Conservatorship for Schizophrenia: Who Needs it? Why? and How? (Ep. 6)

In the news: Britney Spears and conservatorship

Brief Sons’ Recovery updates, “good and bad” - and The Miracle of Ordinary

What is Conservatorship? - varies from state to state

How we did - or didn’t - get to be our sons’ conservator/guardian

Mindy and Mimi - Managing without conservatorship

Randye and Ben’s 's Journey to Conservatorship - and Why 

Releases of Information

Can you get right to involuntary commitment? Right to Medicate?

Renewing, and Annual Reports

Why the  Relationship Matters

Guardianship and Civil Commitment - Minnesota

Protecting Loved Ones from Being Victims

Protecting Ourselves from Being Victims

Some Myths about Guardianship

A few workarounds we use

Quotes:

“My feeling about all this is: Get the Job Done.We need to take care of our kids.” -Mimi

“Conservatorship? I use it to protect him. I use it to be there if needed. I can save him from financial decisions he made and wasn’t equipped to make..” - Randye

“They burglarized our home for drug money. It was going from bad to worse. And all of his mental health workers said there’s nothing that we can do. He’s his own person.” - Mindy

“Society does recognize schizophrenia or any of its versions as vulnerable.” - Mindy

Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:01

Welcome to our podcast, Schizophrenia. Three moms in the trenches. From the place where schizophrenia and real life collide. East Coast, West Coast, Middle America. With Miriam Feldman, Mindy Gryling, and Randy Kay. Finally, a place to talk about the truth. And welcome. This is episode six of our podcast. And we wanted to discuss something that's really so much in the news this week and so much on the minds of many people who are doing caregiving for people with schizophrenia, dementia, and many other things, but specifically, and obviously, we talk about schizophrenia, and that is the issue of conservatorship, or in some states it's called guardianship. And as we mentioned in the intro, we are from West Coast, East Coast, and the middle of America. So things are different state to state. And I just posted a blog post saying that conservatorship has another side to the story. So let me back up a bit and say that the reason it's been in the news is because of Brittany Spears. And Brittany Spears, I don't know what's going on with her in terms of diagnosis, but she's been under a conservatorship for many years because of some erotic behavior and uh custody disputes. And there's been a movement called the hashtag FreeBrittney movement, which has been greatly supported by a new documentary that came out, produced by the New York Times, which definitely shows things from Brittany's point of view as interpreted by the media, because they don't really interview her in it. And so many people are having protests and saying, free her, free her, free her. And I, as conservator of my son, I have nothing to no judgment on Britney. I don't know Britney, it's not my business, but I do know there's another side of it. So since we are three moms trying to keep our sons healthy and functional, I thought it would be a good time to discuss this. So hi guys, let's start with our um update. Full disclosure, we are taping this on Valentine's Day. And so let's do a little update on our sons, the news of the week. Mimi, why don't you start? How's Nick doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Well, um, as far as I can ascertain, okay. I haven't seen him in a few days because we're snowed in. I'm in Washington State, and we have more snow than I've ever seen in all the years we've been here. And so I'm snowed in where I am, and he is down in the town. And the unfortunate thing that's happening is his caregivers are snowed in too. So we're having a hard time getting him his meds, and it turns out he didn't get his meds last night. So I'm not thrilled about that situation. I had the caregiver leave the meds out for him in the hope that he would take them. And I even got him on the phone, and he went through the pantomime of yes, I'm in the kitchen now. Yes, and he didn't take them. So, because she came this morning and they were still sitting on the counter. So that's the crummy side of things, and it's still going to be like this for another day or so more. There is somebody there now. But the good side of it is after you know, all these years of him having these caregivers, he's got two caregivers who no longer work for the agency and no longer work as caregivers, but both of them call me and are willing to go over there and take care of him if I need them, you know, if I get in a bind. So, like a year after they don't even work there anymore, they still care enough about him so that they both volunteered to go over there and take care of him if I needed it. So that's pretty heartwarming.

SPEAKER_00 3:47

Wow, I love this. This is kind of like the place same time next year, where they meet every year and they tell a good and a bad story about it. So I think that's kind of a good way. And kudos to those caregivers. Mindy, how's Jim doing? Happy Valentine's Day. And notice I have my heart sweater on.

