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Regarding yesterday's blog, I have had some inquiries about the online support group that was of such help to me. It is entitled "Unquiet Minds" and you may find it here: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/unquiet-minds
The group is for sufferers and families who suffer along with the mentally ill. The Schizophrenia.com site itself also has a support group section where you can make friends.
There is nothing like friendship to make you feel less lonely, guilty, afraid, or sad. To soothe your soul, find a friend. Friendship like this could save your life.
Nobody can truly know what you're going through unless they go through it themselves. And nobody can struggle with mental illness in the family without support. This, in my opinion, is the fundamental flaw with the psychiatry system.
Darling and I are now involved with a psychiatrist who is #1) young, #2) inexperienced, and #3) temperamental - a bad thing to be when you're working with unstable people! Parents on the other hand, although they do try to help, cannot hope to understand unless they themselves have been involved in the same thing. My parents have been particularly unhelpful of late, and especially so when there's a relapse. They simply fail to understand why I would want to stay with a mentally unstable man - for which I don't really feel I can blame them.
So who do you turn to for the emotional support and encouragement you need? There is nothing better than a friend who's going through the exact things you do. The advantage of such a friend is that the person will never give you advice that is condescending or non-relevant.
Of course those who do give such advice (including parents and doctors) do so with the best intentions in the world. And sometimes support from these people is absolutely invaluable.
What I am saying is that it is necessary to supplement family and professional support with friendship.
To know you're not alone is perhaps the most vital knowledge in any struggle - whether for life or for sanity. I found a friend in an Internet support group focusing on mental illness. If it were not for her, I can honestly not say that I would be here, and relatively sane, and able to help Darling.
No person supports, understands and helps like a friend.
Or does he? One of the things that is hardest on the loved ones of a person suffering from schizophrenia is the sufferer's apparent emotional distance. The illness messes with a person's ability to show emotion in an appropriate way. And this often makes loved ones feel unloved and unappreciated.
The closer you therefore are to a mentally ill person, the more you suffer emotionally. Such suffering is especially hard to deal with because the illness is not constant. Suffering is therefore also not constant. At one moment the ill person could be love and light itself, while the very next day thunder looms on the horizon. And the silent storm begins.
How do you make him (or indeed her) see what this is doing to you? The sad answer is that you can't. The very nature of the illness disables the afflicted to truly understand what this is doing to those around them. No amount of talking or arguing can make much difference. Indeed, talking or arguing often makes things worse.
I have often thought that living with my ill husband and his child is like having to deal with two children in my house. But at least the kid will grow up!
Hard though it is, it is possible to find a safe haven within these silences and storms. One important thing to remember is that those with schizophrenia are not stable, and therefore no emotion attached to them will be stable. If you want stability, you'll have to find it somewhere else. And where better to look than within yourself? Below are a couple of suggestions for using your own spirit to create safety within the storm:
* Find things apart from the ill person to make you happy. If you don't have one, find a hobby you can be absorbed in. Make some friends, or get a pet, or read uplifting books.
* Connect with your spirituality. This can take any form from the traditional to the occult. You could go to church, meditate, pray, or find a spiritual leader whose ideals are meaningful to you. The purpose is to find a stable spiritual basis to keep you safe in the storm.
* Find simple things in every day life to feel positive about. The beauty of sunshine, the freshness of rain, or a child's smile could be examples. Concentrate on enjoying what your physical senses bring to you.
Doing things that make you happy without having to depend on your mentally ill loved one for this happiness will help you deal better with the pain when there is a relapse. If you're more stable, you can better provide your loved one with the environment that is needed for optimal mental health. So take the responsibility for making yourself feel good.
He does love me, even if it is hard for him to show. And I love him. But more importantly, I love myself.
My denial grew from his. For ten years, Daniel was unable to accept or even believe what doctors told him. Not that I blame him. Who would want to believe there's an illness eating your brain? And I loved him. So I didn't want to believe it either.
The denial didn't help matters. He didn't take his medication. We both suffered from his episodes.
Things weren't all bad. Daniel would have good and bad episodes intermittently. The good times were really fabulous.
But accepting a problem is the key to dealing with it. The first part of this key was accepting myself. You can't fix something that you think isn't broken. I had been broken for ten years before acknowledging it. When I did I began working on my denial. I accepted that I was a wreck, and I accepted that Daniel was ill. This made things easier for both of us. Being able to keep my own emotions intact helped a great deal towards getting him better sooner, and getting him to accept help.
I think he is still working on his denial issues. I'm trying to help where I can.
As part of the key, I had to learn to accept Daniel unconditionally. I'm accepting him now without trying to work on his problems for him. I am his partner; not his mother. Accepting him with his illness also translates to dealing with my other emotional issues better.
So my no turns to yes. And my broken, frozen heart has begun to thaw. It is a struggle every day to keep this up. But it is also strangely enough easier than trying to deny what is so obvious.
Because I accept myself, the problem and Daniel, I am able to deal fearlessly with whatever is tossed our way in this stormy sea. Acceptance is the key that unlocks the door to true joy and ultimate success.
The silent storm rages on, but sunshine seeps in on occasion. And that is good.