Hi,
I am the adult daughter of a mother who has some form of paranoid schizophrenia/schizoaffective disorder. I just discovered this chat room, which seems to have reached a completely different community of people than the Facebook forums I usually frequent. I'd just like to say hello to everyone, since in the past couple of years I have made an effort to connect with as many others as possible who have had experiences similar to mine. My situation with my mother is pretty stable these days, but I still spend a lot of time sorting through the many difficult feelings—especially anxiety—that plague me as a result of my upbringing in my mother's chaotic, confusing, emotionally neglectful household.

I write a monthly blog for a website called The Crooked House, and I find no shortage of topics to think about, and old memories to dredge up and examine, even when my life is stable and my mother is doing well. The site is meant to be an online community and forum that is in many ways similar to this one, but additionally has regular bloggers and video interviews with people who have mentally ill parents. Also, anyone who would like to share their own story on The Crooked House can enter a 500-word message about any aspect of your experiences with your ill parent, which is then posted on the site.

I hope you'll check it out. I think that as a community of Daughters and Sons it can benefit us greatly to connect with one another in as many ways as are possible.

Here is the Home Page:
http://www.thecrookedhouse.org/

To read others' thoughts about their experiences, you can go to the Blog Page:
http://www.thecrookedhouse.org/blog.html

To write your own, go to Share Your Story:
http://www.thecrookedhouse.org/yourstories.html

You can also 'Like" The Crooked House on Facebook. This can be a good way to "meet" other daughters and sons of mentally ill parents:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Crooked-House/159384467442314

Thanks very much for reading, and for opening up and connecting.

Marin Sardy