If you have a family member with Schizophrenia (formerly known as mental illness), remember these points:
You cannot cure a mental disorder for a family member.
Despite your efforts, symptoms may get worse, or may improve.
. If you feel much resentment, you are giving too much.
It is as hard for the individual to accept the disorder as it is for other family members.
Acceptance of the disorder by all concerned may be helpful, but not necessary.
. A delusion will not go away by reasoning and therefore needs no discussion.
. You may learn something about yourself as you learn about a family member’s mental disorder.
Separate the person from the disorder. Love the person, even if you hate the disorder.
. Separate medication side effects from the disorder/person.
It is not OK for you to be neglected. You have needs & wants too.
Your chances of getting mental illness as a sibling or adult child of someone with NBD are 10-14%. If you are older than 30, they are negligible for schizophrenia.
. Your children’s chances are approximately 2-4%, compared to the general population of 1%.
. The illness of a family member is nothing to be ashamed of. Reality is that you may encounter discrimination from an apprehensive public.
. No one is to blame.
Don’t forget your sense of humor.
It may be necessary to renegotiate your emotional relationship.
It may be necessary to revise your expectations.
. Success for each individual may be different.
Acknowledge the remarkable courage your family member may show dealing with a mental disorder.
.Your family member is entitled to his own life journey, as you are.
. Survival-oriented response is often to shut down your emotional life. Resist this.
. Inability to talk about feelings may leave you stuck or frozen.
The family relationships may be in disarray in the confusion around the mental disorder.
Generally, those closest in sibling order and gender become emotionally enmeshed, while those further out become estranged.
. Grief issues for siblings are about what you had and lost. For adult children the issues are about what you never had.
After denial, sadness, and anger comes acceptance. The addition of understanding yields compassion.
. The mental illnesses, like other diseases, are a part of the varied fabric of life.
Shed neurotic suffering and embrace real suffering.
. The mental illnesses are not on a continuum with mental health. Mental illness is a biological brain disease.
. It is absurd to believe you may correct a physical illness such as diabetes, the schizophrenias, or manic-depression with talk, although addressing social complications may be helpful.
Symptoms may change over time while the underlying disorder remains.
. The disorder may be periodic, with times of improvement and deterioration, independent of your hopes or actions.
