Uncle

My grand kids call my son, Uncle.  Just, Uncle.  The Kid started it.  He and Uncle started out with a close relationship.  Even when Uncle is not doing well, he can usually find something sweet to say to the little girls.  He worries about them.  He is afraid they will get hurt or someone is hurting them. 
The Kid knows Uncle is mentally ill.  He knows Uncle's mind does not always work right.  He does not know Uncle is in the hospital.  It is a scary thing for the adults to know.  We do not need the kids worrying about him. 
I hope that my grand kids grow up with compassion and understanding of mental illness.  I hope there is never a time that they are embarrassed by their Uncle.  I hope they can educate people on mental illness.  Television and the movies show schizophrenia as a violent illness.  It makes it difficult to say, "my son has schizophrenia."  He is not violent.
When my son goes out amongst people he is nervous.  He concentrates on saying the right thing so that people do not think there is something wrong with him.  He is not comfortable.  It is hard for him to join in conversations because his world is very small.  He does not pay attention to current events.  Once in awhile he will make a comment that does not make sense.  He is not someone to be scared of.  He would love to have friends.  He would love to feel comfortable around people.
We cannot visit him right now.  He is very agitated.  He has not called us.  I can call and get information from the nurses.  I know that today he was taken off the medicine that is not working.  Huge celebration!!  We knew a long time ago this was not going to work.  Took the Doctor too much time to come to the same conclusion.  Tomorrow they will start him on a new medication.  If you pray, please say a prayer that this works.  I know he is angry that he cannot go outside and smoke.  I know that the Doctor is trying to convince my son that he needs to check himself in.  We think he will be in at least a week.  We hope it is longer.  If he calms down and starts accepting treatment, we will go visit him.  At this point a visit from us would make things worse.  We are going to use this time to regroup.  Catch up on sleep. 
When he comes home, we hope he is more the person he used to be.  Tomorrow I have an appointment to see what we can do to get him started in day classes.  In the past he has refused to do these things.  Now we are trying to figure out how to make him realize this is something he has to do.  Unfortunately, funding to help mental illness keeps getting cut.  Our state would rather pay to take care of mentally ill people in prison rather than doing things to help them lead productive lives.  Our long term goal is to get him into some type of assisted living.  Our short term goal is when he comes home for him to sleep at night.  Not be manic all day.
Obviously, I am using my blog as an outlet for me stress.  Talking to people about my son has made me realize the average person needs to hear more things about mental illness.  Since I need to write about it, the few of you that read my blog will have to deal with it for the time being.  Thanks for your patience.  Thanks for your prayers.