After graduating high school, Andrea Crook (right) moved from her parent’s home in Northern California to Los Angeles. She was on her own for the first time in her life and had never before knowingly experienced the symptoms of mental illness.

A few years later, when she was 24, Andrea began having paranoid thoughts, delusions, and her behavior became erratic. One day she picked up the phone and called her mother, Marilyn Hillerman (left), who knew by the tone of her voice that Andrea needed her help.

Almost 20 years later, the two of them sat down for StoryCorps in Sacramento, California, to discuss that call and its aftermath.

Andrea is now married with two children, and serves as a client advocate liaison for Mental Health America of Northern California.

Originally aired October 9, 2015, on NPR’s Morning Edition.