Because I couldn’t care for myself I lost my job and was eventually evicted from my home over the past 3 years. Both of my parents are dead, i just lost my mother last september, and I had no one else to take me and my daughter in except my aunt on my father’s side. I’m very grateful and she has a very nice home in the country side. I don’t plan to be here forever, but I’m not well right now. She thinks I’m lazy and that I don’t want to work. When I’ve tried to bring up my problems with severe anxiety, visual hallucinations and delusions she always quickly changes the subject. Today I sat down with her and a print out of schizoaffective disorder from the DSM-V to explain exactly what’s going on and she told me because she doesn’t see me acting weird that I’m making things up and must be lying to my therapist. I didn’t even get a chance to explain anything other than I have depression and that schizoaffective disorder is some traits of schizophrenia and some traits of bipolar. I started to tear up, but I can’t even cry anymore. I told her she upset me and I stormed off to the room I stay in. My aunt is very religious and if it’s something that her Jesus christ can’t explain to her through her talks with him then it’s rubbish.
Mental illness is really advancing though, I don’t know where you aunt doesn’t see that, it’s coming from news sites and all kinds of local reports as well.
I’m sorry that is happening. Are you on disability?
Maybe you should try for it.
This is so common in the descriptions of families of sz spectrum pts.
Bateson, G., Jackson, D., Haley, J.; et al: Perceval’s Narrative: A Patient’s Account of his Psychosis, Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1961. Etiology of schizophrenia.
Esterson, A.: The Leaves of Spring: Schizophrenia, Family and Sacrifice, London: Tavistock, 1972.
Henry, J.: Pathways to Madness, New York: Random House, 1965.
Jackson, D. (ed.): The Etiology of Schizophrenia: Genetics / Physiology / Psychology / Sociology, London: Basic Books, 1960.
Laing, R. D.; Esterson, A.: Sanity, Madness and the Family, London: Tavistock, 1964.
Lidz, T.: The Origin and Treatment of Schizophrenic Disorders, New York: Basic Books, 1973.
Lidz, T.; Fleck, S., Cornelison, A.: Schizophrenia and the Family, 2nd Ed.; New York: International Universities Press, 1985.
I feel for you. Use the forum to find understanding. Then use the info below to build some resilience:
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Get a copy of this book and read it. Have your family read it, too.
http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856 -
If you need a professional intervention or more sophisticated treatment, tell me where you live, and I will get back to you with leads to those services.
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If you have not been properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders, you can find them at…
Find Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Nurses - Psychology Today -
Work with that p-doc to develop a medication formula that stabilizes your symptoms sufficiently so that you can tackle to the psychotherapy that will disentangle your thinking from reality effectively. The best of the therapies for that currently include…
DBT – http://behavioraltech.org/resources/whatisdbt.cfm
MBSR – Welcome to the Mindful Living Blog
ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing -
the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia -
or standard CBTs, like…
REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
Standard CBT – http://www.beckinstitute.org/what-is-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/About-CBT/252/
I agree with @Daze about exploring state and then federal disability support if you have not already. Your local Social Security office can advise you on how to go about it.
I worked with the Gov’t very closely - a county social worker & a psychiatrist - to insure SSi (social security income). This gave me enough allowance to live on my own. There are other state benefits like free cellphones & foodshare that could help you out too. You shouldn’t have to work if managing symptoms feels like a full-time job. Society DOES NOT deserve such participation from the mentally distraught.
Before then, I was living with my mother and yeah I didn’t like the environment either; she has delusions of grandeur, that’s for sure, and I don’t appreciate being talked down to all the time. I’m a military vet who has spent years living on his own for cryin’ out loud. I didn’t need my mother’s assistance and she was reluctant to offer any help anyway. There are plenty of services out there that’ll provide you income & free mental help; you just have to do some research and/or make some phone calls.
thank you for your service to our country.
I think that even my son who has Down syndrome has something to contribute in the working world.
It’s not beyond expectations.
I just bought this book a few weeks ago, but haven’t finished it yet. I guess I should. Thanks, notmoses.
Thanks, mistercollie. I posted my trouble with ss in a forum response yesterday. I’ve got a remand hearing soon with the same grumpy judge that denied my first hearing. We’ll see how it goes.
I also want to add that when I bought this book I hid it in my room because my aunt doesn’t like the word ‘schizophrenia’. She even said that again today when she upset me. I guess the stigma has got to her. She associates it with homeless people talking to themselves on the street and I guess because I have a daughter and I know how to do laundry or cook on the stove the things in my mind aren’t tormenting me. Geez, what do I need to do? Run around naked outside screaming about demons? I blame the media and movies for this stigma.
Stigma sucks, almost as worse as the illness. Sorry for this situation, don’t let it get you down.