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Schizophrenia Experiences and Suggestions?
Jagercola asks: "My sister was recently diagnosed with Schizophrenia. It's a chronic, severe, and disabling brain disease that we don't know a lot about. The movie, A Beautiful Mind, paints an accurate picture of how the disease affects someone in a best case scenario. I would like the vast audience here to help me understand the disease through experiences and that it might help me aid my sister. If you know someone how has the disease, how has it affected your and their life? How have you been able to cope with it? What are the long term implications for quality of life?"
Too many people confuse Schizophrenia with Multiple Personality Disorder. The two are related, but are not the same thing.
Go to Kuro5hin. There's a number of fascinating, lengthy, relevant articles on the subject there.
You should certainly read more about it (sorry I have no books to recommend). My brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when I was a kid; he eventually committed suicide when the doctor decided to reduce his medication (a little too quickly apparently). Also since there is a genetic component to schizophrenia, you might want to investigate early symptoms and keep an eye on your kids. This website would probably be worth taking a look at too.
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Try www.nami.org to start. It is an orginaztion for both family, friends and consumers. Also your local state office of Mental Illness can help get you resources. Mental Illnes is nothing to be embarressed about, it is a physical disease like any other disease.
A friend of mine in college was schizophrenic. He was fine as long as he took his meds and in fact I knew him about 6 months before I even knew he had the disease. Two problems. First, he occasionally liked to smoke pot and that seemed to interfere with his medication. Second, one of his symptoms was paranoia so if he missed a couple of doses (or smoked too much) he would start thinking the medicine was just there to control his mind, and he'd quit taking it - then would begin a weeks-long slide that would end with him becoming homeless and getting arrested for assault or vandalism. He would get violent so they would institutionalize him for a while and he would recover in a few weeks and get released, able to function normally again. If only I could have got him to quit smoking pot he could have held down a job and finished college. Last I heard he had moved back in with his parents and was doing fine because they made sure he took his meds.
All this depends on the severity and type of schizophrenia she has, and this advice only comes second hand, but:
It may take a long time for your sister's doctors to find the right combination of drugs and dosages to best manage her symptoms, but there is hope that eventually she can live a reasonably normal life.
However, it is very dangerous and sadly common that once her therapy starts working she'll feel so much better she may stop taking her meds, relapse, get remedicated, feel better, stop taking the meds, relapse and so on.
Good luck to both of you,
-dameron
I used to volunteer on at a schizophrenia ward at a psychiatric hospital when I studied psychology. People would be admitted, get put on meds, stay for awhile until the meds took effect, and then go back out on their own. Once on their own many would think they were 'cured' and stop taking their meds. Then they would have another episode and end up back at the hospital. So my advice is to support her in taking meds. The right type and dose of medication is crucial to a good quality of life. It may take awhile for the doctors to get that right, and it is important to support her while they try.
The Moore-Murphy Law: The number of things that will go wrong will double every 2 years.
I drive this cat around town about once to twice a week to the doctor or to pick up his SSI check. Since he has been living on his own in a little rent control apartment he has been doing moderately better, but I think it would be best if he would also go back to college and finish his psychology degree (only has a year left). He knows better than anyone amongst his family and friends what the disease is but still thinks he is special that his demons are real, it is very sad. I wish they could cure things like this, but barring a wholesale revolution in the way we treat mental diseases that will not happen.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
The movie is a pile of poo, but Sylvia Nasar's book is excellent.
A Beautiful Mind is less accurate then Perfect Blue or Paranoia Agent. Dont know why but Susumu Hirasawa does a very good (if some what chilling) depiction of schizophrenia.
"Have you ever thought about just turning off the TV, sitting down with your kids, and hitting them?"
but there are several physicians (including myself) that post here regularly, and under our own accounts.
