Caregivers of Individuals With Schizophrenia Experience High Levels of Distress, Study Finds

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“Lerner and colleagues suggested the results point to several ways to reduce caregiver distress, including helping caregivers to “feel more emotionally rewarded in this role” and “maximizing the availability of social supports.””

Social support can be so hard to find but I feel is so important. I do find it at NAMI meetings often times but only when other schizophrenia caregivers are present. Aside from that, these forums offer my greatest support which is great, but the uniqueness of this illness can isolate us from other types of social support.

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I’m having kind of a rough day. My first thought was: Sky is Blue, Study Finds.

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lol, kinda my thought too…

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I agree with you. We are relatively new to NAMI and my son was just diagnosed this summer. It is so overwhelming, and I think bipolar illness has had some very successful people become spokespersons educating the public. But a schizophrenia diagnosis does not share that societal normalizing. It seems shrouded in more fear and mystery and questions of safety. I have been scouring the internet looking for success stories and they are too few. Heartbreaking…

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@Hereandhere Yeah, thanks for the summation:)

I have been experiencing Tias for the past couple of years, yesterday my doctor told me he believes I might have had a small stroke. My weight is correct, I exercise regularly and eat properly. My only risk factor for another stroke? Stress.

Will have to get right on reducing my distress and stress. Time to make a list of stress reducers and get to work on adding them into my daily schedule.

SERENITY NOW!

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Just fyi @firemonkey, I think all of us appreciate your share! It does at least provide recognition of something most of us here already know, and the fact that it is published means that others who are not actually experiencing may be educated about what we are dealing with.

Thank you for sharing!

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Yes, thank you for sharing this @firemonkey. I hope more people will understand what life is like with the illness and caring for someone with the illness.

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@firemonkey I, also, appreciate the posting of the article. It reminded me that I can’t afford any additional stresses in my life. In reality the article prompted me to take some stuff off my plate that was adding extra stress. I need to save my stress for helping Jeb.

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I recently adopted a second dog. I wasn’t at first sure that it would be wise, considering everything I already have to deal with, and the fact that she initially needed a lot of medical attention. But - in THIS case - taking on a little something extra - that is fluffy and white and wiggly-cute - has turned out be the right thing to do!

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Dogs are wonderful that way. A few years ago to stop myself from thinking about Jeb all the time - I just couldn’t get worrying about him out of my head- I returned to work part-time. The part time part kept growing and growing until it became full time which has become stressful.

Going back to work did get my brain’s focus off Jeb, which was good and really necessary. Now that I have achieved that goal, I think I am okay to stop working again.

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Well, my doctor’s concern that I had suffered a stroke was a valid enough concern. Two years ago after a lot of testing on my eyes, the temporary blindness I was having on occasion was ruled to be a TIA event. Opthamologist decided I wasn’t having an “eye migraine” based on the tests they did over two years and the fact that I never had any pain with the blind moments, not before, during or after. TIA’s are a sort of mini stroke or stroke predictor.

This past summer the temporary blindness (always one eye, always the same eye) began occurring every couple of days and lasting a lot longer - about 9 minutes a time. Stress at my hobby job kept getting worse as we entered fall, the most pressured time of my work year.

Husband began fussing at me to go back to the doctor to report increasing episodes. I schedule an appointment, and stupid me, I ask my gp to look at my mouth to make sure I don’t have thrush. My sense of taste had been gone for about 2 weeks. My grandson hadn’t been eating and I wondered if he and I had thrush.

Turns out loss of sense of taste is a big deal if you’ve been having TIAs. I felt pretty silly when it was all over.

I end up having to have a brain scan - they were looking for a lesion on my brain stem. The good news was I didn’t have any lesions, what did show up on the scan are little white dots that prove the eye blindness issue is a migraine - atypical, but the proof is right there on the scan.

I had paused my “part-time” job while waiting for results. The eye migraines reduced immediately. The neurologist did explain that the white dots themselves are believed to be harmless as are the eye migraines events. Did get a stern lecture about letting one’s life get so stressful that my body has do deal with the stress itself.

Short story, is the eye migraines are a direct result of stress. They started - not surprisingly enough, after Jeb moved home back in 2013. The part time job doing something that I loved sort of saved me, and now has become too much to continue.

I hope I can keep myself from going back to focusing on Jeb, definitely going to take more time to take care of me.

Lack of taste returned after nearly 6 weeks. Just some virus I got from my grandson. Big scare for me. Of course my only worry during the scary part was what would happen to Jeb without me.

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Oh hope, that’s alot to go through.

I also had eye migraines that were painless, though I could not see during them and definitely could not drive or do anything.

It’s really natural and I mean in an evolutionary and genetic way for mothers to focus on children who are ill. There are brain structures (I was reading about yesterday) that create empathetic responses, especially to our own children and other young mammals in need.

I agree that it is best for us and anyone to try to reduce stress as much as possible. I personally found it more stressful to try to stop worrying about my family member because that added an extra layer of impossible. (I also started anti-depressants that help with migraine stuff.)

I’m glad your brain has no lesions!

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Thanks Hereandhere, I am glad that your eye migraines are painless as well, we don’t need to add painful migraines to our lives.

I think you are right, I believe I am hardwired to respond to the needs of the helpless and even more so my own children. Protecting Jeb as much as I can, goes without even thinking.

The Special Response Team that came to our house one of the times we called and asked for the mental health officer? They shot a man yesterday while serving a warrant. The paper says the warrant was for terroristic threats and threatening a family member. The sheriff claims the man pulled a gun on them when they were already in the house.

Thanks for always being there Hereandhere

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LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL

The site would like me to write a little more to clarify.

Edit - this post was in response to another post that has been deleted.

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Hi, kinda new to this forum and so glad to know I am not the only one who feels a VERY strong need to protect and help my 22 year old sz son.

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Hahaha. I look at these too and think how they got approved and funded. Do they approach a foundation and ask for lots of money to write a study called ‘No, really?’

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Made me laugh:) Thank you

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