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June 06, 2004

A Wild Ride

My son was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was around 16 years old. He was inpatient at several long-term psychiatric treatment centers for a total of almost 4 years. When he turned 16 we had him home for the day in order to celebrate his 16th birthday. Things went fine until it cam time for us to return him to the establishment he currently was at. As the time arrived to take him back he attempted to run away. My husband grabbed him by the throat as he attempted to run out the front door. I rushed to that area of the house to see what was happening. At the time Dan was into the gothic look and he wore several chains around his neck. These chains were cutting him due to the hold my husband had on him. I managed to get my husbands hands lowered to around the waist but Dan's neck was already cut and bruised. I was then able to get Dan to a point where he could sit down and talk about his feelings.

It broke my heart to know that he had to return to a place other than his home, but he was still too ill to be discharged. We also did not know that he had schizophrenia. I was able to calm Dan down by letting him express all of his feelings. We hugged and had a short cry together.

Mean while my husbands mood had turned surly and I was not looking forward to the ride back to Dans treatment center. At the time we had a 4-door sedan. Dan and I rode in the back seat as my husband drove us back to Dan's treatment center. Dan mood was quiet but sad. At one point he put his head on my shoulder and cried softly. I was heartbroken.

We were driving down a largely traveled road when I saw Dan open the door where he was sitting and he began to lift one leg out of the door. Horrified I quickly put one arm around Dan's waist and the other arm around the back of the drivers seat. I felt my body being stretched in half and I was being sucked out into the road myself. By time time Dan had both legs out of the car door I lost my grip on him and I saw him hit the pavement. My husband stopped the car and I jumped out running to where Dan lay. I checked for a pulse and was relieved that his was still strong. Dan was unconscious and having seizures. I was horrified when my husband lifted Dan up and carried him to the side of the road. My fear was that something may have happened to Dan's neck or spinal cord and that further injury could result from the way my husband moved him.

Within minutes EMS and the police were at the seen. By now Dan was having very strong seizures and I was very angry with my husband for moving him. The paramedics did their job and put Dan on a stretcher. I rode with them on the way to the hospital. Dan was still unconscious. I was asked about the cuts and bruises on Dans neck and I relayed to them how they got there.

When we arrived at the hospital Dan was immediately taken to the trauma area and I was offered something to drink and a chaplain made himself available to me. I was distraught, traumatized and terrified that my son would not live through this ordeal. They would not let me back to where Dan was being worked on. I made a few phone calls to let certain family members know what had happened and they very quickly arrived at the hospital.

Soon my husband arrived at the hospital. He was furious at Dan for letting this happen and proceeded to take his anger out on me. I was too distraught to care what his mood was. All I cared about was whether my son lived or died and whether he had suffered irreversible injuries to his neck or back.

Once the trauma team had finished working on Dan he was taken to ICU. He was in a neck brace as he had fractured several bones in his neck. It was not known that this time how serious his injuries were and if there would be any paralysis. I was at the hospital most of the night and only returned home for a very short time before coming back to the hospital.

By the next morning Dan had regained consciousness and was able to speak. He told me that he thought that even though the car was going at about 40 mph he thought he could just open the door and walk away from the car. Obviously this was not the case.

This same morning people from Children's Protective services paid us a visit and took pictures of Dans neck, which was badly bruised and cut. A certain code was put out on my husband and he was not able to enter the hospital. It didn’t really matter as my husband never once attempted to visit Dan in ICU.

Dan healed quite quickly and was returned to his place of residency. My husband was forced to enter in to counseling. If he did not do so our other children would be put into foster care.

This whole incident resulted in Dan now being diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was a bitter blow and one that took me months to come to terms with. Dan seemed to take things in stride. He now knew why he was experiencing such odd things in his young life.

Posted by Kathy at 02:40 AM | Comments (0)

Is It Real?

My son has the full range of schizophrenic symptoms. He hallucinates, hears voices, has delusions, and is extremely paranoid. When he was at an adult treatment center for adults with SZ he was frequently seen talking to no one. He was home for one weekend and his question to me was how do I tell if it’s real or not. It took he and I close to a year before this problem was successfully remedied.

