My Son

It Is Mental Illness Awareness Week

 

This is my son.  If you have been reading my blog, you know he has schizophrenia.  It is a terrible way to live.  For a very long time I did not talk about him.  Not because I was ashamed.  Because it makes people uncomfortable.  Now, I talk about him.  He is my son.  I should talk about him.  Schizophrenia is a word that scares people.  Makes them think of a violent person.  He is not violent.  Don't get me wrong, he will lose his temper at me.  But, he is not violent.
He loves his nieces and nephew.  He likes to go outside and do sidewalk chalk with his nieces.  The girls make him smile.  Coco has a big chunk of his heart right now.  They love him despite the fact he is not well.
He loves when there is a party at Tru Stories and he can hang out with Flag Girl's sons.  They will throw the football with him or play bags.  When FG's youngest scored a touchdown two weeks ago Uncle was so excited for him.  Also, bummed it was an Away game.
He loves to watch sports.  His favorite teams are:  White Sox, Bears, and Bulls.  He will watch any games a good team is playing.  He was a natural athlete.  He also worked hard to improve.  Watching him play basketball was so much fun!!
For years he got mostly A's.  It came easy for him.  He had a great memory.  I never had to remind him to do his homework.  He would do it as soon as he got home.  After the illness started he barely graduated from school.  Now he does not have the concentration to read. Since his last hospitalization he finally has enough concentration to follow sports again.  I am thrilled!!  He can sit for hours looking off into space.  I would much rather have him watching TV.
He spends hours writing notes on paper.  Lists of names.  Over and over.  When he was young he kept very elaborate baseball stats.  I often wonder if that is the link to the lists he makes now.  He will not talk about what they mean. 
Most of the time (almost always) he does not admit he has an illness.  I think that is how he copes.  It is heart breaking when he discusses being ill.  Not long ago he asked me if I thought he would have been a good Dad?  That broke my heart.  He has also asked me if I thought anyone would have married him if he was not sick.  Yes, a huge yes.  The girls loved him.  He was a charmer.  (To the girls.)  He was sweet.  When he was in sixth grade he asked me to tell him how to French kiss.  He said he did not want to look stupid. 
Most of the time I cannot think of the good times.  For two reasons.  It breaks my heart.  Number two, there were so many horrific times with him.  He argued.  He had no Impulse Control.  If he thought it, he did it.  He argued with teachers.  He wanted everything in life to be fair.  Ironically, we all know life is not fair. There were detentions, suspensions, in school, out of school.  He was sent to Alternative School by his request.  He worked his way back into the regular high school and was finally expelled.  He graduated from Alternative School.  He could be so rude.  Junior High and High school were nightmares.  We took him to several counselors.  The big problem was, he was so darn smart.  He would say what they wanted to hear.  I can remember one counselor insinuating I was over reacting.  He did drugs.  His behavior was blamed on the drugs.  I ALWAYS knew it was more than drugs.  I knew the drugs were a reaction to whatever he had.  I now know that 60% of mentally ill people self medicate with drugs.  It did not cause the illness.  The illness was inside him when he was born.  That is another reason I did not talk about his illness.  People would ask me if it was caused by doing drugs.  No, no, no.  Drugs do not cause it.  Drugs can make it come out, they can certainly make it worse.
In high school one of his close friends died in a car accident.  He was not in the car but they had all been together and were driving to meet at a house.  After that his life spiraled completely out of control.  I have read that mental illness can appear after a life changing tragedy.  It happened a few weeks before his junior year.  Life was never the same again.  That began the descent into the hell of mental illness.  It was almost three years before his illness was diagnosed.  For 13 years our family has lived with the ups and downs of schizophrenia. 
For Tru Stories it means she lost a sibling.  He does not have many memories of his childhood.  He also has anger towards Tru Stories.  I know that comes from his jealousy.  He can see what he missed in life by watching her and her family.  We did not just lose him.  We lost what should have been.  The sister in law Tru Stories should have had.  We used to joke that he would marry a cheerleader type.  TS and I kept a list of names of girls we thought he would date.  The girls he dated had names that ended with i or y.  They were always adorable.  They were usually smart.  Some holidays I know the family he should have had is missing from our table.  They wife he should have had.  The kids he would have had.  He should have spent hours in his backyard playing catch with his son.  He should have had a little girl that owned his heart.  Every holiday there is a blow up that disrupts our dinner.  I know it is his way of hiding.  He tries not to deal with reality.  Once in a while it hits him in the face.  He reacts poorly and hides.
He used to have quite a few friends.  Now he does not have any.  He is alone at home with us all the time.  He likes to attend High School football games.  He does not last at the game long.  Too many people.  Makes him uncomfortable.  It is a lonely life.
I tell you this not for you to say how great we are for caring for him.  We are his parents.  That is our job.  I want you to have a tiny picture of what a person with mental illness endures.  We take care of him.  We remind him to take his medicine.  We get him to eat when he does not want food.  We do everything we can to keep him stable.  But, we can't.  For no apparent reason, his illness will take control.  We can use all the weapons we have against it and it will still win.  Then he goes to the hospital.  It is horrific.  It is scary.  It breaks our hearts.  He has been hospitalized about six times.  We always wonder if this will be the time he does not come out of his psychosis.  With all our weapons against the illness, we cannot keep it away.  Think about the people on the streets.  There is no help for them.  No money for medicine.  Nobody to make sure they eat or have a safe place to sleep.  Nobody to remind them to take medicine.  My son has been on over 20 pills a day.  How can someone alone on the streets figure out how to get that medicine and keep it straight.  In our State when a mentally ill patient is discharged, if they do not have family to take them, they are dropped off at a homeless shelter in the town they last lived in. 
This is Mental Illness Awareness Week.  I hope I have made you aware of  a few of the challenges these brave people face.