In that time, they have felt frustration and alienation, guilt and anger.

Now, through the Rowan chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, they can offer valuable experience to another mentally ill person’s father, mother, wife or husband.

They can be of help to “people out there that don’t know ‘What do I do?’ or ‘How do I handle this?’” Ken said recently.

The families of the mentally ill often suffer in silence because they don’t know what else to do, Frankie said.

“We’re still in the dark ages as far as mental illness is concerned,”she said.

Mark’s illness surfaced when he was 17. His family didn’t know how to help and the first doctor who examined him didn’t.

“His first diagnosis was made by a doctor that never talked to him,” Frankie said. “He didn’t look up to look at him.”

The doctor said Mark had paranoid schizophrenia. After doing some research, Mark’s mother concluded the doctor was wrong.

“I decided I was going to have to self educate,” she said. The last diagnosis Mark had was schizoaffective bipolar disease, a symptom of which is depression.

Mark worked for many years after his illness surfaced, but with difficulty, she said. And some people didn’t understand why he had difficulty working.

That’s common, said Dr. Esther Winters, a psychologist and director of Piedmont Behavioral Healthcare in Salisbury.

People with mental illnesses who are unable to work are often seen as “lazy or unmotivated,”she said.

“I think an organization like NAMI can help dispel some of those myths,”she said.

Families talking to each other might help dispel other fallacies about mental illness, such as parents being responsible for it.

“I blamed myself,”Frankie said. “We were taught that whatever happens to your kid is your fault.”

But that didn’t keep Mark’s family from working on his behalf, from driving him to appointments to getting the right medication.

Frankie learned of Clozril, a drug used in Europe and in limited, state-funded trials here, and determined Mark would have it.

“I got on the phone and told Kenneth if I accomplished nothing that week but to get Mark on that medication, that’s what I was going to do,”she said.

She did, and the medication “gave us our child back,”Frankie said. But the Vanhoys are still fighting for Mark and against the social stigma of mental illness.

And they tell relatives of other people with mental illness to do the same.

“I try to encourage them to know that there are people that understand, and there is help,”she said. “And you have to be persistent and educated.”

Winters agreed and said a group like the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill helps people become educated and gives them others to lean on who understand their situations.