Mind Gone Astray

-Leila Hill, MA Clinical Psychology, LMHC

"Pain requires release, and thus Wayne Kallio writes. Yet how horrific must it be for one when her hurt cuts only inward like a fishhook. The barbs are ever there, and her fear to pull them out so great, that her demons burrow yet deeper. They split off on their own in the hope she can't feel them. They fester and boil then to randomly surface in bizarre eruptions."
-Larry Warwaruk, Saskatchewan Author

When Charles Koivu, narrator of this story, entered his home after work nearly two years ago, he couldn't locate his wife. He became worried when she said she had been in the bedroom hiding from the men in the black car. This was just the beginning of this couple's journey into the world of mental illness-one that would test their forty-year marriage.

In Mind Gone Astray, Wayne Kallio tells the true story of this middle-class couple's face-to-face battle with schizophrenia. Without fabrication or exaggeration, the story portrays Kaija's thoughts, her bizarre hallucinations, and her unpredictable behavior as she responds to the constant voices that have come to dominate her life. It traces the emotional impact on Charles, his struggle to comprehend the incomprehensible, and his helplessness in spite of his determination to assist his beloved spouse. His confusion, frustration, despair, hope, anger, newly acquired patience, and gradual acceptance are the roller-coaster ride of this story.

A cry for awareness and understanding, Mind Gone Astray provides a firsthand account of the ravages of mental illnesses and the challenges it brings to relationships. Schizophrenia has changed Charles and Kaija's lives, but it hasn't dampened their love for each other.