SPEAKER_02 4:01

Um Jim continues to do well, and we're so thankful for that because we've recently been not in this good of a place. And right now, today, he's going over to see a friend. We're in Minnesota, so we're below zero here, but we are used to being in the frozen tundra, so we persevere and take walks and do all our normal activities. But he's seen a friend today, he saw a friend, a different friend yesterday. That's more celebration, just like the last time we were together.

SPEAKER_00 4:33

That's amazing. We call I call that the miracle of ordinary, like ordinary things that wouldn't be cause for celebration if it hadn't been taken away from you. That is so yay, that's great. My son Ben is he's been a week out of the hospital and into a group home. And I gotta say, the start was kind of rocky. I was very worried. He's for the first time on a time release injection. And so I they don't keep them in the hospital long enough to see how to time the next injection. So the day I picked him up was actually pretty amazing. And first thing he did when he got in the car was apologize for everything he ever did. So I know, I know they're doing some, but just blanket, like for anything I did, I'm really sorry. But I know they did some kind of 12-step thing, perhaps, in the hospital. And I said, Can I record that so I can keep it forever? And he even had the sense of humor to go, sure. So I turned on my phone and I got a recorded apology. Just the fact that he was willing to do that was lovely. And we brought him to his new group residence. And the next day I had to drop off some things and he did not seem good. It was like within 24 hours, it was different. He he wasn't there behind his eyes, he seemed scattered. And with COVID, I can't stay long. Got in the parking lot, called the staff and said, What is up? And they went, Yeah, we notice it too. And of course, and I I wrote a blog post about this. I I tried to reach a psychiatrist who said, I'll check in on him in Monday, and Monday's gonna be too late. And it's, you know, it's all this, all this balance. Why don't they listen to the family? But I have to say that now I'm judging by texts and FaceTime phone calls right now, and it's just delightful to even be able to reach him by calling. He seems okay. So what we often don't talk about is that the medication, the treatment is important, but other things going on are just as important. And perhaps the stress of leaving the hospital and moving into this place might have been what exacerbated it. I don't know. I do have to say that in our miracle of ordinary world right now, he went to Supercuts. And for the first time in, I want to say 18 years, he he asked for a haircut. I feel like he had sort of a Samson complex, maybe because he never would even have a trim. And he's excited. So that was that was good. Little things, very important. It seems like a great residence, fingers crossed one day at a time. So that's where we are right now. So let's get right into the topic as well. Thank you. Thank you for the update. So with Britney Spears in the news and conservatorship in the news, so we may as well start with some sort of definition. According to Wikipedia, conservatorship is a legal concept in the United States. A guardian or a protector is appointed by a judge to manage financial affairs andor the daily life of another due to physical or mental limitations or old age. The conservator may be only of the state, financial affairs, but may also be of the person, where the conservator takes charge of overseeing daily activities like healthcare, living arrangements, and so on. I posted on Facebook on a group of families dealing with schizophrenia what people thought of conservatorship. And there seems to be a great deal of confusion and stories that people want to tell. So let's tell ours. Of the three of us, I am the one that is conservator of my son. Is that correct? Maybe you're not, right? And Mindy, and you're not. Have you ever been? Never have been, have tried. Okay. And Jim is, in case this is your first time listening to us, Jim is cooperative with you. He understands he has an illness and he's willing to work with you most of the time now, not always, right? That's correct. He's not always been there.

SPEAKER_02 8:41

And we he also is very easily led by others. And that's why we have tried to get conservative conservatorship to protect him from others, but that is not seen as a compelling enough reason, at least in our state.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

So I thought of getting a lawyer on this call, but it's so different state to state. So I thought we would just share our stories of what happened. Um, Amy, I know you're not conservator of Nick, but when he goes into the hospital, how do you manage to get information about him?

