Lived Experience Forum

[BryanaCamp]

glad the forums are helpful @beans 

I hear you on concern for children. My brother has a little girl, my niece. He unfortunately terrorised while he was psychotic. She has the support & protection of her mother & aunt and I hope that, as it was just an isolated incident, she will bounce back from it. I'm glad it's not a case of chronic trauma or a lack of protective factors (people) she is facing. From my experience, for little kids in their developmental years, mentally unwell parents (which I had) can be neglegent and even abusive. So if that is chronic (daily) then little kids, combined with mental illness genes, can develop their own dysfuntional "coping mechanisms" (often self-destructive & damaging ways of coping with extreme environments that mentally unwell parents provide) and life-long mental illness. That was my life experience. I hope this is not the case for your neices/nephews and it sounds like it's not given that you're a loving & supportive family. Loving and supportive family (in my case my grand-parnts and my aunts) act as protective factors. You sound like you're a protective factor yourself, so good on you. I can assure you that any healthy times you spend with your neices/nephews will benefit them during their developmental years. Plus, I'm an aunt & I love it, highly recommend it!

Your brother is lucky to have a supportive & loving family. It's important to look after yourself. Sometimes I have to distance myself from my brother as my own well being is negatively impacted either from being exhausted from supporting him or because my own MI is triggered from supporting him. It may be wise for you to do this also at times.

[Hope4me]

Hi there @BryanaCamp and sending warm thoughts to you too @beans 

I came across your conversation and thought I'd pop in to support somehow. Hope you don't mind.

Bryana; what a lovely response your last post was! Your expressive style and content really got to me. I often wonder how my family sees me and what they say. Never to my face of course, except one sis who worries about me from afar.

I only have one relation who has schizophrenia but he lives up north. My memories of him are mostly from childhood. His mum has cared for him a good portion of his adult life which has been mostly difficult, though she's a stoic woman with plenty of empathy.

I worked in a female rehabilitaion psych ward in the early naughties which gave me a clearer understanding of sufferers situations. Not many of them had family visit which was sad.

I think you're both handling things well; self protection and emotionally balanced thinking I mean. It's a credit to you both.

Anyway, just thought I'd let you know I'm reading and supporting from the background.

Take care;

Hope xo 

[beans]

@BryanaCamp I 100% agree, being an Aunty is the best. Kids are so resilient, but so impressionable... at this stage he has not been abusive or negligent, however they do pick up on some unrest in the household and you can see a few little hints of 'coping mechanisms'. We'll be definitely keeping a close eye on it though.

Does your brother go through rambling speech where you can't make any sense of it? I'm finding there's a lot of this recently (stories that aren't making sense, paranoia about people, thinking there's a camera under his vehicle). Have you experienced this directly with your MI? I have trouble navigating those conversations.

It's definitely a balancing act between being supportive and looking after yourself that's for sure. As I don't live close by, I get reprieve (though updates on the daily to guide/support my folks). I feel sorry for my parents as they're around it on a daily basis. I can see my mum's health deteroriating which is scary.

I've found comfort in your words/advice- thank you 🙂 

[beans]

Hi @Hope4me 

Thank you for your kind words and thoughts, I really appreciate it. It's the little things that keep us going, so thank you 🙂

Beans x ❤️

[Queenie]

Hey there @beans I too have a diagnosis of schizophrenia. I didn’t get it diagnosed until I was 27. Since then I’ve been flitting back and forth between schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder. It has been a heck of a roller coaster ride for me but especially my family as they weren’t prepared for it and got offered little support.

When I say “family” by the way I mean friends and my wife’s family, not my own biological folks. My own collective of biological relatives disowned me when, during a psychotic break, I mentioned what my voices were saying. I’ve struggled to come to terms with the fact that I’m not close to family. I firmly believe that upholding protective factors like family support, can minimise the stress involved for both consumer and Carers.

There is so much negative stigma out there about schizophrenia. I wanted to say educating yourself with as much as you can find about the subject is helpful. I even count Schizophrenia For Dummies as one of the easiest and best.