Archive for the ‘Mental healthcare’ Category

10 Dec

What is right?

Posted by DOGKISSES in health, Mental healthcare, mental illness, schizophrenia. Tagged: , , , , , , .

My heart beats too fast and my hands shake when I think back remembering all the hospital admissions, the doctors, the pills, God… the pills!  As I write, my gut feels like it’s being ripped apart.  What if I made a mistake?

What if I made such a huge mistake that my only beloved son shall never forgive me?  And if he does forgive me, has my mistake(s) ruined some of his life already?  Has it already carved out part of who he is?

I just don’t know what is right.  I don’t know what to do.

Join a group?  There’s pretty much only one to choose from, which is through NAMI.

“Forget his liver,” I remember the young psychiatrist telling me.  Was she suggesting that I’m neglecting my son by not neglecting his liver, I wondered.  Sometimes psychiatrists think in strange ways.

“We can treat liver disease, diabetes and Tardive Dyskenesia,” the young psychiatrist said, “but we can’t treat schizophrenia without antipsychotics.”

That part about treating liver disease, well, I don’t think so.

My son’s liver panel always changes when he takes the type of medications recommended by psychiatrists.  His family physician told him, once in front of me, “never take antipsychotics again.”  He told us that they would damage his liver.  

In response, my son’s ACT team social worker and a psychiatric intern at the hospital told me that we should get a new family doctor.

“You must go against your gut,” I’ve been told by professionals in the psychiatric community.  “You must abandon everything you understand as a mother in making decisions to advocate for treatment,” a well-respected social worker once said to me. 

“Treatment,” ultimately can mean forced injections.   The social worker added that if she was a parent in my shoes, that she truly didn’t know what she would do.

“We’ll commit him for not taking medicine and keep him there until he gets so tired of it he will do anything to get out, even accept regular injections of anti-psychotics.  We’ve had to do this many times with patients like your son — who are consistently non-compliant in taking their meds,” his psychiatrist has suggested.

“He wouldn’t have rehabilitation there,” I told the psychiatrist after she threatened to send him there if he, “made one wrong move.”  My son is not a criminal.  He gets sad and lonely and out of sorts.  He isn’t out breaking the law. 

The doctor had a bad attitude and let her personal feelings get too involved.  She was angry because the day before my son had gotten out of a car in town, instead of going to his apartment, while riding with one of the team’s social workers.  He’s an adult and can get out if he wants to whether anyone likes it or not.

“The only thing he would be able to do up there since the psychiatric rehabilitation unit is full would be sit in their community room all day, watching television with patients who are much worse than he is,” I told her.  She reminded me again that this was an effective technique to get some patients to decide to take medication.

I feel like I’ve had to give my son over to the enemy.  I feel like I agreed to join them too — but never with my whole heart or without the ongoing feeling that there must be a better way to do things than the way our modern-day psychiatry does them.

I stopped going to the support groups because there is a collective attitude that supports denying another person’s human and civil rights.

I once told my son’s psychiatrist about research suggesting that people with diagnoses, such as schizophrenia, can recover.  She hadn’t heard about the studies nor had she ever read anything about treating schizophrenia in ways outside of antipsychotic medication.   Personally, I find it disturbing that she’s been a psychiatrist for more than twenty years, yet hasn’t taken time to read about other forms of treatment. 

We need an alternative.  My son and I, and possibly many other families, need people to join an exploration in healthy ways to treat “mental illness” and we need to start a conversation about recovery.

“What causes schizophrenia?” someone asked a famous psychiatrist who was speaking at a meeting I attended.

“Nothing,” the doctor replied.  “Nothing and everything causes it.”

I don’t have the answers.  I do believe that if we had places where we can find what a former professor of mine called, “The Three Ms’,” that healing could happen.  “Meaning, Mastery, and Membership,” he called them.  “People will go crazy without these things,” he said to our class one day.


Thank you for visiting Dogkisses’s blog.

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18 Nov

Community and disability

Posted by DOGKISSES in family, life, mental and emotional health, Mental healthcare. Tagged: , , , , , , .

I’m Dogkisses and I’m mad!  Mad as in angry, more than a bit peeved, seething, and any other word that fits, besides insane, which I may be that too!

I’m mad that I simply don’t know what to do to help my son who has schizophrenia.   I’ve been working so hard for years and I’m tired!  I’m mad because all my ideas are hard to put into place unless he is on the same boat as I am and apparently, that is not the case, not at all.

Because he isn’t on the same boat as I am then when his illness gets worse, which at times it does, I must rely on psychiatrists.  It’s like eating beans and rice when you know good and well there are plenty other kinds of food, much tastier and much healthier right there for the eating, but you can’t get to them.

I’m mad about a lot of things and have been for a long time.  I don’t know which way to turn.  If I had money I’d get a dog sitter and go to some tropical island and consider things.  But alas, I do not,  so here I am, in my apartment wondering what the hell to do — besides write that is.