SPEAKER_01 9:17

Does he sign a release or yeah, you know, the way it worked with Nick is we had a couple years where it was real sketchy and we didn't have any control when he was like 19, 20. But really, since then, and he's 35 now, we've been de facto conservators, you know. He he's never been in control of his money, he's never been in control of anything. So I've always I'm the co-signer on his SSI and all of that. So it all filters through us. So functionally, we have control of all of it. So it hasn't really been an issue. If he was ever gets you know to a point where he could take over some of this stuff in his life, that would be wonderful. But for now, it's it's something that we just control. And as far as when he was in the hospital, in the early years, yeah, we had problems getting doctors to talk to us and everything. But now he signs the release every year, and so everybody can talk to me. And quite honestly, there are times when I call doctors or call pharmacies or things like that, and they say, Well, is your son there with you? We need his okay, and I just put my husband on the phone and he pretends to be it, and he okay. Because my feeling about all of this is get the job done. So we've gotten we've my husband and I have our routine down. He's got his Nick voice that he does on the phone, and um, and we do it that way. I mean, you know, I advised another mother recently too about this, about something where she didn't know and she was worried about her daughter. And I said, Well, when she's asleep, go look in her purse, see if she got the coverage. She was worried about the medical coverage, and if she didn't call and pretend you're her and do it. And this may not be approved of or agreed with by everybody, but I'm of the school that we need to take care of our kids. And I know that I'm not doing anything immoral or unethical. I'm taking care of my kid, and I'll do what I need to do to accomplish what I need to accomplish. And if I do a few white lies or my husband pretends to be him once in a while, I'll take my um, I'll take my chances at eternal damnation.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I love it. I compliment you. Me too. And hopefully none of the pharmacists will listen to this podcast and know your trick. So, yeah, there are workarounds, and we have discussed HIPAA in in past episodes, and obviously this is part of it. But I will tell you why I am currently conservator of my son's estate and person. So I am in Connecticut, every state is different, and there's a lot of misunderstanding. So Ben wasn't diagnosed till he was 18. Had he been diagnosed earlier, then I could have had some control at that point. But once he's 18, that was it. And he was first hospitalized when he was 21. So there were years of confusion. When he was hospitalized, finally, because I tried every which way to define him as sick enough to be hospitalized, and that's another topic for another time. He had signed a release with his psychiatrist that his psychiatrist could talk to me. So we were covered. I didn't need conservatorship. But when he was put in the hospital, finally, he could sign himself out after three days. And I it seems so weird to say I visited him because you could you could do that before COVID. And the chief of psychiatry at the hospital said, We have to let him go, because at that point he would not sign, or he was so paranoid that he would not sign anything that would let them give me information. And it was only because the chief of psychiatry said to me, What we have to do to keep him here is you have to apply to be his conservator. And at the same time, you can apply to right to involuntary commitment and right to medicate. But you can't have those unless you're their conservator first. And I said, Well, that's a lot of steps. He said, We can they can do it all in one hearing, but you have to apply and go down right now to probate court and get that application in because once the application is in, we can't release him until the hearing. So the first thing I did was do that so that he could have more time to be treated in the hospital. And that did take time. He I think he ended up being 35 days that first time in the hospital, which is is a lot, but a lot of that was untreated. So it was a lot of wandering the halls. I spell out the hearing day in my book because he was my son, Ben, was really psychotic and barely coherent. However, at the hearing, which they held at the hospital, he fidgeted his way through the whole hearing. And then before the judge, and let me backtrack at the hearing, it's not just you and the judge, it's two independent psychiatrists, and there's a whole process. They don't just do it. So there was a lawyer representing Ben. There was not a lawyer representing me. I represented myself. There was a judge, and there were two independent psychiatrists who determined gravely disabled, gravely disabled. That's the term you need in Connecticut to get conservatorship. When it came time for judgment, my son stood up and mustered the wherewithal to defend himself for about 45 straight seconds. Like he focused every ounce of energy he had to say, I'm not crazy, I don't need this. Where's the evidence? Where's the brain test? Like everything. And then he fell into his chair exhausted because it was a lot for him. Well, I got conservatorship. And in Connecticut, we don't call it guardianship. You get conservatorship of estate and conservatorship of person. So estate means finances. I got both. And then at that same hearing, we got the right to involuntary commitment and the right to medicate. And so that started Ben on being able to have medication. However, once discharged from the hospital, you do not keep those rights to involuntary commitment and medication. It's gone with the discharge. So if a day later there's psychosis again, all you have are the conservator papers. Conservator, I probably will go back and forth with the pronunciation. Sorry, I'm trying to be consistent, but all you have is those papers. Well, what they did was allow people at the hospital to give me information, even if my son didn't sign a release, which he wouldn't. And so that's how I began my journey. Like you, Mimi, I have tried to stay out of his life as much as possible, but step in where rescue is necessary. And that's been pretty much how we've done it. We have to send in a report every year. There came a time. So I've had this in place for about 18 years. There came a time when a lawyer contacted Ben and said, Do you want out? And he said, Yeah, I don't want my mom to be conservator anymore. And there was another hearing, and fortunately they ruled in my favor.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Now, when something like that happens, what is it like between you and Ben when you're actually adversaries in court?

