The Family and Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that is caused by a chemical imbalance in the brain. The victim lives in a state of altered reality and will exhibit strange behaviors, bizarre beliefs and often experience visual and auditory hallucinations. In their psychotic state, their thoughts and hallucinations seem real to them. Sometimes only the family members may be aware of the unusual behavior and strange statements that are clearly false.

My own father has been a schizophrenia patient since he was a young man. He began treatment when I was just an infant. A lifetime of trying to understand this serious mental disorder has taught me that dealing with a schizophrenic patient can be difficult and requires a lot of patience and knowledge. I hope that my experiences will be able to help others out there who may be dealing with a family member who is suffering from this illness.

Fortunately, my father has always responded well to medication and has been able to lead a fairly normal life, with only an occasional psychotic episode. He is retired now and seems to be in the best mental condition of his life. The stresses of employment and child rearing are behind him and he enjoys his life. Many patients are not so fortunate. The medicines required to control schizophrenia can have unpleasant side effects which discourage many patients from staying on their necessary medication. Their illness can prevent them from being able to take care of their basic needs and without a good support system they often end up as one of the homeless population or in jail, where they rarely receive the treatment they need.

The support system is usually the family, but support can also come from professional care givers, church groups, shelter operators, friends, roommates, or professional case managers. For the purposes of this article I will refer to all potential support systems as "family."