If your loved one has been diagnosed with schizophrenia or you suspect they might have this condition, you may have a lot of worries and fears about how this will shape their future. At Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health, we treat people who require acute care for schizophrenia, and we want to provide families with some basic, but factual information about this disorder.
Risk Factors for Schizophrenia
Schizophrenia is a fairly rare mental health diagnosis. Only around 1 percent of American adults experience this condition. It’s not entirely clear what causes schizophrenia, but it seems likely that genetics, brain chemistry, and environmental factors all play a role. People are more likely to develop this disorder if:
- They have blood relatives with schizophrenia
- They experience traumatic or stressful life events, such as poverty, abuse, or violence
- There were issues during or before birth where they didn’t have adequate nourishment, had low birth weight, or were exposed to toxins or viruses
- They took mind-altering drugs in adolescence or early adulthood
- They are somewhere between adolescence and their mid-30s
Truths About Schizophrenia
Your loved one is probably really different now. It can be painful to watch the transformation, which makes it that much more important to remember:
- Treatments for mental health disorders, including schizophrenia, are improving all the time.
- The sooner they get help, the easier it will be for them to recover.
- Your loved one will have ups and downs. This could also mean that there are days when they can accept their schizophrenia diagnosis and other days when they cannot.
- You and they still have choices.
- People with schizophrenia are not typically violent. If they are, it is usually before they receive a diagnosis or treatment, due to confusion associated with psychosis.
You Have the Power to Help
Although you may not have anyone in your family with professional training on how to deal with schizophrenia, you know your loved one better than anyone, and they need you to stay involved, to support and advocate on their behalf. By educating yourselves and staying informed on the current research and treatment options, you can ensure that your family member’s treatment team makes the choices that will work best for them.
You can help their mental health team by documenting:
- Their symptoms and when they began
- Any other medical conditions they have
- Recent life changes they have experienced
- Medications, vitamins, and other supplements they are taking
Equally important is your role in helping your family member maintain as much normalcy in their life as possible. Schizophrenia can be really scary and confusing for patients who experience this condition, and it can leave them feeling very isolated. Friends and family have the important job of helping them to continue to have a good quality of life by including them in daily activities and special events. Relatives and friends who don’t live nearby can send cards and letters to remind them that they matter.
Take Care of Yourself
Loving someone with a serious mental illness is challenging. In order to keep yourself from burning out, it’s important that you take good care of your own needs. Some ways you can do this include:
- Join a support group. The National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and The Schizophrenia and Related Disorders Alliance of America (SARDAA) both offer resources of this type.
- Learn how to manage stress. Yoga, meditation, exercise, and seeing your own therapist are a few good options.
- Learn how to respond to your loved one. It does not do any good to respond to a person who is hallucinating or experiencing delusions by arguing with them. Even if you can prove that the things they believe are false, you will not succeed in doing anything except getting you and them upset. Instead, respond with kindness and support by telling them that you each see things your own way.
- Learn how to handle emergencies. If they become suicidal, act out hallucinations, or are otherwise in danger, call 911 and advise the dispatcher that they have schizophrenia. Stay calm and stay with them while you are waiting for paramedics to arrive. Do not criticize them, block their access to the exit, touch them, or make direct eye contact.
- Take a break. You cannot be on call 24/7 for very long without crashing. You need to let other trustworthy people help you. If they cannot help with your loved one who has schizophrenia, they may still be able to take other things off your plate, so that your overall load is not so heavy.
At Carolina Dunes Behavioral Health, in Leland, North Carolina, we know that it’s difficult to watch your loved one struggle with a serious mental health disorder. That’s why our staff consider it part of our responsibility to be a resource for the friends and family of our patients, as they join their loved one on their recovery journey.
