When her daughter’s bipolar disorder began to affect her family, Karen Winters Schwartz decided to write a book about the mental illness through a fictional framework.

Winters Schwartz, author of the book ‘Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?: A Family’s Journey Through Bipolar Disorder,’ spoke about her debut novel and her family’s struggles with mental illness on Thursday in the Jabberwocky Café. The book has been out for about seven months.

Winters Schwartz, who is a board member for the Syracuse-area chapter of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, has written three novels about mental illness, but ‘Where Are the Cocoa Puffs?’ is her first to be published, she said.

Her first two books, one about schizophrenia and one about post-traumatic stress disorder, were based on research rather than personal experience and didn’t peak the interest of publishers, she said.

Winters Schwartz said 20 to 25 percent of people are directly affected by mental illness, but nearly everyone is indirectly affected because a friend or family member may suffer from a mental illness. Signs of mental illness are most prevalent in college students who are in new environments and may participate in activities — such as the consumption of alcohol and illicit drugs — that provoke and exacerbate symptoms of mental illness, including thoughts of suicide, Winters Schwartz said.

One of the big problems with mental illness is that it’s considered by some to be a societal taboo, she said.

‘It’s very much still in the closet,’ Winters Schwartz said, adding that mental illness receives little attention from the medical community, leaving those who suffer to feel isolated.

Adding to this problem is the lack of support generated from friends and family members, she said. Winters Schwartz said the negative stigma of mental illness has caused some friends to tell her she doesn’t deserve to have a child with bipolar disorder.

Winters Schwartz said this phrasing suggests that there is some way to prevent mental illnesses — which are neurobiological brain disorders that are not preventable — or that there are bad people out there who deserve to be afflicted with mental illnesses.

Winters Schwartz cited the example of Jared Loughner, the man charged with the Tucson, Ariz., shootings in January that left U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords injured, as a way the media perpetuates mental illness as something to fear. The cover of Time magazine, she said, ran with a picture of Loughner and demonized his silhouette in the color red. The cover resembled what one considers the stereotypical crazy person, Winters Schwartz said.

‘Our perceptions of mental illness are based on hundreds of years of false evidence. That’s why I wrote the book,’ Winters Schwartz said.

Winters Schwartz emphasized that the Cocoa Puffs alluded to in the title of her novel represent knowledge and empathy. She said it is imperative for humans to educate themselves about what mental illness is and is not, which can be done with the help of organizations like National Alliance on Mental Illness, which has a Syracuse University branch for students.

The alliance’s Syracuse-area division has programs for families and parents of those with mental illness, Winters Schwartz said. The programs teach family members how to cope and accept mental illness as simply another facet of a person, and educates them about mental illness as well, she said.

Jillian Rogers, a junior psychology and gerontology major and the alliance’s president, said she was pleased with the mixed audience of students and area adults, calling the lecture a ‘great success.’

Winters Schwartz emphasized the importance of family members and friends working to identify the symptoms of mental illness with the person suffering from it. By working around the condition, the well-intentioned loved one can come off as helpful instead of judgmental, she said.

Said Winters Schwartz: ‘The difference between a suicide and a non-suicide can be one person, one question, one word.’

mekosoff@syr.edu