I find myself sometimes feeling envious of other people who’s daughters are not suffering from SK or mental disorder. I miss the daughter I had before she came down with this horrible condition. I want her to marry and have a family. I want her to be happy and feel good about herself. I realize that I am blessed to only have my struggles and I know others have it worse, but that doesn’t stop me from wanting more for my girl. I just want tho to be okay and to finally find an answer. I wake up afraid and go to sleep worried. How do I get through this? I pray and pray and hope but every day I don’t see a light at the end of the tunnel.
Welcome. I have not seen you before.
Struggle with that myself. I will never be the same as before. But different is not always worse. Give it some time. It usually gets better with time, patience and the right medication.
She can still find someone special and have a family. There are different types of families. Not all families are husband, wife and three kids.
I’ve been ill for about 6-7 years. Got dx 5 years ago. I miss my old self. But I am much more unstressed now. I rest a lot and take care of me. I did not do that before.
Your devotion to your daughter is touching. What you wrote brought back memories of how I was before I came down with sz. Schizophrenia is such a cruel disease. If you can get you daughter on the right med’s she will be much more like she was before she became sz.
I’m trying to cope with the fact that my daughter is about to turn fourteen and is becoming her own person. I miss the seven year old I could bounce on my knee and who always needed me in her life. This new creature hides behind a closed bedroom door, occasionally emerging for food, and grunts answers instead of babbling at me about how her school day went.
I think to be a parent is to cope with change, the worst being when you reach that point where your children need to parent you towards the end.
C’est la vie.
Pixel.
I really miss the 6 year old my kid sister was… she was so fun when she was 6. She believed everything I said… she’d pick up bugs… she always just blurted out what was on her mind… polite or not.
She’s 19 now… she doesn’t pick up bugs… she’s more reserved and she doesn’t believe everything I say anymore… she’s always busy with school and has no time to make a sand castle with me any more… 
@Stressedout
It might take a long time to reach that end of the tunnel… but with good support… meds… therapy and hopefully some insight… the light at the end of the tunnel will come. I know your going through a huge thing right now trying to navigate the legal system as well as getting an advocate for your daughter.
I know there were times my Mom was in tears because of how far off track I was going… but I did make it back.
I don’t know if you’ve checked out www.nami.org
1-800-950-NAMI (6264) or info@nami.org–
Legal issues (the NAMI Legal Resource Service can connect individuals with attorneys in their area but does not have the resources to provide individual representation) -
I hope this gets resolved soon…
I’m rooting for you.
So sorry to hear. She is so young, but it is hard at any age. that sounds familiar, the shut bedroom door and not talking much. I wish my daughter would realize what this is. She knows there is a problem but refuses to believe that this is SK and says its bipolar. I tread softly to try to convince her. The doctor said bipolar / SK but from what I’ve read she has more symptoms of SK. Just wish I could do more. I used to think that at least if she was not an adult then I could make her take her meds or go to the doctor, I can’t imagine though how hard it must be for you at this age.
I can understand that… who would want to admit to having the worst and most stigmatized illness when bipolar has a little more support and understanding.
If she’s willing to take the meds for bipolar… (which also seem to be the same as Sz) and she willing to go to therapy… maybe let her hang on to the bipolar label?
I’m Sz… my youngest brother has bipolar 1 and he takes the same meds I used to. We’re both on mood stabilizers and he in some of the same therapy I was in for coping/anger management/ trigger and stress management/
If she’s willing to get any sort of help at all… don’t worry about the label on the paper.
On top of our cabinet we have a photo of my niece when she was 3 or 4. One day her dad saw it and took it down and stared at the cheeky little face. He said how he used to drive home from work and couldn’t wait to see that little face. Then he looked choked and said “she’s all grown up, where did that little face go”.
Nothing stays the same forever and everything changes.
The Buddhists and Taoists say that so long as we insist upon projecting outcomes that are unrealistic, we can never reach the outcomes that are realistic.
I cannot speak for you, but for me, that would be imposing my values on another’s life circumstances.
