When one person in a family has a mental illness, that illness is not contained in that one person.

It radiates. It affects everyone. Everybody has to live in response to that illness. Sometimes they manage it effectively.

Sometimes not so much. It varies a lot, but there's always a response. Mental illness in a family

is a shared experience. Now, I've been doing podcasts about mental health for a while now,

including this one.

It's Depresh Mode.

I'm John Moe.

I'm glad you're here.

And ever since I started talking about mental health, listeners have been asking me to do some

interviews about what it's like for everyone else in a family where one person is experiencing

mental health troubles.

People who might not have the same mental

illness as their family members, but need to manage around it anyway. Do a story on that,

people always tell me. And I want to give those listeners what they want, but getting guests

for a show like that is surprisingly difficult. People are willing to come on the show to talk about

themselves, but they tend to be a lot more reticent, a lot more protective when it comes to talking

about living with the mental illness of a parent, a child, a sibling, a spouse. That's why I was

so glad to talk to Liz Shire, author of Never Simple. It's a memoir of

life with her mother who dealt with borderline personality disorder. And let's pull up the Mayo Clinic

definition of borderline personality disorder here real quick, quoting now,

borderline personality disorder is a mental health disorder that impacts the way you

think and feel about yourself and others, causing problems functioning in everyday life. It includes

...