That said, you'd be wise to be wary of medical info from some of the ACs aroud here.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
- The DSM IV (diagnostic and statistical manual)
- National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (find your local chapter and get as much support for the rest of the family as for her)
- schizophrenia.com (get literate and read like crazy [oops], and eventually get a sense of humor rather than just crying)
- Voices by Dream Theater, part of A Mind Beside Itself
Get literate and highly community active, and double check all your mental health professionals. You may still have time to contain or reverse the most severe symptoms.Don't confuse schizophrenia vs. manic depression with paranoid delusions or other personality disorders. As I understand it, the distinction is that schizophrenics hallucinate (have false senses in realtime, as if something is really seen or heard) whereas that type of manic depressives do not (they may confabulate memories of having seen or heard something).
- Medication: A lot of the quality of life is going to depend upon her medication. Stelazine, for instance, made me completely numb to life. While it stops the audial/visual hallucenations, it also blocks creativity, sex drive, and emotion. Unfortunately, those are very common side effects to many anti-psychotic medications. I can't tell you the medical reason why, only that it heavily depends upon the individual's brain chemistry. She may end up going through 5-10 different meds before she finds a balance between supression of the illness, and supression of one's emotional life.
- Paranoia: This is probably the worst effect she will have to deal with. It can be mild (ie. "Did you hear something?") to extreme (ie. "You're trying to poison my food!"), and it can bounce between the two based on stimulus. Two bits of advice. NEVER lie to her. Once you have, you get categorized as someone who has lied. It doesn't matter about the reason. Even if the truth hurts, and she screams that she hates you, as long as you maintain her trust, you have a chance to be her confidant. Secondly, don't dismiss her paranoia. Sometimes, in the throws of "everyone is out to get me", a schizophrenic just needs to vent. Instead of saying "You're just being paranoid", give them rational fact against their feats, and accept the fact that it might do nothing to dissuade them. Illogical fear is simply a fact of Schizophrenia.
- Nymphomania/Frigidity: Without medication, she might either become a roaring slut, or a frigid ice queen. Or neither, but most likely, expect some sexual tendancies that are deviant from the norm.
- Hallucinations: There will most likely be audial and/or visual hallucinations. The frequency and intensity will largely depend again on her chemistry, medication, and how severe the illness is. I fortunately have a very light case, and mine have usually been limited to something as mild as a woman leaning against a wall, and whisperings. As long as she can keep aware of what logically should and should not be there, she can dismiss these as "background noise". Sometimes she won't be able to ignore these, and it will cause sleepless nights and agitated working conditions. In this case, I recommend a soporific. With sleep, the symptoms will often die down. However, thanks to paranoia, you might have trouble getting her to take them. Seriously, though, a doctor's opinion is vital on this aspect. She might have them so bad she cannot drive.
- Severe Mood Swings: Schizophrenics are often ruled by their emotional state. I call my bad days "Black Moods". You would probably do best to steer clear of her on these days, unless she actually seeks you out. Then be there for her, but don't try to be "proactive" in solving whatever sparked the emotional problem. This will usually pass, followed by remorse and apology. Try to be understanding.
- Barriers: Set barriers as well. If her case is light enough that she can more or less live a normal life on her own, she needs to know what barriers there are going to be, up front. As with many other mental illnesses, there are certain individuals who latch onto someone, much in the way a drowning victim does, and won't let them go, effectively ruining their life. Don't let this happen to you. Fortunately, I've always been of the isolationist variety. It's others that must respect -my- barriers. This might also happen to her. If it does, then respect her wishes as much as is reasonable.
I hope this helps. If you want to know more detailed information, I would recommend first having her fully diagnosed, and find out the degree and specific symptoms. You can ask me whatever questions you like, and I will try to answer, but the truth is, schizophrenia is different for each person who has it. The best person to ask "what's it like" is her. -TheTXLibra"You've got no kids, no wife, no job, and you're not in The Tigger Movie!!!" - my best friend's son, Gabe, at 5 years old.
-The Libra
"Please be patient--The future will begin momentarily."
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (Part I)
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (Part II)
Living with Schizoaffective Disorder (Part III)
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I want to start by agreeing with many other slashdot posters - You came to the wrong place in general to ask questions about medical health and/or mental health.
That said, I am a not a doctor, yet. (I'm finishing my PhD in Clinical Psychology) I've worked on a locked inpatient unit with people who have had schizophrenia, and in an outpatient community clinic with a variety of people. So here is my starting advice: You may want to investigate The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill, for further information regarding support groups for mental illness, and make sure that you get supported while you go through this process of learning and working with family and relatives who have a serious mental illness.
