Too bad the therapist couldn’t convince her to use the methods to save her marriage. Would that make a difference to her? My friend’s son with scz used a regular life therapist to help him learn what he could and couldn’t talk about if he wanted to have relationships. He saw it as having a life coach, he wanted to present as “normal”.
Will her sisters step in and take her into their families? Does she ever mention anything she thinks she would like to do?
My friend is married to a woman with bipolar. He works hard to make the marriage work and it gets harder the more he learns about bipolar. Personally, I wish he would seek more happiness for himself and his children, he tries to control her bipolar and her bipolar is running the show. It all gets so complicated when he thinks about making changes. People have to stay in relationships only because they want to be there, either for vows or whatever, it has to be a choice they make for themselves.
Plenty of parents have “stepped off”, I know I don’t judge them. How will your son feel about it?
My guess is it’s most effective with folks with complex paranoid delusional systems. My understanding is cognitive functioning is thought to be largely intact and that’s why some can continue to function and have jobs unmedicated as long as you stay away from delusional topics and stressful situations.
It’s training to learn mental coping behaviors. The idea is to change thinking patterns to diminish symptoms and promote clearer thinking. It’s more commonly used in the EU and UK, but there are practitioners in the US.
Its been found to have some success with schizophrenia. The tricky part is finding a therapist who has been trained in CBT and working with someone with schizophrenia. My son’s therapist worked with his psychiatrist. Search wikipedia for Cognitive Behavioral Therapy - the article there has some good information.
@hope
Will her sisters step in and take her into their families? Does she ever mention anything she thinks she would like to do?
No, they can’t and/or won’t - both have teenage and adult children at home anyway, so it’s not possible.
She is always being offered jobs, apparently! Head of the police service, head of the army, running our NHS! She believes she is capable of working, but the reality is that she couldn’t hold down any job for long, if she were ever offered one.
Our son is feeling very angry with her and doesn’t really want to see her - her knows it’s the illness, but he’s a teenage boy, he needed a mother growing up, but she has never really been there for him, although she thinks she has been the perfect mother, of course.
But as you say there is overlap. Before the term schizophrenia was coined, SZ was called dementia praecox which means premature or precocious dementia.
Many of the same medications are used for symptoms. My father takes the same AP medication as I’m prescribed and at the same dosage. He was taking more than me, but they lowered the dosage out of concern for movement and Parkinsonism-like side effects.
@kevin99 - There is a group on FB for people with sz and it appears that they have insight as they are outwardly talking about it. Not that some little FB group could help your situation, but that is where I’ve seen people with insight.
The DX group of this forum is similar. I’d say slightly unhinged posts occur in similar frequency in both. Might be slightly more in the DX forum, but not by much. I used to participate on the DX forum, but haven’t posted in many years.
In my opinion there is a very large gap between the abilities of those who can participate in a schizophrenia forum like on FB, Reddit, or the DX forum, and where those with little insight live. My daughter has absolutely no capability to get onto a computer and participate with others with sz, yet she is what I would consider a recovery success.
Conversely, having insight into your disease or being able to participate in an online forum does not always translate to recovery success either. For example my brother has both, and can spout off studies about bipolar disorder and related drug and genetic studies, yet his latest mantra when I call him is “I take no psychiatric drug other than lots of alcohol.” This is oddly satisfying in that he’s taken what I’ve suspected for years and freely admits it. Before he was cagey about his med compliance, and has always steadfastly refused talk therapy.
Does anyone know if the prefrontal cortex being damaged plays a role in sz and can a person w sz speak bizarre and behave unsafely one minute and when other people come around act normal leaving me in shock and disbelief that I feel angry as if this is being done on purpose .
I don’t know about the prefrontal cortex, I do know that a person with scz can speak bizarrely and behave unsafely one minute and when other people come around act normal - I was shocked. For my son it is especially so with policemen, CIT officers or doctors. I felt like the schizophrenia suddenly went into the background leaving my son to deal with the situation the scz had created.
Yes, one of the points they made in Family to Family is that these brain disorders are often genetic. The teacher asked the class “Do any of you feel like you have some of these symptoms?” The entire class was quiet. She looked around with a laughing expression and asked, “Really?” She was a pretty direct sort of teacher.
It was pretty funny. She went on to make the point that it was possible that brain disorders were on a spectrum similar to autism. A person could have some symptoms without needing to be medicated.
Wow! Sometimes I wondered if he was able to control this behavior and chooses not to because of the fact that when authorities arrive he is able to put the brakes on. So is it that they can’t control it or choose not to. Because when they want to they can .
Personally, I think the arrival of the police gives my son a jolt of adrenalin and snaps him out of the episode.
In my opinion, their control varies depending upon the severity of the episode. If my son’s eyes are dilated, I know for sure my son is not in control.
as with Alzheimer’s disease Sundowning is a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia. It’s also known as “late-day confusion.” If someone you care for has dementia, their confusion and agitation may get worse in the late afternoon and evening. In comparison, their symptoms may be less pronounced earlier in the day.
SZ is a brain disease and needs to be looked at and treated as one !