When he hallucinates he sees people from the mafia. To him they are real and were presently in his life. I asked him to take notice of the peoples clothing, their hair and other little details. It wasn’t too long before he noticed that these people he saw never had on different clothing, they never had longer hair and they never looked any older from year to year. He was then able to identify them as people who were really not there in his life.

Dan still experienced these people in his life and he continues to do so as of this present time. One day he was in a bank and he saw the mafia holding up the bank and held Dan at gunpoint. Once the mafia people left, Dan ran home watching them pursue him and trying to shoot him before he arrived home. At this point Dan required a short stay at a psych ward in order to change his meds and stabilize him.

As terrifying as that bank experience was for him it was the first time he noticed that these mafia people never changed in looks. He made note of how each individual looked. The next time he saw them he ignored their presence. He believed that if he interacted with them that another hospital stay might be necessary. To this day he continues to hallucinate in spite on being on very strong anti psychotic meds. He sees mafia people looking in our living room window from time to time. He is now able to recognize that they are not real, which is a monumental step forward for him.

What worked for him was to find a few people he could trust. When he saw something that appeared odd he would ask these people if there was actually someone there or not. Most of the time there was no one present and it was not long before Dan was able to recognize that no one was really there. This was a huge step forward in my son's recovery and we were very excited that he was able to implement this information and able to deduce what was real and what was not. It is my hope that this may be of help to others who are struggling with these types of issues.

Posted by Kathy at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)

June 04, 2004

A bit of history

My 21 year old son lives with me and has schizophrenia severely. I thought I would write a bit of history about him before going into the bulk of his mental health issues. Although born a happy content baby he did not stay that way for too many years. As an infant people used to ask me if he ever did cry or fuss. He rarely did so and he was a joy to his entire family. Then things started to go wrong. Dan became anxious, depressed, and fearful. When he was 3 years old he broke a basement window on purpose. I guess he wanted to see what sort of damage he could inflict by ramming his big wheel into the window, which obviously broke. My husband was a firm believer in spankings and so this was Dan's first. It was after this spanking that he began showing signs of having trouble.

When he started school he became extremely agitated and had to repeat kindergarten before he could move on to first grade. It was at this point that I thought I would try home schooling him. His level of anxiety remained high in spite of the fact that I tried to make it as calm an atmosphere as possible. Eventually I became concerned that I was not teaching him properly so I found a school that was using the exact same curriculum as I and put him into that school. At first things went very well. The class size was under 12 and Dan appeared to thrive there. But it was not too long before he began to have the same troubles he did while I was teaching him. By the time he was in 4th grade it was necessary to put him into an Educable Mentally Impaired (EMI) program.

At this point my marriage began to crumble. We not only had a child with emotional problems but our daughter was put into Special Ed classes. She only had an IQ of 51 and this was a painful but necessary step. My husband began to get very moody. He did not want to participate in a usual parental role so I was left holding everything together. When Dan did something wrong my husband was too quick to hand out spankings. I eventually gave him an ultimatum. Either stop what you are doing or I would file for divorce. Thankfully he did stop his abusive actions for the most part.

By the time Dan was 7 he began talking about suicide. I was very alarmed and immediately took him to a child therapist. Then began the succession of therapists going in and out of our lives. For a while it appeared that each therapist was able to help Dan but eventually they all ran out of solutions to help he and he was referred to another therapist. This continued to happen for the next 5 years.

At this time Dan talked of seeing a vision inside our house. He said he saw a woman dressed in white walking through our hallways. I cannot tell you the great trepidation that entered into my heart. I now believed that Dan was beginning to get increasingly mentally ill.

