The Memory Palace, by Mira Bartok, is the story of a woman’s life with her schizophrenic mother. After a major car accident, Myra was left with traumatic brain injuries, affecting her memory. Myra and her older sister flew back to Cleveland to be with their dying, schizophrenic mother, Norma Herr, in her final hours. After discovering her mother’s storage locker, Myra reminisced her childhood and reflected on her mentally ill mother as a parent. As children, Myra and her older sister, Rachel, were forced to grow up with their unstable mother. Myra’s family was extremely poor and lived in harsh conditions. When Myra finally got the chance to escape her life, she was forced to stay and care for her mother. After threats, pleading, and overall paranoia from her mother, Myra left her old life behind to escape and finally be free. Throughout the book, Myra has to …show more content…
Without the right amalgam of medication, therapy, and care from friends and family, a schizophrenic’s condition would worsen to, possibly, the end of their life (Pies 1). Naomi Haskell aided her 19-year old son and his struggle with schizophrenia by driving him everywhere, buying him his own apartment, and helping to make sure he was fine. She did this in hopes of giving him the normal life he deserved (McCrummen). “Naomi starts to cry. If he is feeling better, she knows it might be the start of a manic phase. If he is feeling worse, she knows he is trying to hide it…The one thing Spencer had told her that she believed unconditionally was that if he ever decided to commit suicide again, he would make sure no one suspected it.” (McCrummen 9). A person affected by schizophrenia is not the only one with paranoia. There is also the constant paranoia from the carer of the schizophrenic of not being able to fully help them with their condition