“What had happened to our beautiful happy life? Could it really be over for us? I just wasn’t sure if our love was strong enough to keep us together. I probably believed it wasn’t.”

It was an idyllic marriage. John and Marion were high school sweethearts who married and began a successful life together. He, an internationally respected scientist in his field and she, a business woman in her family firm. With three children and finally settled in Victoria. BC, Canada after stints in Vienna and Australia, tragedy struck.

Despite the eventual and probable diagnosis of late-onset schizophrenia, John and Marion struggled to hold their family together and to deal with an illness that usually strikes much earlier in life. This is their story of what happens when the mind betrays you.

The couple’s experience with schizophrenia opened their eyes to the stigma that surrounds mental illness. To help eradicate the accompanying shame, Marion wrote a book about her husband’s condition. The memoir Unfaithful Mind chronicles John’s symptoms, delusions, and emergency-room visits as well as the toll that schizophrenia took on the family.

Marion says she wanted to write the book—which includes sections written by John himself, explaining what he experienced while having delusions and hallucinations—in part to have a record for their children when they’re older. — The Straight

Marion Gibson graduated from the University of Toronto with a degree in Environmental Studies. She is inspired to write for families who have a loved one with a mental illness. When not writing, Marion enjoys gardening, cooking and spending time with her family in beautiful Victoria, BC. Unfaithful Mind is her first book.

We speak with Marion Gibson, in an interview first recorded in March 2014.

534_unfaithful mind_october_30_2014_40
Left-click to listen; right-click to save.