What Can You Do When You Want the Voices To Stop and You Can't Stand Being Alone Anymore?
Just a few basic strategies to help someone get through a rough day fraught with breakthrough symptoms. Really though, it is all about proper meds, proper care, and a health lifestyle
Many of us know that around 1% of the population currently has schizophrenia. Given the overall population of Canada or the United States, this is a devastating number. What I find even more disturbing is that, as I did, a great deal of these people live in isolation. It is believed that 50% of people with schizophrenia will attempt to take their own lives, and 1/5 of those people, or 10% of the population of people with schizophrenia will succeed. To me this is such a dark and devastating number.
One of the first things I think is important is to get yourself plugged into an organization that helps people with your illness. If you have a caregiver, I highly reccomend that you get them connected as well. For anyone wondering how to help your caregiver, try navigating to a page www.curesz.org this is an incredible foundation for people with schizophrenia that will match your caregiver up with another caregiver so one can mentor the other. I know a few of these partnerships and it always seems these people end up best friends. I am linking some resources below.
USA:
National Institue of Mental Health Website
National Alliance on Mental Illness
Mental Health America Suicide Prevention
Canada:
Schizophrenia Society of Canada
Canadian Mental Health Association
988 (suicide prevention, anywhere in Canada)
There are many ways to get plugged into something. I wish I knew all of the programs available in the US, but I am just learning now as far as that goes. In Canada we have organizations like The Schizophrenia Society, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canadian Mental Health Association, and many more. What you want to do (I think some of the US equivalents are NIMH and NAMI but don’t quote me on that) is to keep an eye out for classes that will teach you strategies to manage your illness and manage your life.
Something that sticks out for me is that one night, my local Schizophrenia Society hosted a psychologist to come in and give us a talk about Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. I don’t know if everyone is aware, but CBT is believed to be the most effective form of therapy for people who are managing an illness like schizophrenia. I went to the lecture, and found out that there were ways I could get counselling in CBT and later found out that the clinic I go to, which has one of my favourite Registered Psychiatric Nurses, is going to be putting on a support group for CBT.
Not to take you too far down the rabbit hole, I also wanted to mention that a company called “The Great Courses” sells sets of lectures by prominent and respected intellectuals. They are usually available both online and as circulating material to all library patrons. The one in particular I wanted to tell you about is “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Everyday Life” this one is not just available through a library (and remember if you talk to a Librarian they can bring in materials from other libraries that aren’t in your local catalog) but it is also available as an audible audiobook. At the moment, I am loving my audiobooks because I can put in my earbuds, and then go out walking and get an education while I’m getting exercise. As a note, Jason Satterfield, who developed and delivered the courses has a second set of “The Great Courses” regarding CBT out for use now as well.
More Audiobooks Written and performed By Jason M. Satterfield at this page
One of the things I often like to emphasize is that it has been proven that therapy alone is more effective than medication alone. Rather than being a reason to go off medications, I think this is a testament to the power of getting to know yourself, and a reason to combine therapy and medications. There are many situations where medications are desperately needed when you simply can’t use therapy. I am so grateful to have outlived the use of this drug, but years ago when I was first hospitalized, if I showed any kind of behavior the psychiatric staff saw as bothersome, I would be injected with thorazine and left to my own devices, or locked into an isolation room.
It is my hope though that with the help of this blog and perhaps some of the other things I do, that you may be able to help your loved one get treatment before hospitalization is neccessary. I have a friend who is in his 50s now and has suffered for a very long time but has been spared the devastating and often traumatizing effects of being hospitalized.
To get back to the topic of isolation, I have definitely experienced this. I really wish that back then, there was some way to connect with others with schizophrenia or a day program I could have gone to. I was kind of stuck up and for the most part I only connected with my pre-mental illness friends, all of which ended in disaster. Just about every one of them completely missed out on the effects that mental illness had on me and when they discovered I was technically not even the same person, they lost interest in being friends.