The bad news is: There is not a cure for schizophrenia. The good news is: It's a chronic illness that can be treated using medication (Some people understand better if they draw comparisons to diabetes, or other chronic physical illnesses). The bad news again is: Medications are still in need of improvement, because a lot of side effects (weight gain, lowered energy and libido) can certainly drive a person away from treatment. The best things that you can do are to provide a stable and caring environment for your relative, encourage them to stay on their medication (even when they're doing well).
For others of you interested, the "usual" symptoms of schizophrenia are hallucinations (a person sees or hears things that other people do not, usually hearing voices, but it can be anything), delusions (a person believes something illogical or bizarre, like they are under surveillance of the police), and disorganized thinking or behavior. Medications help mostly with the hallucinations, and sometimes with a persons mood; new medications can also help clear their thinking. Psychotherapy with schizophrenic patients can really range, from simple problem-solving and health management (which could cover taking medication or even just taking a shower), to learning how to interpret the emotions and gestures of other people so they get along better with family and friends.
Again, schizophrenia is a chronic illness, but it is treatable. When a person recieves proper treatment, a person can lead a happy and fulfilling life.
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
I think one of the most important issues in dealing with schizophrenia is medication. I'll be totally honest in that I don't trust doctors much when it comes to medication. All too often, doctors act like automatons when it comes to prescribing medication. They prescribe the medication, declare they have done their job, and go home.
In reality, particularly when it comes to mental disorders, finding the right medication or combination of medications should be a long-term exercise in trial-and-error. Some drugs are partially effective, completely ineffective, or have intolerable side-effects. It's almost completely specific to the individual in question.
For example, I used to suffer from panic attacks and still suffer from some generalized anxiety. Typical treatment is a seratonin-specific reuptake inhibitor (or SSRI, a family of antidepressent). But every drug in this family is slightly different, and while one may work for one person, it may not work for someone else. In my case, Paxil was 100% effective for panic but completely ineffective for generalized anxiety. And don't even get me started on the 3 month withdrawal I went through (while withdrawal from Paxil isn't all that uncommon, 3 months of it is). I was tried other drugs in the SSRI family as well as other anti-depressants in other families.
The same issues apply to medication for treating schizophrenia. Often you'll want to go through various different medications until you find the one(s) with a combination of efficacy and tolerable or no side-effects. Some of the drugs take weeks to a few months to determine if it works or not, so you really have to hang in there and just ride it out. It can take a long time to find the right medication. Be patient.
The only other piece of advice I'd give, and it seems like you're already following it (though Slashdot probably isn't the best source), is educate yourself about the condition.
I wouldn't be surprised if there are peer support web sites around for this. I would try to locate them and get involved. In the case of panic and anxiety, I found the online peer support groups to be a much better source of knowledge than doctors. Largely because, unless the doctor has suffered from the condition, they don't really understand it. Somone who has lived with a schizophrenic relative for 10 years is going to be able to give you a lot more sound advice than a doctor who's only exposure to schizophrenics has been in his office. He hasn't had to manage their lives.
There's no doubt you're in for a really rough ride. Schizophrenia is a really difficult condition to deal with both for the person who suffers from it and those around them. I wish you the best of luck.
People who are diagnosed as schizophrenic are often characterized as a bit "different," even before diagnosis. Granted, it's always easy to say that in retrospect, but there are often subtle signs before the first actual psychotic "break."
It also sounds like your friend was in the right age group... Schizophrenia usually pops up in the late teens/early twenties in most men (and women get it a few years later than that, but usually before age 40). New-onset psychosis in an elderly person should prompt a search for a medical reason... drugs, infection, intracranial bleed...
Your friend had some very classic signs of schizophrenia, probably paranoid subtype. He was delusional and paranoid. He also exhibited "Thought Broadcasting," which is when the patient thinks others can read their thoughts.
Curiously, your friend also exhibited some signs of mania... a component of Bipolar Disorder. In fact, his psychosis and other symptoms (hypersexuality, racing thoughts) are also consistent with a Bipolar patient in the manic phase (manics are the most dangerous of all psychiatric patients).
