I have lived my entire life around mental illness. My mother has been fighting a long term battle with PTSD that has manifested in a variety of ways. As a small child my mother would go from extreme happiness to extreme anger in what felt like a split second. As a teenager when my mom started to finally get mental health therapy I saw her struggle with a life time of memories coming back at once. I saw hallucinations and the utter terror of wading through a life time of pain. I became the child parent taking care of things around the house to ease the pain I saw my mother experiencing. The other side of that is that I also saw redemption when my mother graduated law school. I saw her start her own law practice and take control of her own life.