Today was a good day. I received my books and the inside looks great but the cover needs work. Lucky to the first persons to see them as they will get a significant discount for the first printing!

 What a long journey. I started wiriting this book over thiry years ago. I didn't know how to write such personal things about my family. I can tell all about me, but knowing my other family members would be upset about telling the family secrets that they don't even know, would be more than difficult. But tell, I do. I tell my story because I know there are others out there who have had experiences like mine and I want to meet them.

 I have asked around for twenty years for anyone who had a Schizophrenic mother. I met only one who said his mother was so quite, he didn't know she had it. He also seemed boringly normal. My mother was so hysterical, one could not deny it. But it doesn't stop there because every one else in the family developed poorly as a result of this genetic dysfunction.
  
 Born last, I never knew the family that sat at the table and ate dinner together, never mind in the same room, the boys did. I never knew the family whose parents retired to the bedroom together,the boys did. I also didn't know the parents that argued violently as my mother deteriorated. I saw that once when I was 4 and have a clue as to what some children grow up with every day. It went something like this:
 Mom and Dad are yelling, mother flies into a rage and gets a knife from the kitchen and points it toward my father with me clutching his leg, crying hysterically, screaming "stop!" Gratefully, my parents had enough respect for me to stop, stop the arguing, gain composure and then agree to never argue in front of me again. I was given the gift of empowerment in that moment because my presence had an effect on them and their ability to deescalate themselves showed me how to do it as well.

 However, I know there are children who experience this kind of violence every day and their parents do not have the self-respect to instill in their progeny self-control by example. They too are embattling their illnesses and dependencies.

 I am grateful that my parents were able to show me how to control myself as they controlled their anger at each other at least when "the children" were around. Even though they bickered at future visits (they did not live together at this time) they never let it escalate, though my mother tried to get him more angry. I will use a Philism to sum this up.
                                                   "Do you want to be right? 
                                                               Or do you want to be happy? 
 How does a delusional person get a another to see his or her point of view? The ill person lives inside a world we don't understand, but I believe it is possible.