I’ll just say, too, that I am so sorry. We can’t solve all problems so we do have to let some things go. Take one day at a time. I’m certain there are others who have been in such a predicament. It could be useful to start a new post on this subject of being a young lady with SZ, unmarried, and pregnant. Perhaps someone with a similar experience will respond. I do have a friend age 70 who is hugely involved in the care of and responsibility for his grandson due to his daughter’s (the boy’s mother’s) mental disability. However, his daughter, the boy’s mom, is actually doing better now and helping more. There IS hope!
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Thank you for your response. Yes there is hope. I support my daughter along with my wife. I bought a baby Doppler for my daughter to listen to the heartbeat. Am I torturing myself, my wife and my daughter? My daughter is scheduled for an abortion on Jan 10. I am powerless to do nothing but support her and pray. Prayers are answered in different ways.
Yes I should write in a separate post about what’s happening. Thank you again.
What a stress! Early on, when my son was in a residential center, he fell for a woman 10 years older than him, and they ended up checking out and getting married, and yes, she became pregnant. She decided to get an abortion. Shortly after that she disappeared. She resurfaced in Florida, somehow got married to someone else (without a divorce from my son - it was legally registered, but who really checks if someone is actually single - apparently not Florida!) but died, probably of an overdose, less than a week after she and her new husband were married.
Being supportive is all you can do.Continue to love and know the illness may abate over time. And also be kind to yourself.
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Life is complicated enough then throw in SMI!
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I found this site through this thread, by googling “unmedicated” mental illness, back when I had no real clue what was happening with/to my daughter. Back when I was confused, angry and felt soooo alone. I was blessed that day, as the support here was pretty much a lifeline for me, when I thought I was drowning in confusions and unknowns. My daughter’s psychosis was so very weird, and I felt so alone. It was a hard lesson for me to learn, to “be kind to myself” as I literally hated myself for being unable to solve the problems. My blessings are continuing as my daughter is now a year into her “new normal” and we just came back from The LIghtening hockey game in Tampa. It seems unreal still that her paranoid schizophrenia has receded for over a year now thanks to her (originally force medicated) Haldol dec shot.
I wish everyone here more kindness and success. My family’s success came when I was near the bottom of my hope levels. You must keep hoping for your loved one’s sake.
A stranger at healthcare.gov gave me hope and a phone hug a few days ago. He helped me to finalize next year’s healthcare choice for my daughter. He asked me what illness my daughter was struggling with, and when I told him it was sz, he confided in me that he has schizoaffective disorder, and his family didn’t give up hope when things were really dark for him, and now he works for healthcare.gov and is doing really well on his medication. He is a kind gentle soul who reminded me that us carers just can’t give up on our loved ones.
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Thanks for this. It further confirms what I thought all along— that the recovered like me are hiding in plain sight, only disclosing when safe and relevant. And that quiet advocacy for caregivers and the cared is necessary and possible.
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It always help me to hear someone with this disease and able to work. They give me hope.
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HI
I’m new to the thread
I think some daily banter might be helpful
realising that my family is not fixable in a day.
maybe just getting down to earth about things instead of hoping for a miraculous intervention for my sister
she has had 24/7 help from mum for almost 7 years psychotic. sister has just given up drinking and smoking - underlying schizophrenia is the thing that has been going on all this time but now it is stand - alone and she is not getting help
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@three Giving up drink and tobacco is such a strong start. I hope she gets the help she needs. In the end, help is just help— there’s work in recovery. I’m rooting for her.
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Thank you for sharing this. It blessed me tremendously because HOPE is never lost.
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You are welcome. I am glad my post helped you. It was hope and the fellowship I found on this site that helped me through the unmedicated years.
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As a recap followed by an update, my husband tapered off Abilify a year ago due to side effects, did well for a couple of months, and then got paranoid and delusional about 9 months ago. He wasn’t wanting medication (of course) and his psychiatrist backed way off (for a bit too long, IMHO), so he’s been mostly isolated in the house since early summer - attending his psychiatry appointments but with nothing actually happening, which has been frustrating for both of us.
My husband’s family finally started taking things seriously (they had to actually start seeing his symptoms before they’d take me seriously). And with them on board, we got my husband to request medication at his appointment yesterday.
He was prescribed Vraylar - he’d responded well to Abilify before developing EPS and this med is similar (Reluxi is next in line to try, I guess, if the Vraylar doesn’t work).
Anyway, my husband was pretty unhappy (of course) with his psychiatrist and me, too (whenever he is unhappy or stressed, he gets paranoid about me, lucky me) as he wanted to continue on his own and without medication. However, with the encouragement of his family and myself, he did take the first dose last night.
Interestingly, everyone involved (including my husband!) seems hopeful right now with the exception of myself.
