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Von Allan remembers the time he was 12 or 13 and his teacher at Glashan Public School began to lecture him about his poor attendance record.

“Some teacher was getting angry at me. I was missing a lot of classes. And I had literally, the night before, picked my mom up off the floor because she had passed out,” he said.

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“That was one of the realizations that I had as a kid that this whole school-reality-marks thing is bulls—. My mom’s in trouble. That’s what I needed to do. If that meant I had to miss a day of school, who cares? I will get over it.”

The “trouble” Allan’s mother, Judith, faced was schizophrenia. It would be years before Allan, now a successful illustrator and graphic novelist, would come to terms with what it meant to grow up as the child of a parent with mental illness. There was violence — his mother would smash and throw things, though she never directed her anger at Allan — and there were psychotic episodes and stays in hospital. But for Allan, mental illness meant “crushing” poverty and an exhausted and bedridden mother.