How to Live with a Mentally Ill Person:
A Handbook of Day-to-Day Strategies
By: Christine Adamec
FOREWORD
By D.J. Jaffe
It's a pervasive and painful problem, although most people don't think about
it until it happens to someone in their family, as caregivers throughout
the United States and the world will attest. Yet it's a traumatic problem
that happens in the best of families. It's called "mental illness,"
and it involves serious neurobiological disorders. And much of the time,
it is the family that provides care and needs help coping with hallucinations,
paranoia, and many other problems they may never have imagined. This book
was written for these families.
Millions of people with neurobiological disorders live with their families.
Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. But either way, it's a constant
struggle for caregivers of all ages.
How to Live with a Mentally Ill Person is a book for caregivers to people
with serious illnesses such as schizophrenia, major depression, manic (bipolar)
depression, and other neurobiological disorders (NBDs~brain diseases that
affect thinking and behavior. When your relative develops an NBD, you'll
often find that your insurance is inadequate, the system is nonexistent
or nonresponsive-and, if your relative is hospitalized, he or she is returned
to you sicker and quicker. If your relative is poor, non-white, or a substance
abuser, or is under age 18, multiply these problems. Clearly, families of
people with NBDs need help.
An ongoing downsizing has also created a critical shortage of psychiatric
beds in most areas, complicating problems for families. John Talbott, former
president of the American Psychiatric Association, put it this way: "As
a result of deinstitutionalization, families have become the doctors, the
nurses, and the social workers. But if the family has become the replacement
for the ward staff, it is a staff without shifts, without backup, without
ability to enforce daily routines or medication compliance, without techniques
or rehabilitation or the ability to access records."
These problems can be worked through if you understand the systems involved.
How to Live with a Mentally Ill Person is a road map to help you comprehend
and make your way through the morass of government and private organizations
and your own personal turmoils as you struggle with your relative's illness.
Coping will be difficult-for the patient and for the family. Don't confuse
the illness with the individual; instead, hate the disease but love the
person. You will need to learn how to help someone who resists medicines
or who exhibits psychotic behavior or threatens suicide. (Each year, about
15,000 people with mood disorders and 3,000 people with schizophrenia kill
themselves.) How to Live with a Mentally 111 Person provides real examples
of coping with real problems.
People with NBDs are not always able to control their own thoughts or moods.
They may have visual, aural, or other hallucinations during periods when
they are psychotic. They may exhibit "inappropriate" behavior
and emotions such as laughing at the wrong time or at nothing, becoming
excited for no discernible reason, or shrinking from people whom they perceive
are persecuting them. Caregivers need tactics to cope with such behaviors.
This book will help you.
Brain disorders are not curable. They are, however, controllable with medications.
Modern medicines have come a long way in controlling symptoms and there
is no shame in taking medicine to control the imbalance, just as there is
no shame in taking medicine to control high blood pressure or diabetes.
Unfortunately, finding the right medicine and the right dose can be a long,
involved, trial-anderror process.
You will need to work with your relative's psychiatrist to learn what specific
medications are supposed to do and what side effects may occur. And you
will also want to ensure that doctor knows what effects this medication
has on your relative. To do this, you need a good working relationship with
a competent doctor, and this book will enable you to achieve this goal,
as you learn how to find a good I doctor, when to change doctors, and how
to interact with the physi- | clan. ~
You also need to understand treatment settings, government hie` - archies,
entitlements, simple estate planning, and other issues you probably are
not familiar with. They are critically important issues that mental health
professionals rarely explain to families. They are covered in this book.
The author of How to Live with a Mentally III Person, Christine Adamec,
is the parent of a young woman with an NBD and she | personally understands
the struggles that families go through in coping vith the brain disease
of a beloved family member. Unlike other authors who speculate endlessly
on the "why" of NBDs, she accepts at they exist and instead concentrates
on providing practical advice n dealing with the problems generated by your
relative's NBD. This extremely helpful and practical book will arm you with
the ability to cope effectively with the doctors, the bureaucrats, your
friends and aTnily, and your own very real fears.
D. J. JAFFE
New York New York
D. J. Jaffe is a board member
of the National Alliance for the Mentally III in Arlington, Virginia, and
of Friends and Advocates of the Mentally III in New York City. Jaffe
has been active for over seven years in educating families and trying to
change the system to make it more responsive to those most in need. He travels
the United States giving speeches on these issues.
|
|
Early
Schizophrenia Screening Test 