My mother is schizophrenic, so I have quite a bit of experience dealing with mental health issues. I also took a 12-week long Family-to-Family class through the National Alliance for Mental Illness (NAMI). I have a binder with 12 lessons in it from the class. This class was extremely helpful to me. I connected with every single other person on a level that I couldn't with others I've talked about my own issues and my mom's with. Sharing my own stories helped me lift the burden i'd felt I was carrying alone because my friends didn't understand. Listening to others made me realize all of the things I was dealing with were completely normal when you have a mentally ill relative, especially when it is an inner circle member (mother, father, child, sibling). Some of the lessons include how to communicate better with your relative, putting yourself in their shoes and understanding whats going on in their mind, how to keep yourself healthy and stable while dealing with the struggle of caring for this person deeply. There is a whole section on the brain chemistry of mental illnesses, which was really cool to learn about.

I am willing to scan any or all of the pages you'd want to see, or just talk (on the phone or in person) with you about my experiences with my mother and yours with your relative. Sometimes it really is hard to find someone who relates to your situation and to actually believe someone when they say "I understand."