Health Information Blog

For anyone that has dealt with a child with mental health issues, especially bi polar disorder or schizophrenia, I don’t have to tell you that it is pure hell on earth. As parents, my wife and I struggle everyday with the guilt of not being able to do enough for our child. As the leader of our home I am continually looking for a better way to handle this never ending battle.

Our son is now twenty-one and is living in an apartment; however, we must visit every single day to make sure he takes his medicine. He will never have what we would call a normal existence. It just breaks our hearts to believe that the small sweet innocent baby boy that we brought into our home at the really young age of 3 months old will most likely in no way maintain a career or possess a family of his very own. Anybody that doesn’t think that bi polar or schizophrenia is not a crippling illness, needs to witness the existence of our adopted son.

He loved to drive! He took the savings bonds that his grand father gave to him every birthday since his very first and bought a vehicle right after his graduation. He also enrolled in a Trade School to become an industrial electrician. I can’t express to you how excited we all had been for him even though at that time the only point that began to show itself was the bi polar disorder. My wife and I helped out by taking out a college loan in our name to assist paying for the schooling and books. He now was just eighteen.

I guess he attended about one month of classes prior to missing a day here and there. Then he was missing two or 3 days at a time. Not long after he dropped out completely. We had been very upset with him at that point not knowing or understanding that he not only had bi polar but now he was beginning to take on the psychological illness of schizophrenia. We did not know anything except that we began to see stranger and stranger behavior from him.

It wasn’t long after this that he totaled out his car on one winter day. He was driving too fast and slid it into a tree right in front of someone’s home. We still didn’t fully understand the illness at this point and just believed he was being irresponsible. He had dropped out of college, wrecked his car, didn’t have a job, and wanted to sleep all the time. In our book he was just being lazy and irresponsible.

What we didn’t realize was that the pacing, talking to no one, the sleeping, the erratic behavior was all part of bi polar and schizophrenia disease. The unfortunate thing was that this was only the tip of the ice berg. All hell was beginning to reveal itself and we didn’t have one clue what we were in store for. His bedroom was in the basement and he spent hours and hours down there for the most part sleeping. However, then he would spend most of his nights up, going through the refrigerator and cupboards making mess after mess. Not to mention that he was walking throughout the house making noise and keeping the rest of us awake.

Disagreement after disagreement took place, however absolutely no improvement had been made. For those who have any kind of knowledge of bi polar or perhaps schizophrenia you should understand that without proper medication it will get absolutely unmanageable. Well that’s precisely what had been occurring. Within the genuine sense of the expression, things had been getting nuts. Our answer had been that we had to become more forceful and demanding of what we expected of him. Completely wrong solution, at least in our situation!

He was getting more and more delusional. He began referring to the home as his and we had been guest there. He began unusual gestures with his hands and head. He would stare right passed you without saying a word while you would be talking with him. Following, in a few seconds he would then answer a question you may have asked two or three minutes ago. He became more and more aggressive in his behavior. His mother started to get frightened of him.

This all continued until the time he totally erupted in to physical violence. He swung and hit his mom in the face. Despite the fact that I wanted to un-load on him, I threw him to the ground and kept him there till the police showed up. I never used that much energy to hold an individual down until that moment in time. He was battling with each and every oz of his being to get free. I was not going to allow that to occur until the police got there. He’d bite my arm that I had all-around his neck. I invested 12 years in the Marine Corps and never did I encounter something so totally spinning out of control.

I know that I wanted to beat him to a pulp but could not because he was my son. The police finally arrived and was able to hand cuff him. They knew immediately that he had some type of mental health issues. They didn’t arrest him based on our pleas to get him mental health help. They instead placed him on a hold in a local mental health locked ward.

As soon as he had been examined they instantly established he had not merely bi polar, but additionally schizophrenia. It had been like a light went on for us. It absolutely was great to understand that there was reasons for his actions and not that he had been merely a misfit. That has not necessarily made living any simpler; however we recognize much more about it. As a matter of reality we’re turning into experts through the University of Hard Knocks. Not really a university you would like to go to, believe me.

If you’re a parent who has a child with either bi polar or schizophrenia, trust me when I tell you that we understand. Get help and stay focused.

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