In the spring of 2015, Sadia Messaili lost her son to suicide. Ferid had been a bright and empathetic 32-year-old with a loving family; he had also lived with mental health challenges for much of his adult life, eventually receiving a diagnosis of schizophrenia. But in spite of a strong support system at home and family members who advocated for him with mental health professionals, Ferid had struggled to find appropriate and timely care within Quebec’s psychiatric system. Just a week before his death, he had visited an emergency room because he was experiencing suicidal thoughts. Instead of readmitting him to the psychiatric ward where he had recently been a patient, the psychiatrist who spoke to him sent him home with a referral to a day program.

In Still Crying for Help, Messaili begins with the crisis point of Ferid’s death and then tries to untangle how the situation developed. She reassesses her son’s childhood, looking for potential roots of his mental illness. Was it the trauma of an extended separation from his parents when he was just a toddler? Was it a reflection of having lived through social and political upheaval in both Croatia and Algeria as a child? Was it the stress of immigrating to Quebec as a teen?

What does seem clear to Messaili is that her province’s mental health system is profoundly broken. She describes an environment that is coercive, punitive, and shaped to cater to doctors’ egos rather than patients’ needs. Instead of being listened to, Ferid is drugged into submission. When his family questions the way his case is being managed, they’re scolded for not acting in his best interest. Ferid initially approached his treatment with a sense of hopefulness, believing that he could recover and live a fulfilling life. By the time he died, he’d become convinced that this was impossible.

Messaili has devoted the years since Ferid’s death to exploring not only the ways mainstream psychiatric care fails the most vulnerable but also how things might be different. She interviews experts on mental health reform, researches a radical Finnish program that treats psychosis without medication, and confronts the possibility that Ferid’s death might have been related to a bad reaction to the drugs he was prescribed. The result is a work that is part polemic, part love letter to her son.

There are moments when Still Crying for Help feels unbalanced; in spite of her railing against a system that doesn’t listen to patient voices, Messaili does not include many quotes from those with mental illnesses. And while there is certainly room to criticize the psychiatric drug industry, it does seem remiss not to acknowledge that many people find medication to be helpful in treating mental health conditions. Still, those who have tried to navigate the labyrinthine and under-resourced mental health system will find validation in Messaili’s words.