Mental Illness in the Family

[theara]

I was wondering if anyone here had any experience dealing with a family member with a mental illness i.e. schizophrenia, bipolar, etc. How tough was it to deal with it and how was the treatment.

The reason I am asking is becuase my mother has been showing signs of mental illness since around july 2006. Long story short she became depressed from my dad's first affair and accused him of another earlier this year.
She quit her job and has been home everyday since july; she's been claiming she's losing her mind and that someone/thing is doing this to her. She talks to herself, it's almost like Russel Crowe's John Nash in "A Beautiful Mind".
This past three days have been tough. We, my sisters and I, decided to take to a family doctor to see what really is happening. He gave her some antidepressants which didn't work. The next day she became even worse, we took her to an emergency psychiatric hospital for her to be evaluated. We decided to take her home for the night to see if the medicine would work, it did. BUT after it wore off this morning around 3 am, she was back at it but even worse. She was suicidal before, but she drank some bleach and was puking everywhere. We had to take her to the emergency room, now they want to admit her.

I feel it's best for her to be admitted but i still refuse she's going crazy. It's just hard to accept, and i don't understand it. I feel frustrated. I want her to fight but i understand that it is not that easy.

I hope anyone here has had any experience handling this type of situation. My mother was fine earlier in the year. It's like she's someone else.

[Hannainnc]

this must be horrible for you. I have no experience with a family member like this, but I would have her admitted theara. she needs to be evaluated and the docs need to figure out how to manage it.

good luck and I;m sorry you are having to go through this.

[CubanChick]

Wow Theara.. that really bought a tear to my eye. Your poor mom and all the rest of you to have to watch her change. I have never had to deal with something like this, but it must be very difficult.

Keep @ it with getting her checked on. Maybe she is just in a big depression.

Good luck and keep us posted.

My heart goes out to you! I am really close to my mom and wouldn;t know how to handle something like that.

[jennyd]

Agreed....
Theara I'm really sorry that you're dealing with this. That was really hard for me to read. I wish I could offer more insight into it, but unfortunately, I can't. I've never experienced this in my family.

I think that admitting your mom into the hospital is her best bet. At least you know she won't be able to cause harm to herself, and she'll be looked after by professionals.

Try and keep your chin up and stay strong...if not for your own sanity, then to show your mom that she has people that care about her and her well being.

And, remember...we're here for support too.
Please keep us posted.

[Hawkwind]

Cousin with schizophrenia. Hospitalized many times over the years. He's great if he stays on his meds. But he gets tired of being medicated and tries to go off from time to time. Never succesfully.

2 - Bipolar friends, one I took in for 5 months because she was so unstable that she became homeless and couldn't keep it together long enough to get through the process of getting her SSI benefits. She also has MPD.

Various relatives with severe depression problems.
Husband's father, sister and nephew all had nervous breakdowns.
My mom's oldest sister has been hospitalized many times over the years.
Their mom was also.

It's very tough to deal with the initial treatment. I've been helping my friend Kat out a lot as her doctor cannot get her meds dosages adjusted to keep her level. Our friend Michele lives below her. Between the two of us we check on Kat daily and help her get moving and functioning.

My sister-in-law was hospitalized twice this year alone before they could get her stable. My nephew is finally stablized.

Your mom can't help what is happening to her. My sister-in-law had to spend a couple months in treatment earlier this year. She's doing much better now.

{{{Hugs}}} for you and your family. I understand how hard this in on you.

[Hawkwind]

One more thing. The affair thing may have been what tripped her trigger over the edge. But the illness was working its way on her for a long time before.

My sister-in-law's trigger was her husband's sleep apnea and a diagnosis of autism in her grandson. Mic was shot through the head (from his ear through his nose) while in Vietnam. As he's gotten older he had to endure many, many corrective surgeries because he stops breathing in his sleep now. She couldn't sleep soundly because she was always worried about Mic not waking up. Then my nephew was diagnosed as autistic and for some reason she felt it was her fault. She broke down in tears one night and that was it. She flipped out and Mic couldn't calm her down and ended up taking her into the city hospital. She was admitted that night.

