Glenn Close Reveals 'I Had My Heart in My Throat' While Reading Family's New Book on Their Mental Illness Struggles (Exclusive)

Glenn Close's nephew wrote a fictionalized account of his struggle with mental illness, which he remembers as a "tumultuous experience"

When Glenn Close first read her sister and nephew’s new book, Silence You, she says, “I had my heart in my throat because I knew it was very close to what actually happened. It peeled back another layer of what they all went through.”

The book, out this week, is a fictionalized account of what occurred when Glenn’s nephew Calen Pick experienced a psychotic break at 18 years old and was then diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder. It was co-written by Calen, now 43, and his mom and Glenn's sister, Jessie Close, 71, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder at age 50, following her son’s diagnosis.

Says Calen in this week's PEOPLE, “Writing the book was like putting it back together, my fall into psychosis and how I began to recover.”

“I hope the book will clarify what is a pretty tumultuous experience, and help other people.”

Related: How A Sister's Cry for Help Led Glenn Close to Change the Way We Talk About Mental Illness

As Calen recalls, he first began feeling anxious and moody around age 15. An athlete in high school, he gradually became more and more withdrawn. “He’d sit on the couch and rock and rock and his pupils were huge,” says Jessie. “He’d look out of the windows and say things like, ‘That person is watching me,’ but no one was there.”

“It was a lot of thinking about fantastical things and questioning reality," he says. "It was grandiose. I had a God complex a little bit. I think it was grasping for something bigger than myself.”

One day in 1998, Jessie went up to the loft studio over their family’s garage where Calen was living. “He had painted ‘Silence You’ across the wall in dripping red paint," she says. "And it was like, holy shit, what is this?”

Calen’s father, Tom Pick (Jessie’s third husband from whom she was then divorced) took him to a hospital in Helena, Montana, where he entered a psychiatric ward. It was a phone call she will never forget. “I never heard Tom cry like he did after Calen was admitted,” she remembers. “Calen was a golden boy. He was gorgeous and smart and funny. He had a ton of friends — and it just all went to hell in a handbasket.” 

Related: Glenn Close on Discovering Her Family's Genetic Component for Mental Illness and Depression 

He was eventually diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder, a mental health condition that is marked by a mix of schizophrenia symptoms, such as hallucinations and delusions, and mood disorder symptoms, such as depression, mania and a milder form of mania called hypomania, according to Mayo Clinic.

For two years, Calen lived in a halfway house on hospital grounds until he slowly found the right medication. “A lot of sedation and trial and error,” he says. “It was two steps forward and one step back.”

Once he returned home to Bozeman, Montana, his younger sister Mattie, knew something had changed in her beloved big brother. Now 33, Mattie recalls, “He didn’t talk a lot. He wore his sunglasses 24/7. He seemed more fragile. You could tell he had been through a lot.”

Over time, he found more equilibrium with an antipsychotic medication — and therapy. Today, he is married to Meg, a therapeutic horseback riding instructor, and finds solace in painting, something he loved even as a kid. “Maybe it’s just understanding myself, that is the journey I’m on,” he says. “So to have freedom and feel good again is all I’m trying to do.”

Related: Taye Diggs Reveals Sister’s Schizophrenia Diagnosis, Says He’s 'Embarrassed' by His Previous Misconceptions (Exclusive)

Over time, he and his family have leaned on and learned from each other. In 2010, Glenn co-founded Bring Change to Mind to help fight the stigma and silence surrounding mental illness. Since then, Jessie and Calen have joined forces with her to share their firsthand — and sometimes harrowing — accounts. 

“It’s not scary to me anymore,” says Jessie.“I don’t think staying hidden is good for anybody.”

In turn, "Aunt Glenn,” is inspired by their resilience. Says Glenn, “The fact that over ten years ago, Jessie and Calen went on national TV and said, ‘I’m living with bipolar disorder’ and ‘I’m living with schizoaffective' — that to me was pure courage.”