I have a 31 yr. old daughter who for several years has been paranoid schizophrenic. For a period of a few years she was abusing "street drugs", meaning crack and probably pot and alcohol. I was living in another state and had knowledge of her drug problem but didn't know about the onset of schizophrenia until I returned to my home city where she was living. She went through several drug recovery programs and for several years has been "drug free." I initially connected the schizophrenia with the drug use but I have a trauma doctor in the family with much experience in this area who told me that the drug use probably only brought on the schizophrenia earlier than it would have shown up. I knew my mother had some problems that had become much worse somewhere around the age of 45, but I only recently was told by my sister, who is a nurse and lives in the same small town with my mother, that my mother has severe paranoid schizophrenia. I've also been told that schizophrenia typically skips generations and to my knowledge neither I nor my 2 sisters have the disorder.

My daughter's extended family on her mother's side also has mental illness, including a cousin who is about 40 and has spent most of his adult life in institutions. I also began having an anxiety problem at age 35 that until recently I attibuted to things I have been through in my life like the Vietnam war, an ugly divorce from my daughter's mother, and some other experiences. However, I now believe it is a condition that I inherited from my mother.

My whole point is that we often tend to blame something like paranoid schizophrenia on substance abuse if the person is known to have used drugs like crack, pot, LSD, etc., and fail to recognize the genetic predisposition for a disorder. Yes, the person must live drug free if they are to have a normal life but, like my daughter, they often refuse to accept that they have an ongoing serious problem THAT WILL ONLY BE KEPT IN CONTROL BY THE USE OF THE RIGHT MEDICATION. My daughter now thinks all drugs are the same, meaning something that will mess up your life, and refuses to take medication to control the schizophrenia that she will have for the rest of her life.

My daughter is fighting to keep her children and be independent but her delusions of conspiracies against her, the voices from the refrigerator, invisible rays aimed at her by people who are trying to kill her, etc., recently got way to out of control and we had to have her admitted to the hospital. She got out last week supposedly doing better and admitting that she must take medication but two days ago she suddenly left town to escape "the people who are doing this to her" and right now she is in a motel 900 miles away saying she is never coming back. She knows no one in the city she said she is going to and I have no idea how this will turn out.

To many people in her life like her mother, siblings, other relatives and so-called friends avoid confronting her and telling her how delusional she is because they are taking the easy way out and don't want to be added to her list of people who "are conspiring against her." Some time back I lived in the same household with her and my grandchildren and I actually started drinking heavily to "block out" the insanity that I came home to every evening. I now know that the only possible solution is "tough love", and even your best efforts might fall short. This is a tragic condition and EVERYONE who cares for the person must be involved in making them get medical help.