Our son has been hospital free for ONE year! (He was in and out of hospitals HALF of the prior year plus missing, wandering, and living out of a car.) He is stable and I love him so much. We have things to work on and hope for a better future yet. We are incredibly thankful for this opportunity to get our son back, even if it looks different than what we once had expected it would be.
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What a gift you have! I expect this is therapeutic, too.
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I want to pick it up and hug it!
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My son will say some random thing like āI have autonomic disorder.ā Huh? First, whereād he learn this terminology? Lol! He doesnāt read or watch TV ā¦
How am I today?
Like a fucking dead rose bush and unmowed yardā¦ LOLā¦
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Iāve been busy making āreticulesā - small purses carried by women in the period of Jane Austen.
Crafting for fun and profit!
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I think they are all beautiful (especially love the beading and ā¦the pineapple!!
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I like the black one.
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New here. Truth is Iām not doing well. My brother recently had a couple episodes, got involuntarily committed, getting out tomorrow. Iām relatively new to this. My brother had his first episodes (that we know of) last year. Conflict over how best to help my brother is tearing my family apart. Itās left me depressed, distracted, struggling with workā¦ Iām seeing a therapist and talking with people I know who have similar experiences, so itās not like Iām without any support. Iām just sad and it really sucks.
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Did you end up doing the swab test for your son to find the right med? I want to do it for my son as well. Some people said it is helpful some said not so much. Did you find it accurate?
All involved must construct a plan for long term support if possible, pursue disability, SSI, to offset cost, best he lives in an apartment, trailer/RV/Room in a family members back yard if he can function that well. Docs and meds if affordable. Consider self preservation and let go.
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Sigh. Oh gosh. Hugs. We have all been where you are. It is sooooo tough, and in the beginning each family member has a different idea of how to help the ill family member. Lots of arguments are sort of inevitable. Whoever is providing monetary support or living space has the biggest share of the burden.
Are you in America? If you can find a NAMI support group or class, I highly recommend it. And @GSSP 's idea of separate living space helps save caregiver sanity if that is possible. Do browse on this site, you will get lots of ideas from the rest of the members.
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@GSSP Thanks for the good and succinct advice. Letting go would be good for my self-preservation, but Iām not ready for that at this point.
@oldladyblue thanks for the support. I signed up for my local NAMI group but thereās a wait list on their relevant programs until next year. Iām at least on their mailing list. I signed up for this site in part to fill in the gap, find a place to speak with others whom I know have similar experiences. I hope it helps. Not just as a practical matter like how to deal with it but also on an emotional level like how to deal with it.
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I donāt know much about DNA swab tests for psychiatric use. No doctor (and weāve had several) has ever mentioned that. I donāt think the test is actually predictive for āthe right medā but my brief look at ādrug-gene testingā from the Mayo Clinic, seems to say that such a test determines the effectiveness of a particular medication. If you want to look at a different medication, you have to do another test? I also looked up pharmacogenomics testing on the NCBI PubMed site (great site for reading real medical research data and summaries). One abstract there dated 2019 concludes āPGx testing can assist in medication selection and improve patient outcomes; however, more data are needed to understand when and how to incorporate PGx testing into psychiatric practice.ā Another (2018) says āPharmacogenetic testing holds promise as a personalized medicine toolā¦ā Another is more lengthy but looks like worthy reading, but you have to create a login to see any of these articles on this free site. Once there, search for the article " Overview of pharmacogenomic testing in clinical practice" (2018). You could start a new thread on this topic and see what others say!
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Iāve known people whoāve tried it to figure out an appropriate antidepressant, and itās been very helpful.
I havenāt heard anything regarding how helpful it typically is antipsychotic selection (Iāve read reports and it breaks them down in terms of antidepressants, mood stabilizer and antipsychotics).
The antidepressant database is probably largest and thus most accurate. Itās an emerging science.
Yes, I saw an article specifically about anti-depressants. PGx is used in lots of other medical areas, too. Iād love to hear from others who have tried this. There was a person in my Family-to-Family class who had tried it and felt it was successful after being unresponsive to a whole host of other medications but I donāt recall the diagnosis. It may have been depression.
Hi BrotherTryingToHelp,
When I got involved with my husband, that was the first time I had been around a severely mentally ill person for a long period of time. I had no one to talk with and not many people around me understood what I was going through. Thatās when I did a search and came up with this forum. There are other groups online, but this one seems to be the most active and caregivers have good advice.
What I would do if I were you is to post when you feel like it. Ask questions. Ask other forum members if theyāve had a similar experience and what they did, if their plan worked or failed.
From the almost ten years of experience Iāve had being the caregiver for a seriously mentally ill person, I would 100% agree with the idea of getting your brother a place to live by himself where he wonāt be a danger or distraction to others, if at all possible.
And I agree with the advice to ālet it go,ā which I read as to give up on the guilty feelings. You had nothing to do with what is happening to your brother; it is a problem inside his own brain. The best you can do is learn about the illness and give him positive support however you can. If it turns out you arenāt able to give him support because itās too difficult, see how you can help him with social services getting involved.
It is obvious you care about your brother and this is putting a lot of stress on you. Take care of yourself. Acknowledge your limits and donāt push yourself over those limits. See a therapist for struggling with your sadness and depression.
All of us on the forum care otherwise we wouldnāt be here. Hoping the best for you, your brother and your familyā¦
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Probably. That was exactly the situation I encountered- people who had tried many antidepressants and were still struggling. Iāve read through two of the reports myself, and they made a lot of sense in terms of what the individuals in question had tried and side effects etc.
We understand. However, there IS hope for a better future! Each person is different, so this is the time to learn all you can about the illness, as well as to learn how to take care of yourself. NAMI Family Support Groups are designed to be places to share experiences and your feelings with others also living with a loved one with mental illness, to let go of guilt (because we did not cause this), and to learn and obtain help with finding resources. There ARE things we can do to help our loved ones to recovery, but the outcome of that depends on many things. I also suggest reading āSurviving Schizophrenia, A Family Guideā by E. Fuller Torrey MD. I wished I had read it earlier in our journey. I thought I knew a lot but I did not. I keep learning more useful things. And my loved one is SO much better than he was 2 years ago. Donāt give up hope for that.
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