Anyone have a young family member with schizophrenia?
Hello all,
It's been a while since I wrote. I haven't had much time. I hope all of you sweet wonderful people are doing well.
One of my daughters is going through a terrible time and so is the rest of her family. One of my daughter's children, a beautiful and sweet daughter 18 YO, has been behaving erratically and having delusions. Saying that someone is telling her awful things and honestly, what she's said is just unreal. We haven't had any schizophrenia in our family and my SIL doesn't know of any in his family either.
She has a care team and my daughter/SIL are very pleased with the therapist/docs. She is on medication and we're starting to see a little improvement. It has been horrendous. So many tears and sadness.
In the midst of all this, there was more drama from my elderly mom. She started in again about moving in with us and I told her we have already had that conversation and the answer is always going to be "no". I then said that I have more pressing matters to tend to and that I would talk to her some other time. Seriously, having a beautiful grandchild with her life ahead of her becoming so ill has hit me hard. My mom has had a very long life yet she believes her issues are more important; well, they're not. I told her she would have to figure it out as I have more pressing matters here with daughter/granddaughter. She exploded at that and I just hung up and blocked her. And I didn't feel a thing about it - no guilt, no anger just, "Meh, what else is new."
My granddaughter, long auburn hair, green eyes, lovely skin, talented at so many artistic things. My heart is full.
End all be all, he became a beautiful human, beautiful family, and a great job in the mental health field. It made him who is is today.
Love her, get the help she needs and her problems may very well help others someday
I'm not sure when his illness started, but I'd guess it was around the same age as your granddaughter. (He's 25 now.) His mom couldn't get him the real help he needed and his dad who could wouldn't get involved enough in his life to be of much use.
Surprisingly, he finally got help after getting arrested and being sentenced to a mental health facility. He had to spend two years in that place in a terrible part of town with a lot of people far worse off than he was, but he finally got on the right medications and he's like a new kid now. He just got out last October, and he's as right as rain mentally. He's back living with his mom, which isn't the best situation for him, but he's able to get a job and function just fine as long as he stays on his meds.
It's sad, scary, and heartbreaking, but there is hope for your granddaughter to be a fully functioning member of society. The key is to stay on the meds even when she feels fine.
My childhood BFFs son, 38, is schizophrenic. Diagnosed in his late teens. He's fine if he stays on his medication, and disengaged with his wife and daughter if he refuses, which is 99% of the time. He disassociates from others and lives in his own world, a solitary soul who drives a semi for a living.
My ex husband of 22 was finally diagnosed schizotypal a few years after we divorced and he lost everything. He refused to get diagnosed or take medication for his erratic behavior, so I chose to cut the cord with him. Nowadays he takes all sorts of meds and is somewhat more functional as a result.
My mother lived to 95 and refused to ever see a doctor for what I believe was her Borderline Personality disorder and horrendous fears and anxiety. Dad and I had a helluva time dealing with her for decades, especially after the dementia set in.
The common thread with all of my examples is the refusal to see therapists, psychiatrists, take necessary medications and to instead live in denial, which is not just a river in Egypt.
Mental health issues are common among human beings. Just as medical conditions are. People are 90% more likely to seek and follow medical advice than mental health advice. There is STILL a stigma attached to it, unfortunately.
Make your daughter and more importantly, your granddaughter feel loved and not judged, and not that GD is afflicted with such a horrible and heartbreaking illness. She just has to do A, B, C, and D to live a normal life, similar to a type 1 diabetic who has to test her blood sugar several times a day, use insulin, and eat a healthy diet. A diabetic doesn't question that regimen; it's what must be done to stay alive and healthy. Your GD will learn what SHE must do to stay healthy and happy as well, and the routine will smooth out in time.
We all have a cross or 2 to bear in life, and once we accept the challenge, we're golden. It's when we fight and rage against the moon and cry WHY ME? that things get really hard. Accept what is and move forward, together as a family.
Your priorities are straight.....mother can fly a kite right now. I had many incidents where I had to put my mother, the drama queen, on the back burner while I went out to slay dragons myself. Otherwise, she'd have ADDED an enormous load to my already overburdened shoulders.
Best of luck to you.
As a side note, you may want to look into the work of Chris Palmer, MD, of Harvard Medical School and McLean Psychiatric Hospital. He is currently investigating treating psychiatric illness as a metabolic disease, and apparently has had some encouraging success with his own patients. His book for the general public is called Brain Energy and I found it quite interesting. (And he is definitely not anti-meds or making extravagant claims that his approach is a cure-all, etc.)
Best to you and your family!
As to the diagnosis of your granddaughter? I have in my family a likewise just beautiful step-granddaughter who is bipolar. If you have good medical help that is a blessing. If she will keep on her meds that will be a blessing. But the world of mental health is notoriously tough to negotiate and there is really no such thing as getting good guardianship in place.
This is a tragedy. You all in the family already know this. And the impact will be ongoing. Some do better than others, but challenges will persist and I can only recommend a REALLY GOOD support group if you can find one. With these beautiful children of ours, thusly beset, the tendency to self medicate--I will be blunt here in saying drugs and alcohol--is very very seductive, and if it happens the complications go up exponentially.
Trust me, you are not alone. You didn't cause this, you can't fix it, and the world of mental health will be iffy and will throw out more diagnoses and ideas for expensive treatments than you can begin to imagine. It's an awful place to be stuck in. I am terribly terribly sorry.
I am also glad you told your mother how it is. I feel the same way. There are others in my family who have more pressing needs and require more help than my mother who is in a NH. All she does is complain about whatever it is she needs to complain about that day.
I had to cut my one month visit with my parents short because my 44 yo son in law decided he wants to recreate his life as a college frat boy and so he picked up and left his wife and four children two weeks ago. I had to fly back to pick my daughter off the floor and help a 7 and 9 year old deal with the trauma of his sudden departure.
So I had to tell my mother that I needed to go and that was that. She had her life. My granddaughters' well being is more important than my mother's issues.
He is inconsistent with most things in his life. He won't take medicine, just wants to smoke weed all day. He won't go to therapy and he is very impulsive. He is paranoid with certain things, but also somewhat aware of when he is about to go manic (I say this loosely).
I'm so sorry you are going through this. If she has a good support system (sounds like she does) and will take her meds and go to therapy regularly she can live a normal life. It may take a while for her to be regulated though. I'll be praying for you all! Hang in there and don't let your mom or anyone else burden you. It sounds like you have your priorities straight, the rest will figure itself out.
My LO with dx SZ was a prem baby. A Doctor once said that was a risk factor.