Among the many cruelties of severe mental illness is how it seems to steal away the person who existed before.

You can love someone plagued by psychosis, but you can't really rely on them.

Their behavior might be so radically different than before they got sick that loved ones feel like they are dealing with someone else entirely.

And then, if a person who's been ill for many years experiences a recovery so radical that no one could have predicted it, who are you dealing with then?

From KERA in Dallas, this is think. I'm Chris Boyd.

There's no blood test for schizophrenia.

Sufferers are diagnosed based on symptoms like delusions,

hallucinations, disorganized thinking, and speech.

But scientists are beginning to realize some small percentage

of people diagnosed with schizophrenia

are in fact made ill by an autoimmune disorder, which, if properly treated, can cause those

symptoms to vanish forever. Patients are effectively cured. But then begins the work of reclaiming

an identity they may not have fully inhabited for decades.

Rachel Aviv is a staff writer at The New Yorker.

Recently, she spent time getting to know a family who lived through this.

Two daughters whose mother lost herself to what was thought to be schizophrenia when she was in her early 40s,

only to be accidentally cured 20 years later when she was given immunotherapy to treat lymphoma.

The article is titled, Mary had schizophrenia, then suddenly she didn't.

Rachel, welcome to think.

Thank you for having me.

So at the center of this story is Mary, who was 43 years old when she experienced her first symptoms of psychosis. Her daughters were just little

children at the time. What do they remember about their mom from before she got sick?

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