I have lost a happy family to mental illness (paranoid delusions). My ex-spouse unilaterally left the house 2005-06-03. After she left, I was crying every day. I sought help myself because I became severely depressed due to the unexpected separation.
My parents are still concerned about my ex-spouse's mental health with paranoid delusions, while her own parents are still hiding the truth at any cost, and are happy to see their daughter projecting an appearance of normalcy to the neighbours and to the colleagues at her office. To them, giving her medical treatment for paranoid delusions is not a priority at all as long as she makes a good salary. I am absolutely disgusted by their behaviour, but such is the enormous power of stigma towards mental illness.
I did my best to save the happy family, but it turned out to be impossible. My 12-year old daughter (Evelyne) described my circumstance as "worse than dead". I was keeping notes about my crisis during the tragedy in 2005-2006 as "Surveillance and Spying", which I hope would be published someday in order to help other people in combating mental illness and especially stigma towards mental illness.
I met a German widow in Skype early last year. After a few chat sessions, the German widow told me that she was grieving because her late spouse committed suicide. She disclosed to me that her spouse was under suspicion that Stasi (the ex-East German secret police) was after him. I explained to her that such paranoid delusions are due to mental illness. In fact, she had no idea at all that there was biochemical imbalance in his brain. We have been supporting each other, but the odds of encountering a total stranger with identical mental health issue is astronomical. Or paranoid delusions may not be so rare after all...