I guess no one else really experienced everything it took to get my husband stable the first time - my husband has very few memories from that period of time and his family and doctor have no idea how much work/effort from me it took to get him to take the medications, stay on the medications, keep up healthy habits etc. etc.
I would love to be feeling hopeful as well. And perhaps I will at some point. But right now, I am just feeling numb.
I don’t feel like I can share this reaction elsewhere, but I imagine there are others here who can understand.
Thanks to everyone here for the support and the place to vent. I feel so grateful to have found this community.
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I do understand your lack of hopeful excitement. You worked with him before to get him stable, you know how much more it will take than than the first dose of meds.
I don’t mean to compare your husband to a new puppy, it just reminds me of how excited everyone in my family would get about a new puppy. I love dogs and puppies are quite sweet. I look at a puppy and I see waking up at night for walks for weeks, keeping a tight schedule in the daytime, and watching the new puppy constantly to keep it out of trouble and bad habits. Not to forget training the puppy to walk on a leash, sit and understand “no”. Not to forget how to act in the car, at the vets, meeting the neighbors and everything that has to be practiced over and over.
Everyone else in the family seems to think our dogs are just well behaved because of good luck.
The idea of all the work involved can leave you feeling numb and for me, a bit overwhelmed.
I am glad you got his family on board and that he has started the med, but yes, its feels like the beginning of a lot of work for you.
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I know how hard it is to feel hope, or at least pretend to feel hope. It’s such hard work, to keep our ill loved ones afloat. I feel like I’m always waiting for the other shoe to drop…
I hope you can feel some peace and positivity. You just never know.
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The yoyo of emotions that occur when a medication is started, stopped, started, stopped, etc. is a yoyo of hope also, and after awhile I was afraid to hope because of all of the times that hope was lost. Up, down, up, down. Ugh. I do understand the numb feeling you have now. @hope 's analogy is a good one, the start of a new path always involves a lot of work to keep your loved one on it to the end. @Day-by-Day was spot on too. Hang in there. At least feeling numb is better than constant awful worry, in my opinion. I hope you find some peace.
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Your story sounds so familiar. My son is 25 and i also recall him talking to himself in his room or while he was in the shower. Once i waited for him to get out of the restroom to see if someone would walk out behind him but no. He snaps from time to time. He thinks everyone wants to hurt him. He cannot keep a job he has enrolled in college twice in 2 yrs and dropped out . Is extremely antisocial does not think anything is wrong with him
He actually tells me that I’m crazy and sick in the head.
He disrespects me my husband works out of town
Law enforcement says I can get him evicted if i want to
But i don’t. Because he is not capable of taking care of himself. I feel helpless i have tried different approaches but all fails. I love him but he’s killing me slowly. I’m scared of what he might do when he snaps again.
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I see the puppy analogy apt from the ‘client’ side as well. I’ve talked about luck in my recovery, but it was a huge amount of work too. I don’t believe a lasting and meaningful recovery can be passive, and you’ll likely only get out of it what you put in. But unfortunately hard work doesn’t always translate to success.
Employing another analogy, recovery is similar to success in a start up business. With the right team, resources and environment, a potential for success may be there, but a combination of hard work, luck and good decisions at pivotal moments is the difference between a company surviving versus thriving.
And between anasognosia and avolition, recognizing the need to undertake that work, and finding the drive to accomplish it is a daunting challenge to all concerned. I can see why some people look on such recoveries as ‘miracles’.
I remember feeling people were talking about me behind my back dismissively saying “get a life“, so I did. But looking back on it, it seems like a lot of painful work and mistakes and missteps, but somehow I blundered my way through because I didn’t know any better.
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This is a much better analogy - thanks Maggotbrane I can get stuck in dog world;)
My teacher and her son cautioned us that meds are just a part of recovery. She worried that we would look at her son and think his recovery was all due to a magic med and not see the work that has to accompany the med.
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I am sorry to hear @Angieeli of the disrespect your son shows you, especially if your husband isn’t home much. I had over 2.5 years of unmedicated psychosis in my daughter, and I had to figure out a way to live with the horrible unpredictability. The worst was the constantly disturbed sleep when she was screaming in her room to her voices, I was sooooo exhausted all the time. I couldn’t send her away as she would have been homeless. I do understand that you don’t want to evict your son. It is a very rough road to caregive to someone who doesn’t know they are ill and doesn’t recognize that you are trying to help them. I am sorry you feel scared and hope that you can work out some solutions to help your situation
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@Angieeli, I dealt with the same disrespect - which can just make your head feel like it will explode when you know how much you are doing for this person.
I’m happy to say that on Clozapine, with positive symptoms mostly controlled, there has been none of that for a quite some time. I still hear him talking in the shower, but rarely otherwise.
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