“If you had asked me a few years ago if a paranoid schizophrenic could raise a child alone without damaging the psyche of the child, I would have said no,” the doctor began. “But Celeste Clemm not only raised Corvina all on her own, she was rational enough to make a living, homeschool her, teach her everything she needed to be self-sufficient, all the while dealing with her own undiagnosed condition. It is one of the most extraordinary things I’ve heard. But then, maternal instinct has always been something understudied. It’s a very complex case.”
So the fact that an untreated mentally ill woman was able to raise someone that "well-adjusted" is unusual. But I would argue Corvina isn't even well-adjusted mentally. She was able to navigate social situations because she read a lot of books growing up, but she got her worldview and sense of reality 100% from fiction books—which isn't a healthy outlook. (We have no mention of her reading non-fiction.)
Corvina is desperate to belong somewhere and be loved despite not being normal, so she rushed into an ill-advised relationship with a questionable man. It just so happened to work out and he wasn't as bad as he seemed, but this could have ended horribly for her.
