The Sandy Pruett Project represents families living through the consequences of untreated Severe Mental Illness.
The impact of untreated Severe Mental Illness fractures families in ways that most people never see. Some become estranged. Some live in fear behind locked bedroom doors. Others watch someone they love slip away — sometimes in crisis, sometimes in silence. And many are forced to navigate impossible choices without support, without safety, and without being heard.
We’ve all begged for help only to be told:
“It’s not illegal to be mentally ill.”
A majority of people who experience psychosis have "Anosognosia", a neurological barrier to insight, meaning our loved ones can’t recognize their own illness. They push us away, resist treatment, and decline into danger, not out of defiance, but because they don’t know they need help and often resent the family for insisting there is something wrong with them (for help with this, try the LEAP Method).
The
Sandy Pruett Project is a safe, anonymous platform where these families can finally tell their stories.
Every story is real. Every name is protected. Every voice matters.
Sandy is not a person. She is a collective voice.
She speaks for:
• The spouse/mother/father/sister/brother whose loved one believes they’re the enemy
• The caregivers shut out by a system that misreads HIPAA as silence
• The loved one who’s trying, but can’t hold onto care that won’t hold onto them
• Those who didn’t survive the wait
Some of us feel rage at "the system" that isn't a system at all. This is a means to get our stories out into the world.
No names.
No shame.
Just truth.
