Reddit reviews The Complete Family Guide to Schizophrenia: Helping Your Loved One Get the Most Out of Life

You are not alone. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder 11 years ago and also work in the technology field. I’ve been managing it but cognitive issues have developed over time. My biggest fear and anxiety is the same as yours, that I might not be able to support myself or carry out everyday functions. This week has been one of my toughest weeks. I’ve had to take the last couple of days off to see my psychiatrist and come up with a game plan. I believe that if it can get better for others, it can get better for me.

Now on to your case:

I absolutely believe you in regards to how others react to your difficulties because it is a plausible reality. I have seen this first hand in my sister’s case. She struggles with the same condition as you but unfortunately is not always as self aware as you seem. Take comfort in knowing that this is not your fault and there are many others all over the world who are in the exact same situation as you. Try to aim towards being kinder to yourself, but I do understand that Schizophrenia can make it more challenging.

Considering your obstacles, you accomplish more work in an hour than most do in a single day. Those who judge, would crumble if they were in your situation because they come from a position of weakness. Also, avoid trying so hard to blend in. It is a waste of brain power and an added stressor.

I have learned to separate good advice from bad advice and there’s a lot of bad advice out there. As well intentioned as others can be, I try to filter out advice which come from uninformed views on mental health. Some who are close to me don’t even believe in mental health and will equate everyone’s struggles objectively. Talking to professionals and reading books on the topic have helped me understand common attitudes to avoid. Stigma is a mental health topic in itself.

Building a support network is a huge leg up towards improvement. I don’t know everything about your family situation but try not to give them such an easy time of being ignorant and cruel. As hard as your post was to write, you are able to express yourself in a productive manner. Seek out ways to use this strength to educate family about the reality of your condition and how they are contributing through their cruelty. Maybe appealing to them to read books such as The Complete Family Guide to Schizophrenia can help. Therapists, psychiatrists and social services can help with building a support network.


Take care of yourself first before anything else, you’re awesome.

Edit: From reading other posts, I want to add that not everyone is against you. Some are kind and understanding but I support you on the plausible reality that there is truth in what you say.

(Note: Not the OP; am a psychologist.)

One thing it may be helpful to think about is that limited ability to self-motivate is a very common symptom of schizophrenia - it's called avolition. Just knowing that it is a symptom of his schizophrenia may help you better come to terms with your brother's difficulties striving for more than playing video games all day.

Here is a good resource for family members of people with schizophrenia that might give you the info you are looking for. Here is another resource. The Complete Family Guide to Schizophrenia is a pretty good book, and if you browse on Amazon you'll see that there are several other good books on the topic that are available.

Suggested (I have worked with over 60 sz patients and about 20 families of sz patients):

1. Read this article on the five stages of recovery about the other party, seeing where they are among those five stages.
   
   
2. Read this article on the patterns & characteristics of codependency about you and them.
   
   
3. Read about the Karpman Drama Triangle about you and them, and them and their other, original family members.
   
   
4. Learn about family secrets, double-binding via paradoxical injunction, and the emotional blackmail used to protect them, because it is typical in the childhood families of those who were invalidated, insulted, rejected, disclaimed, criticized, judged, blamed, embarrassed, humiliated, victimized, demonized, persecuted, picked on, bullied, scapegoated, and/or otherwise abused by others upon whom one depended for survival in early life. (The experts on all this include Theodore Lidz, Gregory Bateson, Paul Watslawick, Don D. Jackson, Jay Haley, Ronald D. Laing, Aaron Esterson, Jules Henry and Mathjis Koopmans.)
   
   
5. Read about reactive attachment disorder, because it is usually what the child acquires when abused by those she must depend upon to survive... and if the genetics for sz are there, may drive them "over the dam" into florid sz as adolescents or young adults.
   
   
6. Look for CoDA meetings in your area and go to six before making a decision to continue or not... because it is likely that you will need to know about psychological boundaries and how to raise and lower them appropriately as they struggle with both paranoid fear of abuse here and paranoid fear of abandonment there.
   
   
7. Look over these books, pick one or two, and read it about you and them.
   
   
8. Look over this link to this book and/or this book, get the book(s), and work through it/them for your own sake, regardless of what they do or do not do.
   
   
9. Come to understand that they may (we do not diagnose here) have developed sz as a coping system for the C-PTSD that is typical among adult survivors of psychological abuse. BPD is a set of dysfunctional -- but understandable -- coping mechanisms for untreated child abuse and resulting C-PTSD. The best psychotherapies for it are those that understand the causes resulting in and physiological conditions of a shredded autonomic nervous system no longer capable of managing their "fight-flight-freeze" response to perceived threat.
   
   
10. Regardless of what she does or doesn't do, you may do very well for yourself to learn this method of seeing, hearing and otherwise sensing what is so that you can manage your frustrations and perhaps even guide the rest of the family to act appropriately under difficult circumstances.
    

Yeah, I wasn't told that either. I found that stuff out through my own research.

Heres a source that confirms what I said: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prognosis_of_schizophrenia

​

In regards to resources for caregivers, I've heard positive things about these two books:

Surviving Schizophrenia, 6th Edition: A Family Manual

The Complete Family Guide to Schizophrenia: Helping Your Loved One Get the Most Out of Life

> I...what?

Yeah, I know.

> trying to explain to a friend of mine that I will not have sex with him.

That really shouldn’t require an explanation, and I can’t imagine engaging would ever go well.

> different to that

Are you British?

> (I am intrigued by high functioning schizophrenics, in all honesty, since I am very close to one and all of my information is observed and guesswork and I want to understand better.)

I’m sure there’s something you could read (1, 2, 3).