My Sister's Keeper: Learning to Cope with a Sibling's Mental Illness

Margaret Moorman does a fantastic job of describing the kind of life families of the mentally ill have to face!

Great deal

This true-story book tells of a woman's experiences in dealing with a sister with bipolar disorder. Throughout her life, her sister's illness has impacted her own life in a variety of ways, and after the mother dies and she is the only one responsible for her sister, the situation intensifies. While on medication, the bipolar sister can function reasonably well, but she goes off meds from time to time and then the sister eventually has a mess to sort out.The ambivalence of the relationship (the two sisters both love and resent each other) is perfectly captured in this book. It rings true. Although there was sufficient money left by the mother and social services available to assist, so that this was not the "worst case" scenario that some families experience, still, the family-wide devastation of mental illness was well captured in this book.I couldn't put it down.

I saw the movie version of the book. The story is about a woman who has a sister who is schizo-affective. Someone who is schizo-affective is not just bipolar. They are both bipolar and schizophrenic. Not only do they become manic and depressed like those who are bipolar; they also hear voices, are paranoid, and suffer from delusions like those who are schizophrenic.Like the author, I have a sister who is older than me who is schizo-affective (in addition to other family members who have some form of mental issues). I understand the author's feelings. I escaped to try to live as normal life as possible, became an over-achiever to prove that I was "normal," and lived in fear that others would see that I wasn't. There is a genetic component to both the bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. The movie didn't touch on this. I don't know whether or not the book did.

Thank you.