- 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.
