My grandmother Brenda was born in the mountains of Alabama in 1942. By the age of 19, just months after giving birth to my mother, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

Mental illness was not discussed in the 1950s and 60s like it is today. It was a taboo subject in rural areas of the South, which left many people shunned, hidden away and accepting the few treatment options that were often just radical experiments.

My grandmother was one of these hidden individuals. Brenda was institutionalized her entire adult life, bouncing around between mental hospitals and group homes in Alabama and Tennessee, until the day she died in 2012 at 70 years old.

Can you fathom being mentally and physically confined in a way that is completely beyond your control for 51 years?

Read the Rest of Brenda’s story here -> http://elitedaily.com/life/learned-live-passion-grandmothers-struggle-schizophrenia/