Depth of Despair: A Mother’s Journal on Schizophrenia

By Bertha L. Pruitt

This book tells a true story of a mother's only daughter being struck down with the horrors of Schizophrenia which started in her late teens( her first year in college). Through courage and perseverance, she was able to graduate from college with a BS degree and was able to retire with 30 years of employment with the telephone company. The book covers a period of 27 years of factual details which were recorded in her mother's journal. If you are strong at heart, I invite you to come with me on this journey of sheer madness. The daughter fought “hard to stay well and healthy . Yet there were many episodes along the way, whereas “The Voices”, would convince her that she shouldn't be taking those mind altering medications. After listening to the voices she would sink into despair and have to be committed (by force) into a mental institution. Her mother were always there for her through the good and rough periods. On March16,2020, at age 60, she died a sudden death caused by “Cardiopulmonary Arrest” , per her death certificate. Her mother feels that it was the virus which caused her death/ at least caused the heart attach. This happened just as the country was being informed of that deadly virus(COVID 19), which has caused over 500,000 death to date. The book is written and personal heartaches shared so that it might help some one dealing with the same problem(s) and feels all alone. In loss and brokenness, my advise is to turn to God- whose love remains constant. Mental illness still carries a lot of Stigma and personal blame. Please know there is no need to suffer in silence. Mental Illness is an incurable disease but can be maintained with proper treatment.
The real test of a mother's love is not when a child lives a life as planned . The real test is accepting the fate that destiny has bestowed upon her.

The journey was so painful and personal that the mother knew that the details could never be shared as long as her daughter was alive and should the daughter outlive the mother, the daughter would be free to destroy the journal if so desired.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Jun 23, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664181014

Bertha L. Pruitt

Bertha L. Pruitt ,was born in Panola, Alabama. After graduating from high school, she moved to Boston, Massachusetts. She received her B.S. degree from Northeastern University, Boston, MA. and MPA degree from Framingham State College(now known as Framingham University) in Framingham, MA. She had a career with the US Postal Service and retired 1992. She is the mother of two children , Aaron Jr. and Phyllis D. Pruitt(deceased). She and her husband ,Aaron Sr. have moved back to Alabama .

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Copyright © 2021 by Bertha L. Pruitt.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Rev. date: 11/16/2021

Xlibris

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CONTENTS

1994

1995

1999

2001

2010

2013

2014

2015

2016

2020

2021

Photo Gallery

1994

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The year was 1994; we arrived home around 3:00 p.m. from the hospital where my daughter, Dee, had spent one month as the result of a mental breakdown. After entering the house and dropping off her belongings in her room, I felt a need to go quickly to my room to privately thank God or, as she would say, the higher power for bringing her back from the pits of a bottomless hell. This had been the darkest and longest bout she had experienced with schizophrenia since being diagnosed some eighteen years earlier. This episode came exactly two years to the month of her last episode and strengthened the notion that episodes beget episodes.

If you are strong at heart, I invite you to come with me on this journey through sheer madness. This episode had taken a toll on my well-being. I who had always been strong. I who had always carried the load single-handedly. I who had never missed a day visiting her during her hospital stay. I, who had weathered many storms and had been able to conceal the pain and loss behind a mask of composure, was finally falling apart.

I reflected on the poem Footprints as the story goes, a man who had been faithful to God and noticed Christ walking beside him during his daily walks through life. One day he noticed only one set of footprints during his darkest moments. He questioned God, Why aren’t you ever there when I need you?

Christ answered by saying, When you saw only one set of prints, I was carrying you. Just as I, too, neared the limit of human endurance, James Cleveland’s version of Where Is Your Faith in God became the force that kept me going.

My daughter suffers from one of the most devastating illnesses, but she has functioned at a very high level, sometimes to the point of maniac. In addition to working full-time, she had spent the past year and a half doing her practical to become a rehabilitation counselor. Since she was rarely home, I did not detect the behavior change until a friend of hers called to ask me if she had gone off her medications. Immediately, I feared the worst; she had switched to a new drug (Moban), which evidently did not work for her. A counselor she had been seeing at work was instrumental in getting her to see her doctor. Any attempt of intervention made by me was rejected as confrontational. She complied with the doctor’s order to increase the dosage. After two days, something went terribly wrong and she stopped taking the medicine completely. Within a week, she was exhibiting all the symptoms of a major episode.

One evening, as I waited for her at the train station, I could not contain my tears, as she stepped off the train in the middle of the night wearing sunglasses. It is during periods like this that I worry about her most, wondering if something will happen to her while she is away from home. She had begun to function on about two hours of sleep nightly. No one else in the house could get much more, as she kept the boom box blasting, first with gospel music then rap.

I don’t think she had slept at all since Friday when early Sunday morning she came into our bedroom and asked, When are you going to call for the straightjacket (meaning the cops)? In the past, each of her hospitalizations (five times) had been by force. She does not, or at least when she’s in this frame of mind, realize how much easier and less expensive it would be if she would allow us to transport her to the hospital. She cannot conceive a voluntary commitment. So when she came to my room asking for help (really), I jumped at the opportunity and called the Department of Mental Health Crisis Intervention Center. I had spoken to someone there a few days earlier, seeking information on how they might assist in having her hospitalized rather than going through the police department, which had been so painful in the past. This being a Sunday morning, I got a different person on the telephone who did not think that the time had come to have her committed. You see, the law requires that the person has to be at the point of causing harm to self or someone else before