I’m  mad that this thing called fibromyalgia and maybe even worse, Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, along with a virus I have bringing with it weakness and  days of nausea, all just keep on keeping on!

It is hard to help my son or anyone, including my dogs when I’m too tired to think!  I simply hate it.

My grandmother told me when I was a little girl that certain words were  not good to use.  Like the word hate.  First of all, she said it was a sin to hate.   She also said it would make you sick and would not do anything to the object of your hatred.

I used to be a new-ager in the 1980’s.  Perhaps I would have given my fibromyalgia and chronic fatigue a mental hug and embraced the great teachings I gain each day as a result of having pain and being exhausted all the time.

Well, it is 2009 and I’m not hugging either damn one!

My grandmother told me not to swear either but I can’t get everything right.  I did once swear in front of her, but only once.  I don’t know what kind of soap she used but believe me it really really tasted bad! It kind of got stuck on my tongue and she stood and watched while I,  “washed my mouth out because I said a dirty word.”

I wish she was alive now so I could go talk to her.  I don’t know what in the world she would say though.  I imagine she would tell me to turn to God.  She would probably tell me that it was out of my hands, all of it, and give it all to God, specifically to Jesus Christ, since she was a Baptist.

I wonder what would she would think about modern psychiatrists!  My grandmother didn’t get angry like I do.  She did know what hard decisions were though.

I just found out recently that she had to seek commitment papers on my father more than once.  He was an alcoholic and would drink until he would get so sick he would be nearly dead.  He would drink, “rubbing alcohol,” when family members poured his beer or liquor down the drain in the kitchen sink, the latter of which as a young child, I blamed on the former.  I thought it much better to leave the liquor because I’d seen what happened when he drank the, “rubbing alcohol,” that was kept in the bathroom.

Back then the only place for him to go to detox was the state’s mental institution.  I also learned he escaped from there, which today is unheard of.  My mom told me that my grandmother helped in his escape.

They had it all planned.  My dad had his suitcase outside of the place, hidden behind some trees.  My grandmother told my mom they were just going to visit him.  My mom was the driver.  The next thing my mom knew after pulling into the parking lot my dad was in the back seat of the car saying, “Hurry up, let’s get out of here.”

So she had to commit him and then help him escape afterward.  Sounds about like what I do.  Escaping looks a lot different these days but basically that is what you do when you get “discharged.”   You have successfully and legally escaped.

I get pretty worked up about commitment papers and trying to save someone from a disease that is treated more like an alien and the patient like a hostage under lock and key.

I am way more than frustrated with what is offered to him as, “treatment,” and a great deal of the time, what is taken away from him.

I’m mad because The Literacy Council in the town he lives in just dumped him.  They have a Basic Skills Development Center, which offers many different educational services and programs.  They set my son up with a tutor only a couple of months ago.

Getting him interested in something enough that he will actually make a commitment is challenging, but he absolutely loved going to see this tutor each week.

He usually sleeps late yet every tutoring day he would call me early, knowing that I rise early to write, to make sure he knew the right time.  He usually walked there because he doesn’t have a car.

I’m too mad to write about it!  I should ask for a letter from them as to why they dumped him.

“He has a problem with memory,” one of the staff members said when she called to tell me they had decided, on their own, without consulting anyone about it, to immediately stop offering my son services.

He has a thought disorder, causing disorganized thinking and YES, HE HAS A PROBLEM WITH HIS MEMORY!  Duh!

Anyone ever heard of the working memory at this institution for education?  Somehow I doubt it.

Didn’t they totally go against The American’s with Disabilities Act?”

I’m mad because I don’t know this law up and down.  I should.

I believe this organization gets money from our government, along with other private sponsors, so why are they immune to dismissing a student due to his or her disability, which is exactly what they told me they did?

I asked two people, one being the executive director, if I was clear about why they stopped serving my son and went as far as to ask if there was something I did not know, some other reason besides his memory problem, that had brought about this decision and she said no.

So I’m mad!

I’m mad at the people who think without knowing that this town’s reputation is in some ways a fairy tale.  It is a place reputable for being a progressive town, with all kinds of different community services and of course the best of the best when it comes to any type of medical care because there are two of the best medical schools in the country here.

Much of it is true but when people who are in positions of power assume a service is available just because well, because they think it is — drives me nuts!

As I was pleading with the Literacy Council not to dump my son telling her how much he loved it, how it stimulated his mind, how it gave him something to think about and talk about, how he was always there and excited to learn — she said, “Well, I’m sure there is a service around here offering…” and I cut her off.

“No.  There is not,” I said firmly.  I had told them when he started receiving their services that I couldn’t believe I hadn’t known about these services before.  We’ve been here six long and hard years and finally, finally he got somebody who would sit with him for an hour and a half!!!

Finally someone was going to spend some time with him.   Finally someone would treat him like a human being instead of a person who what?  A person who you cannot expect to learn?  A person who made A’s and B’s in school, who is intelligent, but because of  a thought disorder, a thinking disorder causing disorganized thinking — hello! — because of this — I nor anyone else should expect him to learn?

