The drug companies must love me because I take three atypicals (Seroquel, Abilify, and Lamictal) and I'm doing very well. I feel I'm lucky that they work for me without the heavy side effects others experience and that I have insurance to pay for them ( All told these and a couple of other meds would cost me $1200 per month retail).

Ann,

Thanks SO MUCH for sharing this poignant story about your son. I am a parent of a child who is a bit younger than yours and dealing with some of the same issues. I very much admire your wisdom, courage, and bravery in finding the help your son needed because as we all know the path is often not clear at all, and at times seems invisible. I have had to learn to pick and choose what information might be helpful and to let go of the other stuff and to be willing to make mistakes and that is SO HARD when you are dealing with another person's life and that person is your child under the age of 18. I have found through the years that I need to trust MYSELF the most at times even when I am dealing with professionals whose livelihoods it is to help people. Because the painful reality there is that it is a puzzle and NO ONE PERSON has all the answers or knows where the pieces are. But I have also found, as you have as evidenced in your piece, that the more I share our journey with others, the more ideas, potential leads, and support I find. And along the way I think I have also helped others. And ANYTIME we can work to dispell the stigma attatched to these issues we are dealing with, it is to the greater good of our world.

Thank you for your work and I wish all the best for your son and your family.

Namaste'.

Big Cat

I read through all the letters and only saw one person who got the point of the letter-writers who had a problem with the headline of the story--that was BrianNeary.

What everyone else is ignoring is the part of the story where her son is hospitalized and given different therapies which helped him to almost overnight become better. Why in the title of the story are those therapies called "drugs" but in the part of the story where psychotropic meds heal her son are they referred to as "therapies"?

This infuriated me--please--all of you just think about that for a moment...the title screams how psychotropic drugs are BAD!!! yet at the end of the story the drugs which helped make her son better are not even given names!!!

because he had that underlying condition everyone is ready to ignore the fact that he was depressed----he did have a mental illness!!! those drugs would have helped him if not for the underlying condition, just like they help so many others!

that underlying condition combined with the doctors unwillingness to dig a little deeper were to blame for her sons problems. But drugs helped him...they did

I would rather live in todays world with all of these medications which can help me lead a normal life than live at any other time and be confined to an institution as well as be marginalized by society.

I am someone who has a severe mental illness yet I can take part in society, raise my children, love my spouse and take my pills everyday. Many of you are forgetting what it was like just fifty years ago for those suffering with mental illness.

These drugs are a God-send for so many people...

I agree, AKA Smith. The fact that we need the internet to save our loved ones' lives is terribly sad. And the type of prejudice you experienced from your co-workers makes me see red. I saw a similar type of prejudice when working in a mental health program that hired former clients as counselors. These individuals were amazing human beings who had been through absolute hell and had insight into their clients' needs that none of the rest of us could possibly offer. Some of their co-workers had a hard time not treating them like children. It's no excuse, but I think some of us in the helping professions develop a bit of an us-and-them mentality about our clients as a psychological defense against all the sad things we see on a daily basis. But like I said, that's no excuse. I am personally thankful, to a degree, for my own more minor experience with mental illness (clinical depression) and that of my partner (bi-polar disorder, which, yes, has become a bit of a fad diagnosis lately) because it is much harder to think of my clients as entirely "other." But I keep it to myself at work, for fear of becoming someone's "them."

And Scavok, amen and amen to you.

To the fella who mentioned the effectiveness of CBT in patients with schizophrenia, if you happen to know the citation for that I'd ever so greatly appreciate it, as I have fought hard for the rather-unpopular notion that patients with serious mental illness can still benefit from therapy. A study like that would give me some real ammunition.

I was in tears as I read your story. How awful for your entire family, and wonderful that thru your loving perseverence and the far-reach of the internet you have been able to receive some help.

I too have a story. At 17 my son was on his way to becoming a violent emotional train-wreck. He had been growing somewhat depressed thru-out his teen years, but I had thought(and been advised by family) to let it go, it was a phase. As time went on he retreated to his room, sleeping most of the day, listening to music at night. He said he had another person living inside him, and it was that 'ghost of himself' who would appear. His face, his voice, his stance would change and he became increasingly more angry, destroying his and others' property, punching holes in walls and doors. When his violence grew to hitting his younger brothers and pushing me up against the wall with his hands around my neck, I knew I had to do something.

He was brought to our local psych hospital, where he was diagnosed as bipolar. Treatment was started, but it has been a long road. Many, many meds have been prescribed, doses altered, combinations tried. Different therapists, one who said to let him do what he wanted and deal with it when he was calm (!!).

Finally, we found a wonderful man who patiently searched and waited until my son was ready to listen and who taught him how to conquer that voice and work to control himself. A med manager who wasn't using him as practice for every new med that come in his door, but instead prescibing only well- tested, appropriate drugs-Abilfy among them.

My son is not yet, or may he ever, be where he would like to be. However when I look in his eyes I see the boy I raised, struggling at times but not living in hell.

I am so sorry that the system let you down. Both our families were fortunate, but it should not have been so hard. The mental health 'industry' is not always at it's best, nor does not always function in the best interest of the patient. With this many horror stories out there, it's time something is done to monitor these practices.

Good luck to you.