stock photo of a woman for the story 'Parenting and Social Work'

A route to recovery

Kathryn Lestage, BSW

My story begins in 1985. I am 21 years old. Since high school, I have spent two precious years of good mental health attending community college and traveling our country from coast to coast. I am eager to attend UBC to obtain the prerequisites for their school of social work. This endeavour comes to a crashing, screeching, hallucinating halt. Christmas exams are replaced with psychiatric consults and hospitalization. I experience a 'nervous breakdown' (psychotic break). I am told I may develop schizophrenia and will not work or finish school. I am also told that a nervous breakdown may never again be visited upon me; sometimes these symptoms never come back.

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