7: Renee's Story: Mental Illness Affects All of Us

Renee Klein's story begins with her sister, Sandy. When Sandy was just 2.5 years old she was hypersensitive to people and things in her environment, and her family knew she was atypical for her age. At 8 years old, Sandy had a psychotic break and her family's lives would never be the same. Renee shares how the struggles of a family member very much affects the entire family and their group of friends. Her family turned that challenge into something good in bringing awareness and action to help support other families dealing with mental illness by working with NAMI (the National Alliance on Mental Illness) and the housingtaskforce.org as well as supporting the genetic research with the Prechter Family Fund. Renee has made it her life mission to share her family's story to bring light to a sometimes dark subject and show compassion to everyone she meets - because you never know what someone is going through.