Something that taught me a lot about trauma was following the horrific shootings in Columbine in the US. One thing I had learned was that after the tragedy, there were no more little groups or cliques in the school. Everyone there was accessible by everyone else, as a friend or as someone just to talk to. It is a horrible way for people to bond with each other, but this was what happened.
Perhaps in that previous paragraph, I have been given some insight into my own condition. I have often loved watching War movies. Very few of these movies actually glorify war, but in fact condemn it. I am reminded of the final scene of the movie where Lee Marvin befriends a small child and then hoists him on his shoulders and walks around with him until the young boy dies. It was such a powerful scene and inspired me to read the book. I learned the author had used his own experiences as an infantry soldier to write the book.
What the big deal of this memory is, whenever I watched war movies, it seemed that every one was working together for a common goal. Everything had to do with the war effort, or keeping loose lips from sinking ships, bravely crossing the English channel to face an incredibly well trained and well equipped army of Nazis in Normandy on the other side. Perhaps this is something that would be useful to re-think in my life.
There is another thing about isolation that rings a bell for me. Around 24 years ago, I had a very long and difficult hospital stay, 5 months of which was spent in an isolation ward with few visitors, fewer friends, and a staff that was authorized to put me in the isolation room as many times as they wanted. My cognitive decline after that experience was significant. But when I was released, I went to a very poorly run group home. The woman who owned it knew very little if anything about dealing with people with mental illnesses. She just wanted to rent rooms (mine didn’t even have four walls, she had put up a divider), have them pay her bills, trip out on some kind of power thing, and get people who lived in the house to do her snow shovelling. This was the absolute worst, I don’t know how she managed to stay in business, but there was a plethora of abuses like these. I ended up going to a really good group home with good food, great support, and the all-essential stability of a well-run home, not to mention that I was able to make friends with the others in the group home. Finally, my isolation was over.
I do have to admit that I still isolate, but I keep busy. I also take frequent trips to visit a woman I went to school with and I have a number of other close friends I talk with each day. I honestly don’t know if I could have developed this idea situation if I hadn’t been in the group home. There was even more to it though, my dad would come each day and take me for walks, and often I would go to the pool or gym and work out first thing. Soon after I moved there, I quit smoking and it wasn’t long before I was aple to put my mental and financial house in order.
Something I do want to emphasize is that it is so important to get the person you are acting as caregiver to, to get out and do things. Going for long walks in the morning is beneficial, but not always practical. Look into alternatives like mall walking or going to the pool or gym. I have so many fond memories of days that started with me going to the hot tub, diving in the cold pool, then sitting in the steam room for as long as I could. It was simply magic, and it made me feel so good.
Something I wanted to conclude with is that when I moved out, I became best friends with an ex-girlfriend. I wanted her back in my life badly. During my most recent psychosis at the time, I had done and said things that could have easily have ended our relationship forever. I didn’t expect anything from it, but I knew if I sent her a letter she would call me. I poured my heart into those letters, and wrote original poems for her in them. And then, the phone would ring and I would be full of joy and happiness. I was somebody, someone cared about me.
This same person has recently gone through a tragic life event and I have been able to be there with her. Thanks to my part-time job and other sources, I have been able to buy a car and I drive out to see her, help her buy groceries in a nearby town which has much better prices, and even get the odd chance to hug her and hope that by doing so I help get her through another day. I have never believed in giving up friendships, but especially when a person lives with a mental illness. Unfortunately, sometimes people with illnesses can be hard to be around, they can be quick to anger or completely unresponsive. But keep trying, there is a full-fledged human being in there under thick layers of fear, grief and pain. I want to reccomend now a book I have recommended before. I know the author fairly well and have read the book she wrote about schizophrenia. It is called “The Ghost Garden” and has a unique ability to open people’s eyes to the realities of schizophrenia. Susan Doherty, the author spent her free time visiting patients in a place called “The Douglas Hospital” in Montreal. Her compassion and understanding in the book is an inspiration to us all. I am going to insert a photo of the book cover below, with strong hopes you get a chance to read it.
