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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
"Your father made a life-saving decision, and so have you by choosing to distance yourself. I have recently had to make this same decision regarding a manic friend: there is nothing I can do to change anything, nothing I can do to help. Distancing yourself doesn't hurt these people because they don't have the emotional capacity for visits or contact very often: 1 year or 20 can pass unnoticed by them, and very often as in your case, family members are regarded as the enemy plotters."
"The cruel selfish truth...Give up as lost the mother you want or remember; grieve her; and then you can get on with living with the mother you've actually got, in whatever way you choose to do that."
-- Della
"distancing yourself doesn't hurt these people because they don't have the emotional capacity..."
You know this? Really? How do you know this?
While I happen to agree that in situations like this children may have to build boundaries that didn't exist before just to stay sane and not allow the illness to consume them as well, it sounds like you advise abandoning mum altogether. Is this your meaning?
If you do this to your mom, as opposed to a friend, you will regret it. Maybe not right away-- maybe it won't hit you for 15 or 20 years, but it will.
This is one of the most heartreaking situations I can imagine, only I don't have
to imagine it because I have lived it and written a book and articles about it. The author's story is painfully familiar.
I'd like to offer a few bits of knowledge I've gained over the years that I hope
will prove useful and offer some small solace.
It is OK to take care of yourself first. You cannot help her or anyone unless
you yourself are healthy and strong. Then you can help others. Someone once told me you have to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you
And caring for someone with chronic untreated mental illness has the capacity to
level even the hardiest among us.
Your mom does not want help. This is because she she has schizophrenia, which
very often cruelly robs the sufferer of insight. Read Xavier Amador's book I'm
Not Sick, I don't Need Help for some insight in to this very common experience.
This may help explain a lot.
Keep your expectations of your mom and her situation realistic and sometimes low. Progress with these illnesses, esp when the sufferer is
not participating in their treatment, is poor. Giving up
the fantasy of getting back the mother you once knew is very hard but necessary.
Check out groups like NAMI and read Suriving Schizophrenia by E. Fuller Torrey.
Also Growing Up with a Schizophrenic Mother, which is a book of case studies.
Family to Family groups are great. However, do realize that your situation a daughter will be very different from those of parents of mentally ill children. Try to find support in others that have mentally ill parents.
Find many other interests. Go for walks, study botany,
read Milton. Wanting to save your mother is admirable,
but you will do well to lead a balanced life. There's a lovely world out there
still, full of wonder and joy,
despite the pall this illness has cast over your life.
Seek out that wonder and joy. It is sustaining.
And, lastly, know that though there will always be people that think you should
take in your mother and do all you can to save her etc., that there are many
others that understand that this situation on a day to day basis is something
that requires the skill of smart, dedicated professionals.It's OK for you and
your family to go on with your lives
and not give everything over to an illness that, untreated,
has the capacity to consume not only your mother, but you, your father, and your
sister as well.
The shame and stigma that surrounds schizophrenia still
abounds, as you can see from your experience and so many
letter writers that have written. Too many of us want to blame someone,even
the sufferer for getting this wretched disease. But it as futile as blaming
someone for getting Alzheimer's.
With treatment it is perhaps possible your mom can improve. How much is unclear. I hope enough for her to live a life where she can help care for herself and where you can still bring joy to one another. Even if she never "gets better" as you envision it, this sort of loving exhange may be possible at some point.
Maybe she will decide to comply. Maybe there is some chance of involuntary
commitment. ( www.treatmentadvocacy.org )can provide some information
about options.
Good luck to your family and your mom.
Virginia Holman
One small note. Hard as it is to believe, the problem may not be that your mother doesn't want to get better, but that she doesn't realize she's sick.
It's common for schizophrenics to have poor insight into their illness. Some doctors are researching how this might be connected to a neurological condition called anosognosia, which is seen in people with certain kinds of brain damage.
For more information, I suggest Xavier Amador's
I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help
. Dr. Amador is a psychologist whose brother suffers from schizophrenia.
It's vital not to take this personally--I realize that sounds odd!
My mother had schizophrenia, and died in the State Hospital in Camarillo, California when I was 18 (1965). I had finally managed to get her put there against her will. Her symptoms were vivid and horrifying for me, and I suffered severe abuse and neglect that gave me chronic PTSD.
For 30 years my narrative of growing up with her went like this--
*My mother chose to stay nuts, even to die, rather than to be a mother to me.
I finally got enough good therapy (after years of searching for a therapist who would 'get' my childhood) and read enough, and worked with enough psychotic patients (yes, I became a psychologist) to re-write that narrative--
*My mother was helpless against a violent illness that tore her from her dreams of a normal life and made her unable to raise me properly.
I realize that concept is scant comfort to you, when you're in the middle of this horror. You need a mother, and you need her NOW. Just please realize that denying one is ill is a common symptom of schizophrenia (it's called anosognosia). So is repeatedly stopping one's medications. After all, if you're not actually ill, why would you want to keep taking antipsychotic meds that can cause horrible side effects?
I've now had about 10 years of peace. A few times a year I still dream that I've just realized she's still around somewhere, and (in the dream) I set off to find her so I can care for her and make her well.
Then I wake up and realize nothing I or she could possibly have done would have made her well.
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