In LEAP fashion I’m going to agree to disagree. It took me years and months to “accept” a diagnosis, after multiple doctors providing them. My brother’s had a long history of “accepting” self-assessed diagnoses of imaginary genetic sub variants of bipolar disorder, but rejecting treatment. His latest tack is to reject these concocted diagnoses in favor of a self-diagnosis of PTSD which he seems to be reveling in because he believes it to be untreatable so he can blame the situation rather than himself.
Don’t get me wrong, I find LEAP techniques helpful for any conflict of beliefs systems—diagnosed or not. And I agree LEAP concepts are difficult enough to grasp without added complexity. But in struggling with differences between my brother and my prognoses, and anecdotal reports of Closapine-treated diagnosed finding “insight”, I struggle with the vagaries of insight and anasognosia and seek better explanations for underlying mechanisms beyond typical concerns.
Dr Amador teaches that people frequently learn to pretend to accept a diagnosis in order to manipulate a situation. Cooperation can be a key to being “set free”.
As a professional coach, I know that we have to build knowledge in layers. Techniques and tactics are taught in layers.
Of course I am happy to agree to disagree and perhaps we could partner on my goal of helping people in the basic stages with simplicity.
Anosognosia can of course be a sort of spectrum, just like any illness can be mild or severe. But with full-on anosognosia added to full-on schizophrenia, getting agreement from the person with ANY treatment is almost impossible (from my experience). And the weird thing is that many psychiatrists don’t ever say the word anosognosia, like it isn’t a thing… Just like they don’t want to say schizophrenia …
My daughter only now believes she has schizophrenia, many years after getting on the right medicine (through lucky happy accidents and some crazy persistence on my part). Her illness started showing to us, her loved ones, in 2016, but she NEVER thought she was ill, even through all of her hospital stays up until 2019. Nowadays, I always respond with a smile inside and out when she tells someone about her schizophrenia, medicine, or the voices “that now live in a little box in her universe instead of taking her over”. She can see those years now, looking backwards.
Those who DO overcome partially or fully the debilitating effects of this horrible complicated illness on their own, or who sense something is wrong with them mentally and so look for and accept help are, in my opinion, gifted and strong. And I think must have had all along some kind of insight, and so NOT full anosognosia.
@Maggotbrane and @SlowMotional I am so so happy to see your posts! And wish you the best in life! You are strong.
@hope you are a ray of sunshine and a strong caregiver. Thank you for your friendship to all of us on this site and for your continued struggles to help, not just within your own family, but for all of the visitors here.
I remember my Family to Family teacher told me that lack of insight (anosognosia) can fluctuate in severity, just like psychosis. I was so delighted one day many years ago when it seemed as though my son understood he had an issue. My instructor quickly brought me down to earth telling me, “there can be days like that”.
Just like there are those delightful days when instead of just seeing the ways our adult children are different from “before”, we get to see how similar they are to “before”.
Maybe getting them to believe they have schizophrenia isn’t as important as helping them build their lives.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience and perspective. How were you able to get her forcibly committed/how did you work with insurance to make sure it was covered (if it was covered.)
My mom’s suffering from psychosis and I’m so overwhelmed trying to figure out how I can get her into care without having medical power of attorney. I can’t even talk to her health insurance on her behalf without her consent!
She’s mentioned being suicidal to me, but otherwise is not an obvious threat to herself or others, but she desperately needs real treatment.
Hello @ rishi. Honestly and sadly, the best way I found to get my daughter committed for an involuntary hold was to call the police whenever she mentioned harm to self or others, suicide or that someone should die. IF she said the same thing to the police when they came, they would take her for evaluation. The police came to my home numerous times (once I got over my fear of calling them), yet took her only 3 times as she wouldn’t restate to the police that she mentioned harm or suicide or that others in the house should die. She went on involuntary hold 5 times total during her active psychosis years, twice arrested from public places.
The last time she was arrested was the time I “knew” how to fax the nearby psychiatric facilities blindly (i.e. starting with “if my daughter is in your facility”) with my knowledge of her illness and what medicine worked, which is why THAT doctor in THAT hospital had his staff reach out to me to become her healthcare proxy (court appointed). That was also the time I went to court to tell the judge that my daughter needed forced medication, and luckily she was acting odd in court so the judge knew to have her evaluated by the court psychiatrist. She was screaming at the judge that I wasn’t her mother, so was obviously delusional at the time.
The thing about involuntary holds is that they usually don’t last long enough and often the patient is released without the intention to continue the medication they were prescribed. So multiple holds may be needed.
It is a war to fight this disease, made up of many battles over many years, for a lot of families. You must learn the laws in your state, get support from groups that can help like NAMI, and pray that the opportunity to use the right actions comes up and you seize that opportunity each time.
