One of Dawn Schneider’s sons was diagnosed with depression, anxiety, and suicidal ideation by the time he was four years old. When he reached the age of eight, his condition worsened until its impact created a full-blown family crisis.
Even now, at 14, he still grapples with mental illness, Tourette syndrome, learning disabilities, and a number of receptive and expressive disorders.
“It was really stressful, and very lonely. It’s very hard to relate to,” Ms. Schneider said. “He has a fairly typically developed twin who was doing typical kid things at eight, but Curtis was not. It was hard — in the midst of extreme mental crisis with a child — to really relate to typical parents.”
Ms. Schneider, who lives in Stamford, found her first relief from this loneliness in a support group organized by the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI), eventually becoming the first volunteer to bring the organization’s children-focused group to southwestern Connecticut.
[For more of this story, written by Christopher Burns, go to http://www.thereddingpilot.com...with-mental-illness/]
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