Truthfully, he could easily have been given either diagnosis... but these are the cases where you need a trained psychiatrist to better-delineate the nature of the disorder.
You also make an important point: medications usually help, and these are life-long disorders. The most common reason I get schizophrenic patients in my ER is because they're off their meds. If you hang out with your buddy enough, and witness a few exacerbations of his condition, you may learn to recognize behavioral cues that will tip you off that he's "off his meds."
Good luck... and encourage him to keep taking his anti-psychotics.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
My mother was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when I was 3. She took her meds until I was 5, when she decided she felt so good and symptom free that she didn't need the meds any more, and stopped taking them. Permanently.
She was an intensive care nurse, she should have known better.
This began her slide into increasing insanity as the years went by. My father stuck around, knowing that if he left her she'd take me and ruin my life forever, and waited. When I was 12 I figured out she was completely out of control, and told my father "Mom's crazy, I'm leaving so she won't hurt me, are you coming?" and he left with me and divorced her. Getting a legal separation from her ruined my father, and myself, financially. She took him for all he was worth, and took my entire college fund along with it. There are many other lasting problems in our lives that she caused, like that she didn't let me have friends as a child so I still have difficulty socializing, that she destroyed most of the family photos, so my father has practically no pictures of me as a child, or that 20 years later I still have nightmares about her regularly, or that 20 years later I can tell my father still misses the beautiful and loving woman he married, who just disappeared into insanity.
Over the next 6 years she made at least three, and possibly four attempts to kill me. It's hard to say what to think about the fourth, because while it was unquestionably a murder attempt, she was so delusional by that point that she was trying to kill my father and couldn't tell I wasn't him.
When I was 18, I moved 350 miles away from her and didn't tell her where I'd gone. My aunts and uncles, not realizing the severity of her illness, told her anyway, and she showed up on my doorstep. I eventually had to move several times, change my phone number several times, and stop telling my family where I lived in order to escape from her. I have not seen her in about 15 years, and pray that I will never see her again.
When I was 20 or so, she murdered my uncle, and has been institutionalized since.
I have two bits of advice for people dealing with a loved one with schizophrenia. Firstly, dameron is right, MEDS MEDS MEDS. If they get on their meds early after developing symptoms and take them regularly FOREVER, they can live a relatively normal life. Unfortunately, schizophrenics are notorious for going off their meds. My father took me to several mental health professionals who advised me on how to deal with my mother, and what they all told me was that schizophrenia is cumulative: the meds prevent it from getting worse and reduce the immediate symptoms, but the longer it goes untreated the worse it gets and it will never get better. So, after 17 years of no treatment, my mother was incurably insane, and all meds could do was stop her from getting even worse and make her more controllable.
The second piece of advice I give you is, if the person goes off their meds and doesn't get on again almost immediately, push them out of your life, get them as far away from you and your family as you can, and if you have to, pack up and move to get away from them. Once they get really bad, nothing will stop them from trying to come interfere with your life. Nothing. Not court orders, not police, they won't care about those things. (Or, if they're paranoid, those things may just agitate them into worse behavior. My mother's reaction to a restraining order was to show up at my house and try to beat down the door in a blind rage.) You'll never be safe again. Escape while you still can. This is what the doctors advised my father, it's why he divorced my mother, and it's why he and I are alive today. Even if they're not violent, they'll just keep showing up and making a severe nuisance of themselves and disrupting your life until they make it into a living hell.
Unlike how it was implied in the movie "A Beautiful Mind", John Nash was a successful mathemetician, without illness, for quite a number of years.
He graduated with PhD from Princeton at a very young age (given his talent), and had at least 10 years of a very promising career until his illness hit. It was apparently atypically late for schizophrenics which also may account for his later ability to control it.
Once his illness struck he was useless professionally.
Many years later with his discipline and partial remission he can now function in society but he can't produce research mathematics any more.
