Memoir Prize for Books Honorable Mention and “2025 Top Notable Indies” from Shelf Unbound.

This family memoir is a vulnerable look at growing up in the shadow of mental
illness—and how somehow, we find our way through it.

“Sometimes funny, sometimes heartbreaking, Sjaastad offers the possibility that even without much in the way of a parental roadmap, we can still find our way to love and forgiveness.”  —Laura Flynn, author of Swallow the Ocean

 

Liz Fiedorow Sjaastad grew up during the Cold War with a mother with untreated schizophrenia and a turbulent alcoholic father who was a first-generation immigrant from Russia. Growing up in the latchkey kid eighties, Liz and her siblings were left to deal with the daily machinations of their mother's paranoid mind.

Shedding light on the complexities of parental mental health and generational trauma, Liz shares the story of a life led despite the fears of “becoming her parents.”

Giving voice to isolating experiences, Liz illuminates the struggles of caring for aging parents who had struggled to care for her.

A transformative read, You’re Too Young to Understand explores . . .

● end-of-life decisions with difficult parents
● breaking the cycle of generational trauma.
● brain illness and anosognosia.
● refugee parents managing their own PTSD.

Unflinching and heartfelt, Liz chronicles how she confronted the trauma of her past to show up for her parents—and herself—when it was needed most.

“Sjaastad bares her soul in this beautifully written book. How she copes is a lesson for us all.”  —Mindy Greiling, former state legislator

“Sjaastad’s compelling memoir will break your heart, then fill it full of her generosity of spirit.”  —Kate St. Vincent Vogl, author of Lost & Found: A Memoir of Mothers

 

 

Liz Fiedorow Sjaastad is an award-winning writer and the president of NAMI Ramsey County.

She received the Loft Literary Center’s Mentor Series Fellowship in 2021. Her memoir, You’re Too Young to Understand, is a recipient of the Memoir Prize for Books Honorable Mention and “2025 Top Notable Indies” from Shelf Unbound.

As a mental health advocate, Liz spent seven years on the board of Touchstone Mental Health. She continues to build awareness of schizophrenia to help end the stigma that prevents understanding, research, and important changes for those suffering.

She received her BA from Knox College in 1989 and her MS from Loyola University Chicago in 1992. She grew up in Galesburg, Illinois and now lives in the Twin Cities area of Minnesota with her family. To keep up with her journey or find resources, visit her online at lizsjaastad.com and Instagram: @lizsjaastad.

"Liz Fiedorow Sjaastad bares her soul in this beautifully written book, recounting the trauma of being raised by a mother with untreated schizophrenia and an alcoholic father. Even as a helpless nine-year-old, she knows that taboos around schizophrenia eclipse alcoholism, and she fears becoming her mother who converses with the refrigerator. While her father surrenders to alcoholism after his greatest love morphs into his greatest misery, Sjaastad and her siblings experience their own demons. As successful adults, Sjaastad and her sister again feel helpless as they seek assistance for ailing parents from a health care system that refuses to acknowledge anosognosia, a lack of understanding of one's illness. How they cope is a lesson for us all. I strongly recommend this book." — Mindy Greiling, former state legislator and author of Fix What You Can

"With clear, unapologetic prose, Liz Fiedorow Sjaastad lays bare her family's traumas not in an attempt to garner sympathy or naval gaze but to ask her readers to be witness to what it means to struggle both with others and within oneself. You're Too Young to Understand refocuses the telling of an all-too-familiar story of how schizophrenia and generational trauma impacts a family to encompass not only the inherent pain but also the surprising moments of joy. Liz's lovefor her family members—no matter how frustrating those relationships were—shines, as does her writing." — Anika Fajardo, author of Magical Realism for Non-Believers: A Memoir of Finding Family

"You're Too Young to Understand opens at the end of a father's life, in a quiet hospital room. In the corner of that room, the author's mother, who lives with schizophrenia, wonders aloud if an injection of Vitamin C might not cure her husband.This is a book of tiptoes on eggshells. Yet, it is a book of deep beauty: the relationship between Liz and her sister—and the delicate look back into the past—reveal moments of love and a few clues into the mysteries of her parents.Liz leads the reader through the dying and death of one parent while holding the hand of the other, the one with the mental illness left with all the decision-making control. You're Too Young to Understand is a rewarding read for anyone who had a complex childhood relationship with their aging parents, especially as they try to navigate decisions and finances and duty." — Nicole Helget, author of Stillwater and The End of the Wild

"Liz Fiedorow Sjaastad's compelling memoir will break your heart, then fill it full of her generosity of spirit. This author knows how to keep readers turning pages with the anguishing turns of her life story, offered with gentle humor and lyrical writing and, above all, compassion. I will be sure to keep an eye out for all she writes." — Kate St. Vincent Vogl, author of Lost & Found: A Memoir of Mothers

"Being raised by a mother with untreated schizophrenia leaves children living in two worlds. They are worlds that collide: the reality the mother's illness creates, and that of the rest of the world. It's confusing, frightening and disorienting. Fiedorow Sjaastad's journey as such a child, chronicled in You're Too Young to Understand, underscores how children feel the burden of helping their parents.In such circumstances, living a life of meaning and happiness can be a daunting task, and Liz tells the story of how she captured and nurtured such a life—all the while trying to understand, navigate, and help her parents. Among the powerful and life-affirming things this story does is help readers separate the person from their illness. Discovering who her mother and father were—which was too often eclipsed by their illnesses of schizophrenia and alcoholism—made it possible for Liz to care for her aging parents. And it is that task, understanding the humanity of our parents, that is the universal truth told in this powerful and moving memoir." — Xavier Amador, PhD, author of the international bestseller I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help!