My Relative's Diagnosis

Well as I said in my first blog I will be writing about things that I have experienced. I am not making any of this up. This is all part of my life and events that have occurred to me in the past or just recently. I know that some of these events have molded me to become who I am today.

It’s been a long week. A relative of mine had a crisis this week (well two weeks ago now since it took me a while to post this) and she has now been diagnosed with schizophrenia. I have heard about this but I don’t have all the details. Wow! How do you deal with something as this? First thing that comes to my mind is some psycho running around killing people. Sorry if I offend anyone, but maybe I have seen way too many movies. I guess these films did have an effect on me.

There she was that night the paramedics took her off to a facility for her to be evaluated. She was kicking and yelling before they arrived. The yelling was what was so scary. She was yelling as if something or someone was torturing her. I don’t think I will forget that because I had never encountered such thing before. I was scared. What was going on? I would be lying if I said that I was not glad that they took her. I felt safe as soon as she was out. She’s a relative and I love her, don’t get me wrong but I even wished that she would stay there for a while. I didn’t want to see her. I was afraid. Two days later we got a call saying she was going to be released from the mental facility she was at. Oh no!!! The thing I was dreading was happening now. She was going to be back and I was going to have to lock myself in my room at night. I lock myself every night anyways but now I felt that it was not good enough. Should I go out and buy a deadbolt? Yes, maybe that is exaggerating a bit. The doctors said that it was essential that she take her medication, otherwise these occurrences would take place again in the future. She hallucinates, feels persecuted, and believes people want to kill her. See she stopped her medication, which is what caused her to have this reoccurring episode of schizophrenia.

At this time I felt that I didn’t really want her living with us at home. No, we were not going to throw her out along with her family. We decided we would help her in obtaining some assistance from the programs that are around that help people diagnosed with this so she can get her own place and then her children (well they are no longer children as they are adults now) can watch over her. Maybe I am being selfish. I will try to help as much as I can but I no longer feel safe in my own house. What if she thinks we want to hurt her again and goes after us? What if something tragic happens? I can’t help these thoughts because I am scared. I was going to “Google” her diagnosis but I am not sure I want to know. I probably will research it just to know whether I am exaggerating about this whole situation. Maybe what I am feeling has to do with all those incidents that I have read and heard about on the news. Some of these people had a mental illness and because they stopped their medication, ran off to do something completely crazy. I sure don’t want to experience this. So I think that the sooner she finds her own place to move in her with family will be better.

Update: My relative is doing much better. I still don’t feel completely safe. She is acting normal, but I’m unsure how long it will last. I just don’t know when she will start yelling and kicking again.