A Life on Hold: Living with Schizophrenia

by Josie Méndez-Negrete

Overview

For more than twenty years Josie Méndez-Negrete has endured the emotional journey of watching her son Tito struggle with schizophrenia. Her powerful account is the first memoir by a Mexican American author to share the devastation and hope a family experiences in dealing with this mental illness. Méndez-Negrete depicts the evolution of the disease from her perspective as a parent and by relating Tito’s own narrative, illuminating the inadequacies of the US mental health system and the added burdens of addiction and blame. Through the author, Tito paints a vivid picture of his lived experiences and everyday traumas to show how his life and the lives of his loved ones have been impacted by mental illness.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780826340573
Publisher:	University of New Mexico Press
Publication date:	08/15/2015
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	3 MB

About the Author

Josie Méndez-Negrete is a sociologist who teaches Mexican American studies in the Department of Bicultural-Bilingual Studies at the University of Texas at San Antonio. She is also the author of Las hijas de Juan: Daughters Betrayed.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Acknowledgments xiii

Introduction: Living With and Inside Mental Illness xv

It's All Around Us, We Don't See It 1

Mindful Engagement 3

A Rat and a Motel: Looking for Love 5

Giving It All: Still Trying 10

Voices and Lessons: Schizophrenia Shows Up Unexpectedly 13

Smoking Mirrors: Fractured Realities 17

Looking Back and Beyond 19

Voices and Recollections 22

Specter of Himself: Life Slides Off 24

Foreign Context: Schizophrenic Trip 27

Delusions and Misperceptions 32

Inner Voices: Holding On to Myself 34

Unintended Disclosures: Voices Speak 40

Homeboy Remembers: No One's to Blaine 46

Self-Medication: Hiding from Help 55

Urban Upbringing: Running from Self 61

Stories Are Life 68

With Family Tales, Loneliness Goes Away 70

Bed-Wetting and Past Lives 76

Seeking for Silence: At Rope's End 83

Vermin and Other Things 88

Creating Family from Scratch: Found the One 94

Acting the Part: Psychotic Performance 96

Starving the Demons 101

Memories and Loneliness 104

Sometimes Death Is the Only Option 107

TV Programs Inside: Voices Alive 112

At Another Time, I Would Have Been Don Quixote 117

Reality Is Imagined 124

Imagination Begets Life 129

Drugging It to Normal 138

Board-and-Care Warehousing 140

Running Away to Mental Illness 147

The Genius Within 158

Talking Wishes and Repressed Delusions 162

Right Under Your Nose 165

Still Hoping for a Better Life 172

Fears and Mental Illness 176

In the Onset: AH Together Now 181

Drugs Only Masked It 190

Friends and Family Kept Me Afloat 194

Detachment and Fear Run My Life 198

Behind the Smoke Curtain 200

Cigarette Wealth 205

Clean and Sober: His Reality 208

Depression and All the Not-So-Positives 212

Wasting Away, and No One Noticed 217

Losing It: My Mind Is Not Right 219

Blarings and Glarings in My Mind 223

Gustos y Disgustos: Gustatory Delusions 230

Lonely by Myself 233

Whose Reality? 237

Can Trauma and Sexual Abuse Cause Schizophrenia? 241

What Waits for Me? 244

Pills, Pills, and More Pills: And Now What? 251

Epilogue 259

Works Cited 269

Editorial Reviews

Mendez-Negrete weaves powerful accounts of her visits to her son with factual information from professional literature. . . . [A Life on Hold] will make you appreciate what is right in your life and what is right in the human race.—Story Circle Book Reviews

From the Publisher