Can't find help for my wife

Over th e past Six month I have seen my wife disappear and now feel like some strange hobo took her place.

My wife and I i’ve been together for almost 15 years nearly half our lives The happiest years of my life up until about six months ago she started getting very distant and very uncaring about things like our daughter Who had been everything to her.

Then came the signs suddenly every song was written about her and for her and every number had some kind of meaning. After that she truly believes that she is a Native American which she is not she is very white and all of a sudden she started eating and drinking things she never did before and dressing like a homeless person. All of a sudden it was like I had another child instead of a partner.

And finally one day I woke up to work late because no one was here and I’ve noticed that my car was gone also .it’s because she decided to take it and drive to another state because that’s what God told her to do. I almost got fired and she had left my daughter stranded at the bus stop.well after missing persons report very long six days she finally made it back home to act like nothing even happened.finally with the help of her mom we got her to go to the mental facility and try to get help.

No I had never even heard of schizophrenia but I started looking into things on the Internet to find out what was wrong and she had almost every symptom that was listed on the webpage.

The hospital released her and just told her to stay away from stress drugs and alcohol now I’m no doctor but even I know there’s something more to it than that .

But now it’s just worse than ever she writes a jumble over everything mixed up letters and nonsense words on the walls on the ground outside .and she started obsessively going to church and has becomevery religious and calls me and my daughter demonsand starts preaching a sermon but not even getting the verses right that’s because she would never been religious at all until about a month ago now she says that she is the Messiah and that we all need to repent.

The doctors around here must’ve never heard of schizophrenia either because when I mentioned it to them they just kind of blow me off they just say she has anxiety and want to give her some Xanax are you kidding me these are doctors.

I don’t know what to do but I have to do something soon because I work nights and she can’t be alone with our daughter so she’s been staying with my mother in law

Who is also in shock and heartbroken over the whole thing any advice would help I love my wife more than anything and I miss her and I miss my daughter to and I need to get my life back to regular order isn’t it obvious to anyone else that something more here than stress

Hi - yes the first year is usually the hardest, so don’t give up. Its also very hard on your wife - so don’t give up. Many people here are doing much better after getting good treatment - which typically consists of psycho therapy (both for your wife, but also, ideally for you and your daughter because its very stressful for everyone) and medications.

What country are you in? Are you close to any of these early treatment centers? These are the best places to go, if you can get to one not too far from where you live…

http://forum.schizophrenia.com/t/early-psychosis-treatment-centers-how-to-get-great-help-for-free/12743

  1. Get a copy of these books, read them and have your family read them, as well. (Torrey can be a bit totalistic and unwilling to see exceptions to his “rules” at times, but most of his book is really worth the effort to plough through.)
    http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856
    http://www.amazon.com/The-Complete-Family-Guide-Schizophrenia/dp/1593851804/ref=as_sl_pc_tf_til?tag=schizophren0c-20&linkCode=w00&linkId=XKLY6NWSWJSQ3VYN&creativeASIN=1593851804

  2. Get properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
    Find Top Psychiatrists by State. and Find Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Nurses - Psychology Today
    .

  3. Work with that “psychiatrist” (or “p-doc”) to develop a medication formula that stabilizes their symptoms sufficiently so that they can tackle the psychotherapy that will disentangle their thinking.
    .

  4. The best of the psychotherapies for that currently include…
    DBT – What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)? – Behavioral Tech
    MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
    MBCT - Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: theory and practice - PubMed
    ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
    10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing
    .

  5. the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
    MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
    SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
    SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia
    .

  6. or standard CBTs, like…
    REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
    Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
    Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
    Standard CBT – Psychotherapy | NAMI: National Alliance on Mental Illness & scroll down
    .

  7. If you/she/he needs a professional intervention to get through treatment resistance, tell me where you live, and I will get back to you with leads to those services.
    .

  8. Look into the RAISE Project at Google.
    .

  9. Look for mental illness clubhouses in your area (which can be hugely helpful… but may also pose risks). Dig through the many articles at Google to locate and investigate them.

Well I’m in far Northern California looks like the closest one is about 3 hours away in Sacramento the hard part is she has no insurance cuz we missed open enrollment at my job to put her on my insurance and I can’t put her on it until next year

I don’t know California’s Medicaid laws, but in New York if you sign up, they will pay all your medical bills for the previous three months. Once she is diagnosed, she should qualify for Medicaid because of her disability. But even if she doesn’t, you don’t really have a choice. If her kidneys were failing, you would have to find a way to treat her somehow. Her brain is no different. Go into debt, ask for help from family members, start a gofundme page. There are resources available.

There are dozens of diagnoses all across the psychotic spectrum. Once you find a competent doctor, you can work on finding the right medicine, or the right combination of medicines. Once the meds have stabilized her, she can work on therapy, to pull herself the rest of the way. Was there any intense stress in her life shortly before getting sick? Many (but not all) of us had our first breakdown after traumatic or stressful events.

I swear it gets easier eventually. Right now, you just have to focus your efforts on finding a good doctor who specialized in psychotic disorders.

The early psychosis clinics are typically free - so perhaps that would be best for you. Give them a call, explain your situation and see how they can help you. It might be worth a drive down to Sacramento / UC Davis for a weekend visit.

There are also some early psychosis groups in lower Oregon - like Medford - that might work. Try calling them also and see if they can help.

http://www.easacommunity.org/easa-programs

Get involved with the National Alliance on Mental Illness. You can find your local chapter here. They will be able to help you find resources you can use, and they also have support groups for family members. I highly suggest going, and taking your daughter to the kids group.

http://www.namica.org/find-local-nami.php?page=find-local-nami&lang=eng#.VqftLyorKUk