Ma was legally blind due to a degenerative eye disease she'd had since birth. This meant she was entitled to welfare, and our lives revolved around the first day of every month when her payment was due.
From Liz Murray
As well as being blind, Ma turned out to have the same mental illness that her mother had had. Between 1986 and 1990, she suffered six schizophrenic bouts, each requiring her to be institutionalised for up to three months.
Shortly after I turned 13, Child Welfare took me into care. I was sent to a residential centre where girls with behavioural problems were 'evaluated'. My time there comes back to me now only in flashes of smells, images and sounds.
I'd been living on the streets of New York, and I was sleeping at my friends' houses, sometimes in the subway.
2 perspectives
1 perspectives