Mental Health: From a Canadian perspective.

Improved Treatments Ease A Cruel Disease

It’s quite horrendous. First of all, you’ve got somebody that you love, a child that you’ve raised And then suddenly, the child becomes a crazy person.

June Beeby speaks with disarming candor – her way of dealing with the horror that befell her family. It began in 1979, when Beeby’s 17-year-old son, Matthew, started to hallucinate. Diagnosed as schizophrenic, the boy stayed at home in Toronto as his condition worsened. In his madness, Matthew believed that God wanted his mother and his sister Susan, to die. Frightened, Beeby tried to have Matthew committed so that he could be treated. But, she discovered that this was virtually impossible without Matthew’s consent – which he would not give. Then on a dark, cold day in February, 1981, Beeby arrived home to discover her son dead in a pool of blood…