Unless of course he takes a fat dose of a mind body altering chemical!  Then, he probably won’t learn, but at least his behavior will be socially acceptable and freaaaaking pleasing!!!

Well, now it is night, which beckons me to relax.

I could trash this post but I think not.  I will instead click Publish.




25 Oct

Schizophrenia and community

Posted by DOGKISSES in community and mental illness, healing, mental health, Mental healthcare, mental illness, schizophrenia. Tagged: , , , , , .

Picture of an authentic Neapolitan Pizza Margh...

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In Schizophrenia, I believe there is more to recovery than antipsychotic medications.

“Meaning, Mastery and Membership.  Without these people go nuts,” a former anthropology professor told our class one day.  “The three m(s),”  he called them.  I remember this because it made a lot of sense to me.  I really like things that make sense.

I’m not against using medication to treat symptoms of a mental illness, but it doesn’t make sense for this to be the only treatment method used.  I’m also not referring to an immediate mental health crisis.  I’m talking about the ongoing trials and tribulations of living with the symptoms of a mental illness.

I used to plant flower gardens to attract butterflies.  Butterflies are smart.  They would come when I arrived on the scene with potted plants that hadn’t even bloomed yet.  They would wait, for days and days, while I dug holes and prepared gardens.  Many times they would drink from the sweat on my shoulders, hanging out with me while I worked.  I felt good about myself when I planted those gardens.

I found personal meaning and a sense of mastery when they came to drink nectar from the flowers they had waited for, that I planted for them, and sometimes to lay their eggs on the glorious Bronze Fennel.

Mastery refers to the experience of being capable of doing something.   We don’t have to literally be masters or experts.  Being good at something of course gives us a sense of mastery, but also believing we can learn something new or get better at something we are interested in can also be empowering this way.

Membership is about having a sense of belonging.  Getting paid for my gardens included me in the work force.  I felt too that I had a place in my community as a business owner with a service that I felt good about.

In my personal experience, with my son and other adult children who have schizophrenia, work is either minimal or absent.

I think it’s true that if you work in a career or at a job doing something you enjoy, it’s more likely you’ll be happy and successful.  This is especially important for people who struggle with a thought disorder.  There is a symptom called disorganized thinking.   It is very much the same as being in a room where nothing has a place, a lot like my son’s apartment.  It’s completely overwhelming.

It only makes sense, at least to me, that he would succeed in an area that allows for free thinking, creativity, and time for him to focus on one thing at a time.

He got fired from a pizza parlor because the manager said he took too much time making the pies.  My son said he couldn’t make them unless he could make them just right and that the people deserved better than what they were getting.  He liked to decorate the edges and make sure the crust was perfect.  This took time he said.  He was passionate about the pizzas.

He had made pizzas before, when he was only seventeen.  His pizzas were famous among the locals and with the manager for being the biggest pies in town.  Once I went there and ordered one with artichokes.  The owner, who liked my son’s enthusiasm, laughed that night saying that there weren’t any artichokes left.  They had all gone on my pizza.  My son was proud, watching me as I ate so heartily.

This symptom of disorganized thinking is the main reason my son is not making pizzas as I write, along with the fact that most managers will not allow him to create his own masterpieces.  If I had the money I’d open him a pizza place.  It would have to be known for the biggest pies in town so he could pay the overhead.

There are residential therapeutic living centers in the northern and western part of the US, along with one in the southeast that has become popular.   Some of them have farms and animals.  Some of them teach certain trades or skills.  Unfortunately they are expensive.

I honestly wish that our local neuroscience teaching hospital included a residential living place for the patients who are able to leave and expected to survive in the community.  A place where meaning, mastery and membership could be cultivated and nurtured.  I wish we expected the patients leaving the hospitals and institutions to thrive and not just survive, even as I am certain that every single day my son survives is a blessed day.

Sometimes surviving each day is the very best you can hope for.  I understand that.  Most of my life is like that.

I know it’s dreamy to imagine a place, such as a residential healing farm, as being part of modern-day America’s approach to treating mental illness, but I think it’s a reasonable and rational imagining.

People who have the money are paying and saying wonderful things about some of the therapeutic residential living centers.  Plus, modern medicine doesn’t have illnesses such as schizophrenia figured out.  Recent studies show that being a friend to a person with a mental illness can change brain chemistry.  Well, I figured that all along.

We are told by psychiatrists that schizophrenia is a chemical imbalance in the brain and that antipsychotics are the only answer.  We are told schizophrenia is a lifetime brain disease.  This may all be true, but it doesn’t mean these are laws written in stone or that they apply to every individual diagnosed.

I think there is more to treatment, healing and rehabilitation than medication alone.

Meaning, Mastery and Membership.  We all need a healthy dose of each.


Thank you for visiting my blog.

I’m a just a mother with a few dreamy dreams.

I am not a doctor, therapist or medical professional of any kind.  I am not attempting to give advice about treatment of a mental illness.

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