Anything could have sent your mom over the edge. For my sister-in-law it was a combination of sleep deprivation and family (genetic history) her father had a nervous breakdown when my husband was 14. No one saw it coming. He just had a meltdown one night.

[ktinspired]

When my mother hit her change of life she started to suffer from mental illness. She was diagnosed bipolar. It was a very long road. We started to see the changes in her but it does leave a helpless feeling. SHe lived in denial for a very long time..even left my father after 27 years of marraige.

On thing I can tell you it those meds are always hit and miss. It took them almost a year or more to get my mother back on track to normalcy. Even still 5-6 years later she still has moments. When I notice them I ask if she taken her meds the answer is usally no.

My mother had about 2 years of hell .....but now she is doing great. She went back and got her masters degree and now is teaching again ...all kinds of good stuff.

Beyond the meds .....your mother needs find passion for life again. One thing that is killing your mothers brain is the cigarettes. They are extremely damaging to a womens chemical balance. But thats something she gonna have to want to do on her own. The shrink working with my mother discourage removing the cigs. that really pissed me off. But he was thinking more of the shock and termoil the withdrawl would cause.

Many time in this mental state food becomes not a priority. I watched my mother go from 220 down to about 140 from not eating. that alone will mess up someone chemical balance. Healthy balanced diet will accelorate her recovery. Caffenine usually plays a distuctive roll as well. My mother would drink cup after cup after cup...accompanied with cig after cig. "it calms me" she would say..but in actuality it was contributing to the problems.

I want you to know not all hope is lost with your mother..she can and will come back with the proper formula.

I dont know if you are a God fearing man, but this verse alway gave me hope when things with her got real bad.

2 timothy 2:7
For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

God didn't put your mother in this state...life did. Hold on to the faith..

[HammerTech]

Just want to share my story of what I went thru with mental illness in the family. My (now ex) wife went through a condition called Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Doctors had also diagnosed her with trace symptoms of Bipolar before the divorce was final (whether or not that's the case to this day I do not know for sure).

Borderline Personality Disorder, according to what I've read and also witnessed in her, makes you feel like your emotions are in a whirlwind. One minute happy, next minute extremely depressed, next minute ready to end it all, next minute just upset but not extreme depression. According to the professionals I was communicating with on her behalf at the time (we went through a stage where it was solely up to me to pretty much run the show because of her PTSD as well...stems from childhood sexual abuse), it was hard to medicate...very hit and miss.

Very hard emotionally on me, and at times physically. There were three nights where in these "cycles" of emotion, I was hit with a ball-bat across the left shoulder (left a deep bruise but no other joint damage), a rather large, heavy book across the face (broke off a tooth), and a fist across the bridge of the nose (leaving a bloody nose). Mind you, my wife was not a small woman...5'9" 400 lbs (yes, you read right...extremely overweight and some of it she couldn't help), so these shots I took had something behind them. My sleep was constantly interrupted every night...I went through a period of about 3 months where I ran on 2-3 hours sleep every night being woken with suicide attempts, suicidal thoughts, self-harm thoughts, the like.

We were newly wed (I'd say 5-6 months in) when this was discovered. Traits of the mental illness created problems with trust (not to say I didn't commit an error or two to cause that myself at times) and sad to say, we never were able to right the ship after that. And yes, my ex became someone else in many ways. Once the illness was discovered, we never had any kind of intimacy in our marriage (it was some 30 months and after the divorce was over before sex was in my vocabulary again), and she was a completely different person. The caring, understanding woman I married who believed in working through problems became very much hate-filled, and quick to blame anything and everything back on me, regardless if I should have taken that responsibility or not.

Between the counseling and medication, it APPEARS that she is personally getting her life on track, even though the marriage failed and we divorced (we don't cross paths unless absolutely necessary). So there is hope in having something like this in the family and it CAN be righted.

TheAra, I'm not trying to offend because I don't know your convictions, but know that I'm praying for you and yours that you know the right thing to do for your mom. It's a very difficult thing, no doubt, but it CAN be corrected.

KTInspired: "God didn't put your mother in this state...life did." - Just absolutely a great truth there...thanks for saying that.