By the time Dan was 14 he was put into a school for severely emotionally impaired kids. Unfortunately Dan did not like it there and he spent most of his day in time out. I should mention that Dan had been taking meds to help him from the ages of 10 through 14. Some of the meds made him very lethargic and some made him extremely aggressive. It was because of his aggressive behavior that he was first put inpatient in an adolescent psychiatric ward. This was the first time he had been separated from me and his anxiety level reflected just that. What got him put into a psych ward was the fact that he had tried to take the life of his younger brother who was just 7 at the time. Once Dan tried to suffocate his younger brother by sandwiching him in between his mattress and box springs of his bed. I heard the yelling and immediately intervened. The second time Dan had my youngest in a hold that was choking my son to death. I heard a faint gasp for air and went flying into the room. It was at this point that Dan was hospitalized.

The hospital really was not that much of help. Our medical insurance would only allow him to go inpatient long enough to try him on some new meds. Soon he was home and things were not all that much better.

I will now jump ahead a few years and relate what had happened to get Dan that got him hospitalized in 3 different psychiatric wards for 4 consecutive years. He went through a time period whereby he became extremely anorectic. He had dropped 60 lbs in one summer. I cannot relate how terrified I was. With my background of anorexia food was always downplayed in our home. But to my horror I watched my son go from a healthy weight to extremely thin. At the time we did have him seen once a week by a therapist that specialized in working with young adolescents but it was to no avail. All during that summer Dan was in and out of psychiatric wards like a revolving door. Our medical insurance would only pay for enough days to get him on different meds. Then he would be discharged only to come home to the same mess as ever.

My husband did not know how to cope with the sort of thing we were experiencing so he used anger and physical punishment to alleviate the situation. This only served to make matters worse for all involved. At one point I filed for divorce but dropped the suit when my husband began to go for therapy for himself.

Things with Dan continued to deteriorate. His behavior became increasingly bizarre. I first noted this because there were times when he would not answer to his name. He thought he was someone named Joseph or Alex. At midnight Dan would run away from home thinking he was someone else. I would immediately follow him in my car and coax him into my car. I thank God that each and every time I was able to intercept Dan and have him return home. It was a period of time that frightened me terribly. I felt all alone in dealing with all of this.

During this time Dan finally did something that got him put away for a very long time. At the time Dan was doing self-injury to himself so we kept all sharp objects locked up. One day we forgot to lock up all of the knives and Dan got a hold of that knife that was left out. My youngest son came rushing into the room where my husband and I were seated. He looked so terrified that he could not get any words out of his mouth. Using gestures he showed us that Dan was trying to stab himself in the chest. My husband and I ran to that area of our house to find Dan with a knife pointed into his chest. When he saw us he immediately dropped to his knees and slashed a huge gash down the inner part of his forearm. He looked at my husband and told him that if he made one move towards him he would cut even deeper. My husband stepped out of the room and called 911.

While waiting for emergency help I watched my son stand up and thrust the knife with all of his might into his chest. I jumped in back of him and tried to get the knife pointed away from him. We both stumbled and fell into the shower. Miraculously neither was harmed but my son repeatedly told me that he was insane and for me to get out of the room. I did retreat and he quickly locked the bathroom door.

I then became aware that I had to try to prevent my other kids from seeing a part of this nightmare so I got them situated in another area of the house. Within a few minutes our house was surrounded with at least six police cars. It was at this point that things suddenly seemed surreal to me. The police entered our house and we quickly relayed to them what had happened. At this point all of the officers drew their guns unholstered and stared warily at the locked door. I called Dans name over and over but there was no answer. Quite frankly I did not know if he was alive or not. The officers now had their guns out, pointed upwards and told my son to come out of the room. There was no response and at this time I believed I had lost my son. The policemen picked open the bathroom door lock and opened it. There was my son with the knife pointed at the officers. They pointed their guns directly at him and told him to drop the knife, which he did. He was then taken by ambulance to a hospital to get the wounds on his arm stitched. After that he was put into a psychiatric ward. This time they knew that he needed long-term care. He was depressed, suicidal, and anorectic and showed every sign of having obsessive-compulsive disorder. We did not know at this time that he was beginning to show definite signs of having schizophrenia.

Posted by Kathy at 04:04 AM | Comments (0)