Taking A Look At Life When Living with Schizophrenia

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Taking A Look At Life When Living with Schizophrenia

July 3rd, 2009 anxman Leave a comment Go to comments

Often times, the person diagnosed is not the only one who needs to master living with schizophrenia. The family and friends can suffer just as much. While health insurance plans don’t often stress psychotherapy as a schizophrenia treatment option, it is perhaps the most important. Drugs can help mitigate some of the positive symptoms, such as hallucinations, delusions and speech difficulty; however, the negative symptoms like social withdrawal, lack of motivation and flattened speech are more difficult to treat.

For severe cases of schizophrenia, it may mean a lifetime on anti-psychotic drugs like Clozapine, Zyprexa, Olanzapine or Perphenazine. These drugs can help schizophrenia patients overcome debilitating delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety. An anti-depressant, like Lithium, has also been effective.

While some people may require hospitalization, many schizophrenic patients find living with the illness quite bearable with medication. Take, for example, 27-year-old Charlie Chastain, a schizophrenic who was recently profiled by CNN. He was first diagnosed around age 15 when he began hiding in his room all the time, feeling constant paranoia and anxiety. Charlie has a college degree in psychology and works full-time at a mental health center in Clayton, Georgia. “I really think that if I went off my medication, I would end up in a psychiatric hospital,” he relates.

However, the drugs can only help most patients so much. The ultimate goal for anyone suffering from a mental illness is the ability to live independently. Living with this illness is often difficult because listlessness, depression and social isolation block normalcy. Duke University researchers found that only 10% of the 1,500 schizophrenia patients surveyed held a job.

“Families of schizophrenics have known this stuff for years – that medications aren’t enough on their own,” Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told USA Today. “We know that the counseling and job services are underplayed and underpaid for by insurance… Finally, the scientific community is catching up with the families.”

Most importantly, people living with schizophrenia require help through social support systems of friends and family. It is important for the sufferers to know that it is not their fault, but they should continue on a lifelong path of living with the illness. Often times, people on medication will make the rash decision to stop taking it and will then relapse or feel severely depressed. Behavioral monitoring is paramount in these cases and it’s often up to close family and friends to watch out for abnormal behavior. Sometimes (in really severe cases) relatives are asked to keep records of what schizophrenia drug treatments are administered, what the effects are and how the patient reacts.