Beginning life with a normal and happy childhood, at age 17 Joe Bowers had his first psychotic episode resulting in hospitalization in the Middletown State Mental Institution. Diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, he then began his lifelong journey through treatments and drug therapies as beliefs within the psychiatric community and societal attitudes changed. This is his story and his beliefs about what needs to be done to improve the situation now facing those with severe mental illness and their families.