What’s the link to the family forum?
@moderators
I’d like to encourage you to join our forum for Family and Caregivers that can be found at:
While this is a peer support forum for people with schizophrenia and other closely related psychotic disorders, the Family forum is specifically for people like yourself, who have a loved one they are concerned about.
Also, please let your loved one know about this forum as they may find it helpful.
Best of luck,
Ninjastar
Volunteer Moderator
Why do you want the family forum? Please be careful. Things can be pretty dark over there.
2 Likes
Yeah that’s true some of the stories are really tragic.
2 Likes
It’s for my wife, can we post there too or is it mutually exclusive
1 Like
No, we’re allowed to post there as far as I know. A few members have made accounts there and have answered questions in the past.
It’s really on a case by case basis. As long as you’re not interfering with their support, you’re welcome to post there. But I wouldn’t recommend it. Your wife needs a safe place where she can get support, and so do you. You should respect each other’s privacy and let each other have those spaces to yourselves. Plus, the family section is filled with horrible tragic stories of people who are much worse off than we are. I once read a story about a parent who had just saved their child from a suicide attempt, but secretly wished they hadn’t. That story made me decide I should never read the family section again. Their pain is very different from our pain, and it’s hard for our sides not to judge each other sometimes.
10 Likes
@Ninjastar. Your name is misspelled in your Family Forum form letter.
2 Likes
Your name is misspelled
3 Likes
Thanks, I fixed it.
1 Like
Ya, that place gets me thinking, is this what my mom thinks of me? It’s not healthy. The family is venting. We are more sympathetic in our posts because we know the struggle. We have been in each other’s shoes. The family is kind of ignorant and don’t know what they are talking about, let them do their thing ,and we will do ours. A lot like the drama and attention, but that’s their problem.
I hope to God that you’ve never said any such thing on the FFC forum. Not only is it grossly untrue, but it’s also very rude. Serious illness affects the entire family, and joining a support forum is not a way to get attention, but a way to get, well, support.
Sz isn’t easy on us, no, but it’s not easy on our families either. Think having to bring your adult child to work with you so they don’t accidentally run away and kill themselves, having to drop your spouse off at the hospital 5 times a year and explaining to your young children where daddy went each time, dropping out of college and working two jobs so you can afford to take care of your older sister who’s so sick that she can’t even hold a proper conversation, having to take your own mother to a long term hospital because she’s homicidal and refuses to take her meds.
Don’t you think you’d need a place to confess that you want your sibling to die because taking care of them is too stressful? That you wish you’d had aborted your sick child? That you had to sit down with your children and explain that mommy isn’t coming home because the police shot and killed her when she couldn’t follow their commands? Low functioning schizophrenia is like a young mind’s dementia. You watch your loved one deteriorate before your very eyes, and sometimes, there’s nothing anyone can do but let it happen. Most of the FFC’s loved one’s stories aren’t going to end well. How is anyone supposed to live with that on their own?
4 Likes
Okay, I’m crying
My family is bitter
@Sardonic you have to remember a good number of people who are ill see also very self centered and entitled because they get their own way so much. Of course they’ll say stuff like that because they really see themselves as deserving special attention and like all non sick people have it so easy. It’s the lack of insight and lack of compassion so prevalent among the sick.
I choose not to live life so I don’t hurt them, I’m doing them a favor. They are fine without me and they don’t need me. I had to go home early so many times from babysitting my little cousin because I thought I was going to kill him… You know how bad that made me feel??? I have to live with that for the rest of my life. I love that kid.
Its hard growing up with kid cousins and seeing them grow and succeed and not having that connection with them anymore because they grew up and became aware of things and can’t talk to me, see my age and have friends that have parents that are my age. When I’m incapable of taking care of a kid now, or can’t talk to them. It makes me feel so ■■■■■■■ lost and hurt.
See, this is my point. It’s not just about us. Schizophrenia wrecks the life of the sufferer, as well as the lives of everyone near and dear to them. Your pain may be great, sure, but it doesn’t negate anyone else’s pain.
I’ve met people who end up in the hospital nearly once every 3 months because they’re tripping out almost constantly and have zero insight into the fact that they’re tripping out. My mom was in San Francisco when a man walked up to her and explained that he was so happy because he was living at Disneyland, then ran away when my mom asked for his name. His family probably thinks he’s fu cking dead. Imagine that. His poor mother probably thinks her child is gone.
I am in no way insinuating that your suffering doesn’t matter, but you’re insinuating that theirs is somehow cheapened because they’re not the ones who are diagnosed. So yes, we are living with schizophrenia, but don’t forget that our loved ones are too.
1 Like
My loved ones choose not to live with it, they say things for me to hate them and it makes them cold. They see issues in what I say and don’t even help me out anymore because “it’s my story” They just act a certain way when talking to me that’s fake, and don’t take me seriously cause some things I say doesn’t make sense and I don’t know when they aren’t making sense anymore. I get no kind of understanding and just told to “don’t let it bother you, get over it” the new one is “don’t even think or have emotions” listen to other people cause you can’t make decisions, you never listened
I haven’t said anything in the family forum but a lot of people are doing it wrong. Ned non compliant, using the jail system to treat their kid, I know there’s suffering on the other side but many could use some advise or are just doing it wrong