SPEAKER_00 16:58

Well, like Xavier Amador says in his book, I'm not sick, I don't need help. It's more about the relationship than about force. So I have always tried to keep my relationship with Ben loving, as we all do. And in terms of the conservatorship, I kept saying, this is not for me to control your life. This is for me to step in and save you if you need it. But I don't need it. Perhaps not, but you have that safeguard. And I would like to be able to help you if you do something like you did when you first started working full-time, which was to co-sign a car lease for a coworker because you thought you were doing character reference when essentially you were liable for her car payments, which she never paid. And in that case, I was able to call a lawyer and use the conservator card and get him out of it. So he was very grateful to not have the debt collectors knocking on the door. So he still wanted the freedom. And I just said, I don't want this to be a fight between us. I let's see what the judge says. And I just sort of kept deflecting. So it was okay. Uh, he's a loving kid, and we have a relationship that's a foundation that helps, but not always. So that's why I hang on to it. That year he was hospitalized five times, and I just started carrying the conservatorship papers around with me so that I could see what was going on. It doesn't mean I had any right to force him to take medication outside of the hospital. It doesn't mean I had any right to make him do anything. All it gave me the right to was information if he were hospitalized, for doctors to talk to me. I have a joint account with him for when he's on disability and it comes in. That's it. I almost didn't play the card, but but it was there. So that's why I have it. I've renewed it. I don't thoroughly understand some of the financial reports I have to bring in, but it it's another arrow in my quiver. It's another tool in the tool belt, as they say, incorporate. You know, it's another thing I can use to help save him if he needs saving. And I hope he doesn't.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

Well, you know, that's the thing. You brought up the thing about Britney Spears, and I don't really know the details of that either, except that I do remember years ago when it all started, she was exhibiting some pretty alarming behavior, at least according to the news. And the thing is, I understand that now there's this big swell of protect Britney or free Britney, and you know, there's a lot of misguided energy protecting the supposed civil rights of people who have serious mental illness. Again, I don't know what her particular situation is, but for the rest of us, you know, I think that any of us mothers, I mean, would happily give in our ticket to the e-ticket ride of being the mother of somebody with schizophrenia if we could. You know what I mean? This is not something we're doing because it's fun. And the idea of putting any kind of energy into taking away what power or rights that we do have seems so ridiculous to me, considering I've yet to meet a mother of a, you know, an adult with schizophrenia who's using this to pilfer the SSI money and get rich. You know, it's just not what this is about. And I think that people's energies could be well spent in asking for more research or more meds or, you know what I mean, medical research. So it's it's ironic to me when I hear about these sort of campaigns.

SPEAKER_00 20:32

Yes. And, you know, we always tend to, if there's a big issue and we can't handle it, we find a little speck and we handle that. It's like making your bed when the house is dirty. Like I can do that one thing. And so people will latch onto a Britney Spears, who everybody knows and what they perceive as her situation. Again, this is not about Britney. It's just brought conservatorship to the forefront. And for me, I use it if I need it. I use it to protect him, I use it to be there if needed, I use it to get information. And so that's how it works in Connecticut. As a sideline, I will say that there are many families whose children begin to show diagnosable signs of the illness before age 18. And sometimes they have to give up guardianship of their child in order for that child to get help from the state, which is a whole other topic. But in terms of an adult child like we all have, for me, conservatorship is important because I can save him from scams, I can save him from being ripped off, I can save him from financial decisions he made and wasn't equipped to make. And while he was in the hospital, I could contact a lawyer and talk about whether we want to do bankruptcy. And I could negotiate for him with car insurance companies and the car leasing companies. And I was able to save his credit rating because I was conservator. So it's there if we need it. So many. Andy, from a legislative level, or anything that you would want to add about how it is in Minnesota to get conservatorship? Like what is the process like that you know of and what rights does it give you?