Do we not have to play the game with the cards we are dealt?
you know what, I bet your daughter is doing better than you think. My mom and sister obsess over me having kids and a family, I don’t even want to have. My sister keeps telling me I will have kids. I don’t want to pass this illness to another human being. I got diagnosed with a mental illness in 2011 and after some psychotic episodes, my character changed so much. These types of illnesses change your life. If she’s an adult, you need to chill and let it go. If you want to help her, be kind and listen. Let her make her own decisions.
It is a long process-but you will get to the point when youre only wish is for her to just be happy-no matter what she chooses...and thats a good thing!
I don’t know how severe your daughter’s case is, but I think that the wise thing is to accept the change, and help her to move forward. I too would like my son to marry and have kids, but right now he says he won’t.
On the bright side, two years after his first full-blown psychotic episode, my son IS largely back to his ‘old self’. And he is not even on APs anymore, just SRIs. He keeps a pack of risperidone handy in case his sleep patterns go ‘off’. And he has Abilify on hand and is willing to take it if he does have any further signs of psychosis, but he hasn’t had any symptoms except depression really for a long time, hence the SRI. He’s not fully recovered. He has very low motivation, for example. But he’s lost the social withdrawal, paranoia, etc, which is great because he’s a really funny guy when he’s well.
A lot of people recover. And I also don’t think the label matters.
I took my daughter to amusement park over the weekend. The rides she rode last year before sz, she was scared to death of now. It was extremely sad for me to see her like that but she didn’t seem to mind watching the others. I think its more my loss than hers 
She is still your daughter, and her father’s. She remains the same as yours, it is you who see her differently. With all due respect. She tries so hard to be what you want her to be, yet she is a piece of you. That does not mean people cannot improve.
Hello Stressedout,
I’m in a similar, yet different position than you are. My ex-wife is schizo-affective bi-polar and we have 2 children together.
If she is under 18 and you are her parent, the best thing you can do is to get her to a therapist/psychiatrist immediately. The sooner you are able to treat this disease, the better the prognosis. Even if you have to have her committed to a mental health facility, the sooner the better. You do not want this to progress, let the experts diagnose her, none of us here have the qualification to say if she is ill or not.
For those who have said that he should just accept this, shame on you. There are tons of studies showing that the quicker you can get treatment the better your outcome. Time is of the essence.
Another thing too. Don’t live in the past. Try living now. What happens now, what progress has she done now. Noone knows anything of the future. (If you are not psychotic. Ha) no seriously. If you keep living in the past you will become depressed. Don’t think about everything “she has missed”. See what she can do now and be happy for the small things. Many small things make you more happy than a large happy thing. Happiness is a feeling that will pass as quickly as any other feeling. Gather the small happy feelings.
Excellent advice.
I deal with this issue by rationalizing it. We cannot plan anyone’s future, not even our own. Life is always throwing curveballs. My son cannot change having schizophrenia anymore than I can. We just have to move forward and deal with it…that is LIVING! I think of all the people that were living the “ideal life” we all tend to imagine…spouse, children, house, car, job, family, friends, holiday get togethers, etc…then I think of all the terrible things that happen in life, like the husband kills the wife, or worse yet, the children in a “normal” divorce situation, etc. -Anyway, someone else is always experiencing something worse. I think of how many people have children that have autism…so many now and how tiring and exhausting that is… I look at my son and just say, “this is who he is now and I love him. Who knows what is beyond the corner for him, or for me?” Smile now and be happy you know what is going on and you can advocate for her. Lately I am thinking of writing the mother of the Holmes boy that killed those people in CO. I just want to offer her a hug and let her know she is not alone…she must be in such pain…
Sorry, I didn’t mean to accept it and do nothing. I meant to accept it rather than denying it. I also got my son into treatment and urged him to take anti-psychotics immediately. I know that the earlier you get treatment the better. And that with early treatment a lot of people make a more or less complete recovery. Denial causes problems, not acceptance.
Amen, sistah.
Because so many think that accepting means “roll over and die” rather than “just see what is.”