This is one of the saddest stories I've read in some time. What do you do with somebody like this? She is so severely ill that, absent a major medical breakthrough, she will never have even a minimal quality of life. If you read the article and watch the video, you'll see that it's not true that "crazy people don't know they're crazy." This girl is fully aware that she's crazy, and, I think, she also knows there's nothing anyone can do about it; that's why she keeps trying to kill herself. She doesn't want to live like this. I cannot blame her for feeling like that. That's not a crazy thought; that's how anyone in her situation would feel.

Parents cope with child with schizophrenia - Los Angeles Times

I read this and watched the article. Such a shame, this girl has serious problems.

I don't quite understand why they are taking such an old school approach to her anti-psychotics. There are some newer drugs on the market that don't have nearly the long term side effects of some of the drugs she is on (Haldol, Thorazine? we took our clients off thorazine almost 10 years ago because of the cardiac side effect).

My heart goes out to this poor girls parents. Her long term outlook is not good. Many individuals that psychotic do achieve the goal of taking themselves out of their misery and that will devastate her parents.

I was wondering about that, too. Perhaps they're on Medi-Cal--her treatment costs have got to be staggering and the article says the mom was laid off recently--and it doesn't pay for the newer drugs? Or maybe they didn't work on her?

I sincerely hope for a medical breakthrough that will help this poor girl. Arguably, a child with terminal cancer has a better quality of life than she does.

I read this yesterday and so many feelings went through my mind. I had to stop and think why this particular thread affected me so deeply.

When there's something amiss is my life, I can generally figure out a way to make it better. If not, I can just avoid or ignore what's causing the problem and still live successfully. This little girl is a prisoner of her brain chemistry. There's no escaping that, no ignoring it, no making it better except through chemical alteration. Drugs are made in one-size-fits-all and are not successful for everybody. It's pretty much up to a person to keep returning to the doctor until they get the right drug or combination of drugs. That's difficult financially and emotionally. I'm sure most people just give up and live diminished lives because they aren't finding the help they need. To make matters worse, there's very little patience, tolerance, and empathy in today's society toward mental illness. That makes the journey harder on the little girl and on her parents who feel left alone to deal with it all.

I hope future medicine will include some type of brain chemistry testing so that doctors can concoct the correct amount of chemicals to bring the brain back to a socially acceptable norm for all schizophrenia and other mental illnesses. I also think that the idea of schizophrenia developing in time has been shattered by the fact that this tyke has it already. She just might be the case to get scientists on track toward finding a cure.

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