SPEAKER_02 22:10

Listening to you too shows me that every state is definitely very different. Here in Minnesota, we actually call what uh what you're talking about guardianship. And conservatorship is if a person has finances or property that need to be dealt with, that's a conservator. But it's a guardian who does most of what um, especially Randy, is talking about here. But it's also interesting to me that the hospital brought it up to you the very first time that Ben was in the hospital in order to keep him there, because in Minnesota, civil commitment serves that purpose. So that was the first topic that our family dealt with was after the three days, then you have to be instituting civil commitment proceedings, and then the person can stay in the hospital until that is resolved.

SPEAKER_00 23:04

So, can you say more about that? What is civil commitment? And do you need to be a guardian to do it?

SPEAKER_02 23:10

Um, you do not need to be a guardian to do it. Civil commitment, we could have a whole program on that because that's the big topic that we deal with a lot more in Minnesota. Guardianship rarely comes up, but civil commitment comes up all the time, and you have to meet a certain standard in order to be able to be civilly committed. And that means a person with anasygnosia whose brain doesn't allow them to know they're ill can be um their illness can be treated without their consent if they meet the the um the standard. And they have to go to civil court in order to be civilly committed, and then it's the that danger to self or others or gravely disabled, the standards that are similar but definitely not the same from state to state. That's how we keep people in the hospital in Minnesota so they can get care or to continue getting care in the community after they've been released. So guardianship did not come up with our family until our son was being victimized by a person who was actually a chiropractor, but I say that kind of with quotation marks because he advised our son to go off all of his psych meds and instead he would sell him supplements that he was selling, and that that would do the trick for schizoaffective disorder.

SPEAKER_00 24:34

So instead of of course, your son wanted to hear that.

SPEAKER_02 24:37

I mean he wanted to hear that. Every son wants to hear that. You don't need meds anymore. Supplements are the way to go. And uh currently, Jim takes a lot of supplements to supplement his psych meds, but nobody that's a real medical person would say that supplements would be all you would need for a serious mental illness. We also have had a couple of um sociopaths that have taken advantage of our son and some drug dealers. Jim has substance abuse issues that have caused more problems than his mental illness. So the last time we had a situation where this one sociopath was taking Jim twice a week to give blood. And then she was using that for their drug habit, mostly hers. She took all his money, he never had any money for even so much as a cup of coffee. He was living in tatters, he could never afford a haircut. Um, he looked even worse than he's ever looked before. And he had some chip teeth that the dentist um commented on. There were just lots of signs, and she was isolating him from all his other friends. And and was this the girlfriend that he lived in? This was the girlfriend that I wrote about in my book, but I didn't write nearly as much as I could have booked about Colleen. We called her Colleen. That's of course a pseudonym because Jim had a relationship with her, and I, as we all have just said, we want to keep our relationships with our sons. So I left a lot of that out of the book. It could have been a whole book, but we did attempt guardianship then because of all these things going on. They had burglarized our house, another ploy for drug money. It was just going from bad to worse. And all of Jim's mental health workers said there's nothing we can do. He's making his own choices, he's his own person. That's the legal term in Minnesota. They're their own person if you don't have a guardian. So they recommended a guardian. So we went to an attorney. In Minnesota, we're very big on funding attorneys for things. For civil commitment, you get a state-funded attorney, and so does your family member who's being considered ditto for guardianship. So Roger and I got an attorney, and so did Jim. And our attorney was very diligent about presenting or gathering facts to present our side of the story. But then Jim's attorney, who was a very good attorney, assessed Jim and didn't think he at all needed it. His office was in the very same office as our attorney, and she lost all of her steam after talking with him. So this person rights is a very strong mantra in Minnesota. And the fact that he was choosing to have a drug dealer who had actually taken over at this point his apartment was living in his apartment. Jim is locked out. The other guy, the drug dealer, has the keys, and Jim is living with the girlfriend, and then they're getting rent money in drugs for this situation. Even this did not allow us to get guardianship.

SPEAKER_00 27:51

Wow. And there you are feeling like so powerless.

SPEAKER_02 27:56

Powerless. So what we ended up with was an advanced psychiatric directive and power of attorney. But those like your guardianship, Randy, only kick in if Jim's deemed incompetent in the hospital or elsewhere.