He was first diagnosed at 15 and he has gone downhill from there. We have had him hospitalized twice and both times he did better as long as he was on his meds. Once he was released he quit taking them and he detiroiated and was back to "normal" (his normal or what we call baseline) in 6 months. We could force him to take meds till he was 18 and now we have to get a court order. Since he is not a danger to himself or others the liberal courts want to protect his rights. Well this is how he expresses his rights. He steps out in front of cars becasue he cannot be hurt or killed. He eats jars of peanut butter for breakfast. lunch and dinner. He stays up for 80 hours at a time and then sleeps for 4 hours and does another 48 hours before catching another nap. He lives with my wife and and has his own room. We used to give him things like clothes and Walkman's because he loves music. But he cuts up the clothers and gives away his stereo, TV, computer and everything else. Now he uses the family computer and gets angry when he asks why he can't have his own and I tell him becasue he gives them away. Some advice. Go to NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) meetings to meet others that have relatives in the same boat. Lower your expectations. Your sister will not recover and will not be successful in the normal sense of the word. Having lower expectations will not put you in a position of being dissappointed. If she does better than you expect you will be surprised rather than dissappointed. Don't be ashamed of her. Mental illness strikes lots of people in every socioeconomic group. While there are some of those that will look down on you by association they are small people with small minds. Not being ashamed will show the world that mental illness is real and needs attention. My wife just told me that her favorite Schizophrenia book is Surviving Schizophrenia by Fuller E Torry. She manages the mental health phone room in a major city and is well respected by her peers. I am a Paramedic and also know how to deal with mental illness in my patients. One comment that my son said when he first got sick was very telling. He told me that if my wife or I wanted a quite time we just turned off the stereo and went into the bedroom. For him the voices were always there and no matter what he did they kept talking to him. He gets no rest. My heart goes out to you. It is a life long struggle but eventually you will get comfortable with it. Realize there is little you can do for her except love her and supprt her. If you try to struggle against it you will only wear yourself down and then you won't be any good at supporting her. Chuck
The poster above CAN NOT overemphasize the rule: TAKE YOUR MEDS!
Schitzophrenics especially have a BAD habit of going off of their meds -- they'll take their meds, and because they feel better, they'll think they're cured. Then they'll stop taking their meds. Then they'll go batshit insane.
YOU AND YOUR FAMILY WILL HAVE TO HELP MONITOR THE MEDS. You will almost certainly not be able to trust your sister to stay on them, not for at least TEN years of her taking them, with the associated slides of her going off the meds.
I have an acquaintance who could not be trusted not to go off of the meds for literally 20 years after starting them.
Let me repeat: TAKE THE MEDS. DO NOT LET HER SELF-MONITOR. CHECK UP ON HER. TAKE THE MEDS. TAKE THE MEDS. TAKE THE MEDS.
I do not usually use caps this much, but it is that important. TAKE THE MEDS. MONITOR. TAKE THE MEDS TAKE THE MEDS TAKE THE MEDS.
Besides that, often times, the illness combined with the medication make it impossible to work. DO NOT EVER MAKE THE MISTAKE OF ASSUMING THIS CAN BE CURED. I know a couple who spent literally millions of dollars trying to avoid their kid having the stigma of having "schitzophrenic" on the record, and they refused to have her put on social security disability, etc. DO NOT PERMIT YOUR PARENTS TO MAKE THAT MISTAKE. If it looks like she's not going to be able to work, IMMEDIATELY start working on getting her on social security disability. It will pay a stipend and medical, which is one less thing your family will have to cover.
But most important, TAKE THE MEDS.
First of all, I am not a psychologist.
This is a tough situation for a lot of reasons. You obviously don't want to impose on him or his rights, which I respect. However, If he is not capable of making rational decisions about what is real and what is not, I think the internet would be a bad place for him if unsupervised. There is too much false information out there, and the internet requires people to understand that some of what is on it is not real. My inclination would be to have him surf the web with someone he trusts completely, and will be able to help him understand what's real and what isn't. Obviously, this depends a lot on the seriousness of his mental illness as well.
It sucks because removal from the "real world" could have ill effects on him as well, but sometimes a judging the lesser of two evils is needed.
Again, this post is all opinion based
I wish you and your friend the best of luck.