San Diego family struggles with all-too-familiar cycle of mental illness

Jo loves to feel the breeze blowing through her mid-city home, but for the past eight months, she said, “I’m afraid to open up the windows.”

“I make sure that every window is locked, I make sure at night I don’t turn on hardly any lights. I don’t want him to see that I’m in here,” she said.

Jo, 84, spent much of 2025 with her doors and windows closed due to her son's repeated visits, in violation of two restraining orders due to his schizophrenia diagnosis.

The 84-year-old San Diego resident is hiding from her son, Ed, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia and has spent much of the last 30 years in jail, prison or...