SPEAKER_00 28:11

Okay, so there are all kinds of legal things. I went online and saw some myths and facts from Minnesota about this. And one myth of guardianship, according to this website, which I will put a link on to it on our on our description, that guardianship is required for a person with an intellectual or developmental disability once they turn 18. But the fact is, it's not required to sign an IEP or to move into a residential home. Families and individuals are often told this, but it's not a statement of law.

SPEAKER_02 28:48

So and there's a much more paternalistic attitude about guardianship for people with developmental disabilities. But for people with mental illness, it's a whole different ballgame. The society does not recognize a person who's very vulnerable with schizophrenia or any of its versions as vulnerable because, as we know, they can be very intelligent. Jim actually does all his own paperwork when he's healthy. He he was a straight A accounting student at one time. He's really good at all of that stuff. And we know that the black robe effect, the police officer uniform effect, or anyone who's busy trying to take away your rights, the person can be very rational at those moments.

SPEAKER_00 29:37

Okay, thank you. And another myth, which I think Mimi has already spoken to, is that doctors won't talk to me once my kid turns 18, so I need guardianship, but there are alternatives. You can get a release, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:50

Yeah, he signs the HIPAA release. He's been fine with that, but I mean, I think that's more the exception than the rule. I think a lot of families really struggle with that. I I don't think, I know. So I I mean, we can't use my situation with Nick as any kind of template. He's just that's unusual, but he's very agreeable that way. I I think that this is a big issue for a lot of families is the inability to get information from the doctors, uh hospitals, releasing your loved one out into the snow in the middle of the night. And I'm not exaggerating. I mean, I can think of right off the top of my head five people I know who something like that happened to. So the way, one way I've gotten around it in the past is if you get a good doctor or a good clinician, you know, I always try and find somebody who I connect with. And then you can create a bit of a um secret code, you know. I do things like, well, I'm gonna ask you a question, and if you don't say anything, I'm gonna assume the answer to that is no. And but and if you get somebody who understands and has empathy and wants to communicate but feels hamstrung, those kind of things work. So it's something to have in your back pocket anyway.

SPEAKER_00 31:08

That's great. Thank you. Well, believe it or not, we're running out of time. We've we've done our half-hour show. I know it went so fast, but I'd like to close with each of us if we have a final parting message. And just piggybacking on what you just said, Mimi, I would say if you're a practitioner listening to this, that it would really help us if you could just as a matter of fact, get your patient to sign a release as quickly as possible, so that you can not only share information with us, but allow us to be on the team for helping our loved one. We can always give you information, but you're being able to share with us is a huge part of us being able to pick up the pieces when discharge happens. So that would be my final parting word. Mindy? I would I would say the very same thing.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

I just think that the fact that families can't communicate is the worst thing when you're dealing with crisis. Jim, like Nick, does sign releases, but the whole mentality of the mental health system is they assume that no one has signed them. So even if for those of us whose children do sign them, often if they haven't checked, they just assume they can't talk to you. So families have to be sort of aggressive in order to communicate. And that's nothing that has to be done for any other illness. So I wish the practitioners would do exactly what you just said, Randy, err on the side of communicating and try to think of what's best for the patient, and that's having families involved. Thank you. Mimi, any last words of wisdom?

SPEAKER_01 32:46

I would say the flip side to what you said is also moms out there, you got nothing to apologize. Don't be intimidated. Very few people could do what we're doing. And we know we're doing it out of love and genuine concern for our person's well-being and a better life. And there's nothing to apologize and there's nothing to justify. You know what you're doing, don't be afraid of being aggressive. You know, women also have a thing uh where they don't want to be the angry woman and don't want to be pushy. Well, you gotta do it. And my word to anybody who criticizes me is hey, you want to take over? You want to do this with love and compassion until the day you die? Here, it's yours.

SPEAKER_00 33:26

Otherwise, all right. Ladies, thank you so much. By the way, in our next episode, we will be interviewing Lynn Nanos, the author of Breakdown, and she talks a lot about people dying with their rights on when the mental health system doesn't do them justice. And she is the social worker and practitioner. So we'll continue this in the next episode. Thank you for joining us. See you next time. Hey, thanks for joining us for this episode of Schizophrenia Three Moms in the Trenches with Randy Kay, Mindy Gryling, and Miriam Feldman. To get in touch with us or to learn more about our books, please visit our websites at Miriamfeldman.com, mindygryling.com, or randyk.com.