B&B’s John McCook shares a message about his son Jake’s schizophrenia, and the new book written by wife Laurette and Jake to help others.

Boldness is beautiful enduring star, John McCook (Eric Forrester) took to his Instagram to deliver an important message and to share how proud he is of his son, Jake and his wife, Laurette.

Jake, who was diagnosed, and lived with schizophrenia, wrote a book with his mother called The Cliffs of Schizophrenia available for pre-order at www.JakeMcCook.com.

According to the loglines for the book, “Jake was hospitalized at age 30 with anxiety, depression and paranoia. He was later diagnosed with schizophrenia. Jake designed (the book) with short chapters alternating between mother and son, written in larger fonts for simplicity and clarity. While creating it, Jake’s worst paranoid thoughts were triggered. He overcame this by writing some chapters in a free-form style, allowing you to experience what’s going on in his head with remarkable insight and humor. Laurette reinforces those thoughts by shining a light on the logic wrapped in the mother’s wisdom, as if it could prevent her son from falling into an abyss. Together, they paint a picture of today’s mental health challenges seen through bleak glasses and shades of grey, and also, The Cliffs of Schizophrenia Rit remains a story of resistance and lasting hope for a better life. If you are bound by this brain disease, or you are a loving caregiver, you should keep this book next to your bed for the days you want normality. You are not alone.”

In his video message sincere about Instagram, John McCook began with: “I want to talk about a book that my wife and my son wrote. My son Jake has schizophrenia. He and my wife, Laurette wanted to write a book to help people understand what it is in a family to help others and to be understanding”.

John explained a little more about the perception of schizophrenia, “When Jake was first diagnosed with schizophrenia, it was as alarming, actually, for Laurette and me as it would be, I think, for anyone . There is a stigma attached to the words “schizophrenia”, and there is a very wide spectrum of what schizophrenia means, or represents. Fortunately for us, and Jake, it is not in a radical place with it. It is a space where it can be administered, and then we immediately thought, “we have to deal with this”.

Photo: JakeMcCook.com

Also, as he continued, John gave Laurette so much credit: We went to the doctors. Some of them were useful and some were not, really. So Laurette, and I give her all the credit for this, Laurette took charge of how we deal with this as a family. Laurette has been all these years, not just a co-author with Jake, but his champion. More important than that, she was the mother… the best mother I could have ever had. When they decided they wanted to write a book together, I thought, “Well, that’s good.” I was impressed that they wanted to do it and that Jake wanted to do it too. It took months and months and months to put this together and I purposely didn’t want to read it.”

Photo: JakeMcCook.com

Like a very proud father and husband, John ended his video by saying: “I didn’t read the book until recently. I was more than impressed, I was so proud of their achievement and what they did and so proud of what I think the book offers to people who are curious, or who are going through this with their families. It is a useful book, wonderfully instructive, and so with great pride I recommend this book.”

You can check out John’s touching video message The Cliffs of Schizophrenia below.

Now let us know what you think of John, Laurette and Jake sharing their family struggles and how they hope that through the experiences Jake and Laurette share in their new book, it will help other families dealing with a diagnosis of similar mental health? Share your thoughts in the comments section.