Hi to you all I am 65 and my Brother and Mother both suffered from schizophrenia but by the grace of God I was spared this fate and I understand after the age of 50 you are no longer at risk.
My brother suffered badly from the age of 17 and died at age 64. My Mother suffered from her 40s until she died at 76. I am haunted with guilt about not having done enough to help them but there was never an end to their needs. I can’t stop reading of you wonderful people and the difficult challenges you all face in helping your nearest and dear ones only to be attacked or abused etc. I wss lucky my Brother and Mother were very placid and only when my Brother wouldn’t take his medication back in the 80s and would get into trouble and be saved from police action by restarting his medication.
I can only offer you all my prayers and good wishes and hope one day a cure for this dreadful illness will be found.
Julian
Thank you and welcome. I am haunted with wondering what else could I have done too. This is a good site.
Everything we do as family is meant to help, but the path towards wellness is crooked and tangled and contains dead ends, like a labyrinth. It is normal to feel down or even hopeless when things are not going well. We are all doing our best, even in our worst moments, to battle something that NOTHING in our lives would have prepared us for. It is a daily war against schizophrenia.
I couldn’t have done it alone. Without police, forced hospitalization, my daughter would still be psychotic and I would be slightly mad always in my own home as I watched helpless and hated myself for not solving the problem. I think of everyone waging this battle and pray daily that circumstances come together to help everyone.
Do not be hard on yourselves, we can only do so much, and I believe all of us caregivers are trying to do the absolute best we can. Yes, good wishes, prayers and hope help in this awful fight for sanity.
Thank you for your post. You have had decades of experience with this awful disease. I am glad that you were spared and that you understood the problem with your mother and brother. Welcome to the site, your knowledge can help others here @jmw_64