Will things get better or worse?

When someone is diagnosed with schizophrenia at 19 is there hope for living a normal life? or will it get worse before it gets better?

Are you asking for yourself? If so, I’d say you have a lot of power over what happens. Taking your medication and working with your treatment team is highly advised.

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If you’re serious about taking care of yourself and working with your doctors, there might not be a lot you can’t do.

On the forum, browse the posts of @shutterbug, @patrick, @flybottle, @mortimermouse. Google Elyn Sachs. Don’t limit yourself.

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It’s for my son. He has been taking medicine for 2 months now and I do see little improvement but not as much as I expected.

Medication is designed to treat symptoms. Sometimes the behavior itself needs altering. What kind of help is your son receiving?

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Things got better for me despite being told to expect the opposite. Two year old post on the topic here:

I’m 47 now, driving a fuel truck for my day job, and still doing photos and video part-time. Things are okay.

My improvement took years. We don’t get sick all at once. We don’t getter all at once. Schizophrenia recovery is one of those “time takes time” things, unfortunately. Stay the course.

Pixel.

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Hi talktome, the chances are good (around 75%) that he will get better over the years. Treatment and healthy lifestyle are important.

As a parent, you can provide a stable environment if he lives at home. Sz is an illness; becoming an adult is not easy. Both are happening at once.

My family member was the same age when diagnosed and has so far refused medication and treatment, so your son is already making good choices if he accepts treatment.

It always took me about 3-6 months or longer to “come to” meaning I wasn’t as delusional—and that’s on like 3-4 pills a day.
The negative symptoms are harder to treat, still working on those.

I think @SzAdmin made a post about sarcosine supplements for negative symptoms.

I was a wreck from like age 19 to around 26. That whole decade was a partially-unmedicated mess. I took meds for a few years…spent like six months in this outpatient socializing/therapy program. Got slightly better in terms of mixing with non-sz.

In 2011 I went back to university, got my BA and Master’s from an accredited, brick-n-mortar university and am currently waiting on news about my PhD applications, this when I was diagnosed like a decade ago or around there.

There is hope. Nobody can take your hope away from you. The kindest thing my mother did for me was to give me hope that things would get better…if not now then eventually. That helped a lot when I had given up on dreams of education, employment, relationships.

Thank you for caring about your son enough to come here and ask. :smile:

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He is taking medicine but refuses any type of counseling as of now. I do believe I will be able to convince him to go within the next few weeks or so. Its just taking time. There are days he will tell me he no longer wants to take his meds because he is gaining weight. He made 2 suicide attempts back in December and was in the psychiatric unit for about 16 days. He was very depressed and I think that comes and goes along with many other symptoms.

I was 19 and binge drinking hard liquor abusing weightlifting stimulants and smoking over a pack a day and cutting class. I’m leaving to interview for one of two doctoral programs in clinical psychology tomorrow morning. I’m 22.

Yes he can get better. He will have to commit to the process of lifelong recovery.

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I just want to thank everyone for your responses and your advice. It helps so much. Its very hard to talk about this matter with other people who do not understand mental illness. Thanks again:)
My father was schizophrenic and committed suicide, my brother is schizophrenic and doesn’t think anything is wrong with him and now my 19yr old son has it. I’m trying to be positive. I know life could be a lot worse and I am thankful for many things. I will never give up on getting help for my son.

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good luck to you! Hearing that lifts my spirits.

All the best for the interview mouse.

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It took me at least a year before I could handle attending any sort of group outside of involuntary commitment to a psych ward (where I didn’t get a choice in attending). People pushing me into social situations against my will could set me back for weeks at a time in terms of messing up my positive symptoms. This is definitely an area where you’ll want to take it slow and let him determine what he can handle. Just getting him to take the meds without a fight is such a huuuuuge thing. That’s awesome progress.

Pixel.

Yes, it is possible to have a life after being diagnosed with schizophrenia as my following story proves. But it is hard to predict at your sons age as to how much a person will recover. You can research online and find sites that will tell you what are the signs that indicate a good recovery, but predicting how much someone with schizophrenia will recover is not an exact science and it’s not all black & white and cut & dry when it comes to predicting recovery. Some people excel at school, other people may excel at holding a job but may not be too sociable.

Recovery in schizophrenia does not come overnight. For most people (including me) schizophrenia is a life-long affliction where it may take months or years for the person to start showing some improvement.

