent individuals are just a SMALL minority, and that the VAST MAJORITY of people with these afflictions are NOT dangerous at all, and, if I may give you an even better perspective: murders committed by so-called "normal" people, if you like, in England and Wales, number about 300 a year, while murders committed by people with mental illness number about 40 a year. Yet, due to biased reporting and the stigma surrounding mental illness, newspaper journalists do NOT state these facts in context and thereby give the impression that everyone with schizophrenia is a potential knife-wielding maniac, probably because the headline KNIFE MANIAC sells papers. I don't know!
Having said that, for people who are seriously mentally ill like Jonathon was - he thought his mother was evil and was out to get him, yet was not treated for his illness because he didn't want to be - to be Sectioned under the Mental Health ACT, here in the UK, mentally ill people must be a danger to themselves or others, OR THEIR CONDITION BE DETRIMENTAIL TO THEIR HEALTH.
I have read that many psychiatrists and social workers ignore the last part of this act, and this would appear to be why we have seriously mentally ill people - people who seem to be unaware of their illness - living (and dying) on our streets.
This is gross neglect, in my opinion, also due to the fact that the Mental Health Trusts in the UK are so under-funded.
The mentally ill have nowhere to go that provides them with the support they need after leaving hospital - a lot of the time before they are well enough - to make way for someone who is even iller than they are.
Moral is also at rock bottom among the mental health workers due to this under-funding and cutbacks.
Most of these seriously mentally ill people could be saved from their sufferings and even death - and from occasionally causing harm to others - if they WERE treated and the mental health professionals had the resources to do their jobs properly.
To this schizophrenia sufferer, this chronic under-funding that prevents the mental health professionals from doing their jobs properly, and the newspaper journalists who sensationalise these terrible tragedies, is a complete and utter disgrace.