I lied.I had no choice.But I felt guilty. Guilty for having to lie to him — just so I could get him to the emergency room. My son wouldn’t suspect anything if I told him I was taking him to work with me at the hospital. On our drive there, I remember looking at him out of the corner of my eye, praying to God that he wouldn’t figure out my plan.But what if he did? What if the voices he was hearing told him I was lying — and he jumped out of the moving car on our way to the hos

“I believe your son is schizophrenic.” That was the day a diagnoses shattered my world. I’ll never forget. The physician looked at me calmly through the screen, her voice steady but heavy with weight. “I can’t formally diagnose him yet — it will take several months of observation.” Even though I’d heard the word schizophrenia  before, I didn’t fully understand what it meant. But I knew enough to know it wasn’t good. I sat in stunned silence, trying to absorb her words, but my

“Mom, I’m scared!” Those words still haunt me today. Etched into my memory forever, I will never forget the day my son had his first psychotic break. It was a Saturday morning, and I was at the mall shopping. Like most weekends, this was the only time I had to run errands and decompress from a busy week. Coffee in one hand, shopping bag in the other, I was walking into a store when my phone rang. Thinking it was nothing urgent, I casually answered the call from my son. But it