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Some 40 percent of people with mental illness in the U.S. do not receive treatment.

Consistent care, as in assisted living, can stabilize patients.

Families of untreated mentally ill individuals often suffer unseen, long-lasting effects.

About 25 years ago, out of the blue, a woman called me at work and asked if I was related to a woman with my mother’s name. The woman in question was, in fact, my mother. I had not talked to her in quite some time. She had been arrested for harassing a woman in the town she was living in. She was in the hospital, and they had been unable to find any family.

I am the daughter of a paranoid schizophrenic. My mother also has high anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. We hear a lot about mental illness and how to help people with mental illness—and we should. We hear less about the toll this takes on their families.

Studies show that children of schizophrenics are more likely to suffer from schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety. Living with a parent with schizophrenia is classified as an adverse childhood experience, defined as a negative experience with lasting effects into adulthood. A mother’s paranoid or aggressive behavior can trigger a child to look for safety, only to find that the person who is supposed to comfort them is the very person causing their fears. Once that child has grown, they are likely to see the world as unsafe, have difficulty regulating........

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