[Lowrider]

Unlucky there mate I know how you feel, its like not knowing what could happen the next day etc. My mum had two breakdowns in the last few months, she was stressed and depressed and the doc put her on anti depressants, she wasnt her self and it was freaky. One night she lost it and she was talking about getting a divorce from my dad and she was crying uncontrolably, i had to sit with her for hours talking with her and getting her threw it. Her problem was that she was working too hard and that she was stressed.

She is now on part time hours doing 5 hrs a day and we bought a puppy which she loves, this really helped her and she is fine now, back to normal, or actually even better. I know how you feel wishing that things would just go back to usual, but i figure the best thing to do is to look into the future, figure out what she needs and solve it, things can be reversable.

my mum likes hiking and so know her my dad and the dog all go on walks and she loves it.

ps. really sorry to hear that again mate, but dont give up on her, if she is just put away in a mental home you could lose her forever (obviously my situation was not that bad), my sisters were talking about moving out and all sorts when my mum was a reck, just because they didnt want to have to deal with it, i just wnated to sort things.

[theara]

thanks everyone, i replied to everyone's post but when i submitted it i got timed off so it didn't get posted. when i get the time i'll update and give you guys more detail.

Those whose handled something like this, my mother has/is going through the same thing. The sleep deprivation, smoking, wild tantrums, etc.

update: she was admitted around 8:30 this morning after being in the emergency room since 3:30am. Not sure for how long but i want her to be treated the best way possible

[B4n3 0n3]

Mental illness is a tough thing. One of my FORMER freinds had bi polar. He would get manic and say all these great things about himself that were not true. Since I got back into workiing out myself he started thinking that he was in great shape himself. So he started to say things like "I can do 200 pushups." and He would brag about his "8 pack." when in reality he has a big old nasty gut and I have never seen him do a pushup in his life. So After trying to ignore these obviously false claims I became tired of it and tried to tell him the truth. So when he got to talking about the 200 pushups he could do I told him "no way he could do that many pushups." I told him he could probly do 10-15 pushups max and I even doubt this guy could do that many. SO then I say "Prove it. If you can do that many pushups then show me right now." He wouldn't do any. Then he starts pounding on his gut saying "what is that?" I told him it is nothing and he was nowhere near an "8 pack." Well this incident was kind of the last straw in our freindship so I just told him off and decided to go my seperate way from him. He was a follower of the devil so it is probly best that I don't associate with him anyway. He had this satanic tat that he would always brag about blah blah blah.
I guess this is not a good story to hear for you right now since your mom is having problems and you are not just gonna leave your mom like I left my friend. But it shows the simptoms of mental illness. If I were you I would encourage your mom to get into working out because it is really good for the mind as well as the body. Some of the medications have real bad sides so that is why people don't want to take them. Hopefully she can find the right meds for her.

[Hawkwind]

Your family is in my thoughts and prayers. You are doing the very best that you can for her.

[POWERJIM]

Alot of my family on both sides have alot of mental illness issues, my late grandfather had such bad schizophrenia that he used to carry a tape recorder around with him to try and record the voices, only a few of my family have been sectioned under the mental health act though, the rest of us deal with our issues personally till it becomes to much, my uncle killed himself through an over dose and another uncle has been missing presumed dead, i can safely say that mental illness runs in the family.

[howardalex]

sorry to hear about all of this, I understand how bad it could be but I've been lucky not to have any in my family (as far as I know)
fingers crossed it stays that ways

[Glockwork3]

man im sorry to hear about this, i saw this topic a few times but i just now read it. I personally dont know how you feel but i can put myself in your shoes, it must be weird to you how she is acting when she used to be fine. Im really sorry man, you and your family will be in my thoughts.

[B4n3 0n3]

Any updates on how your mom is doing?

[theara]

update:

she has a court hearing on friday to determine if she really is ill. They will also see how long she'll stay in the hospital, since she was admitted involuntarily. The people working there thinks she's dong better but she is still a bit strange.

The stuff she is saying is similar to how this all began, where she told me my dad was plotting against us. I didn't listen then and she flipped out, i'm afraid if what she's asking will result in the same if the whole family don't do as she likes. The medicine is working but she needs to see a therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist.

[B4n3 0n3]