I was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1980 when I was 19. My parents found a group home for me to live and I stayed there a year. Other peoples schizophrenia symptoms were worse than mine and other peoples symptoms weren’t as bad as mine. But I know that my case was severe and I suffered horribly during the year I stayed there. I spent most of my time sitting alone in the back yard in a dirty grimy chair in this old house, fighting every day to keep my sanity. I had to fight every minute of every day to keep my sanity. During the year I stayed there, I had no improvement in my condition. So my parents put me in a locked psychiatric hospital.

I was in there for 8 months and it was hell and it was more suffering. I was heavily medicated and I couldn’t walk right. All I could do was shuffle through the halls of this institution in my hospital gown with a hundred other patients, and listen to the constant screaming, yelling, and arguing that started after breakfast and lasted until after dinner every day. I kept to myself and I walked around the back yard or slept in my room for a lot of the day. Despite the noise which I adjusted to and got used to, I shot pool and attended classes and played volleyball. But my suffering never abated.

Anyway, I’ll cut to the chase. My parents arranged for me to leave the hospital and move into another group home in an affluent town in Northern California. As soon as I got out of the hospital, I started getting better and my symptoms were still there, but not as intense. 9 months later while I was still in this house, I got a job. I stayed there for 4 years. I moved into semi-independent living and while living there, I enrolled myself in college. I got a car, I made two or three friends and we would go up to San Francisco to the ballpark and watch the San Francisco Giants play other baseball teams. My friend liked to collect records and we used to drive up to Berkeley and find all the little hole-in-the-wall record shops and buy rare records and other music LP’s.

Anyway, I’m leaving out a million details but I got rather stable in my disease. To sum up my life with paranoid schizophrenia. I have worked (mostly part-time) almost steadily since 1984. After going to college sporatically over the years I now need only 4 more classes for my degree. I lived independently from 1995-2015. I have a nice car. I have been at my janitor job for almost 5 years.

I suffered a setback recently when stress built up over my moms death 3 months ago and I lost my housing and had to quit school and now I am living in another semi-independent living situation. I am working on getting back on my feet and finishing my degree. My point is that it is possible to have a productive life despite having schizophrenia. I have traveled, I have been to rock concerts , I’ve eaten out at restauraunts a million times, I’ve been to movies or to the beach etc.

So for the first two years after I got diagnosed I had no money, no job, no school, no independence, no car, no friends, no girlfriend. For two years after I got diagnosed my entire life was consumed with my schizophrenia and not much else. Sure, I did a few fun things during those first two years but it was not often.

But over the years I have had a life and I plan on doing much more. Anyway, I am not unique other people with schizophrenia constantly do good things in their lives that amaze me and it keeps my spirits up and keeps me going. I wish you good luck.

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Keep in mind that in psychosis, it is all too often a case of brute survival for the one suffering. It can take time for the medication to kick in, and when it has, it can take even more time to adjust to a situation where not everything is a threat to your life. Psychosis is extremely stressful and tiring, but while in it, you don’t get a chance to rest, take a break, or to get yourself together. It is ongoing brute survival. Coming out of an episode, one can feel drained and exhausted from all of that. My psychiatrist used to point out that people coming out of combat, or other extreme survival situations, do not adjust to everyday life immediately either. Maybe this makes some sense of the time it takes to recover.

I am 19 and was diagnosed at 14. Life won’t be as easy and simplistic as a normal mindstate. But you gotta make the best with what you have. Thinking positive is a good characteristic that helps me through. I’ve learned a lot of ways of coping/recovery/understanding but don’t want to spill all my beans this post. Anyways take it easy, have a bright day :grinning:

Dear talktome, This gives you a little time to find a good counselor for your son who is familiar with sz and the psychotic spectrum disorders. (If there is a program for early episode psychosis in your area, see whether you can access it.)

There are some otherwise excellent counselors who are unfamiliar with these illnesses. If you can find someone who has this experience along with other good qualities, your son might be more comfortable if he chooses to go.

Also, if you can go to counseling (again, avoid people who are unfamiliar with serious mental illness) or NAMI family support meetings, you will find people who understand to talk to face to face. This has helped me quite a bit. Educating myself has been ongoing.

I like this page from this website: http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/60tip.html

If he’s gaining weight there are meds where you gain less weight like Latuda. The newer meds are basically better just more expensive. If you can apply for disability you get Medicaid which pays for the meds that don’t cause weight gain

he is on Abilify and is cost me 50$ a month under our plan. I told my son as long as he takes it I will pay for his meds for the rest of his life. I know how important it is that he keeps taking it. not to change the subject but am I suppose to “reply as linked topic” how does that work? I just joined like a day ago and I am not sure how it works