Schizophrenia and the Lack of Help

My brother was diagnosed around 16 with schizophrenia. This is a little early as most men do begin to show symptoms until early 20s. He had been diagnosed with bipolar for sometime - well okay, like a couple years, and was on medicine. One day, when he was with some friends at the beach, he smoked pot for the very first time. From that moment, the switch had been flipped.

He heard voices. He was delusional. He was told he was a child molester. He was told he was gay. He was convinced Satan was trying to get him to do evil things. I can still recall when he would go into these manic states. His eyes would change... just like a horror movie. It was creepy.

He was in and out of hospitals. Regular hospitals. You see, there aren't mental institutions or funny farms anymore. They aren't PC. We need to get these folks back to reality! Yea, well that's a bad idea. A regular hospital is no place for people who get super human powers and can't control themselves.

My parents insured covered him for a bit and then he had to be let go - they would demand payment. My parents do not have a lot of money and I remember my mom having to put $6K on her credit card. That's like YEARS for them to pay off. They lived in a decrepit, falling apart double wide.

I was living there but hardly. I'm eight years older than my brother so I was working three or four jobs - all fresh out of grad school with no full time job - hooray post 9/11. I remember one night of my brother flipping out. All weapons had been removed except a few kitchen knives. Well he got a hold of one, but I think we got it away from him. Instead he jumped on my dad on the couch - sat on top of him and just kept pounding him in the head. Brutally. My mom and I did not know what to do - the police were called but my dad could die in that amount of time. I instinctively grabbed my brother's nuts to get him off my dad. My dad taught me that many years before... if I'm attacked, get the guy in the junk. It worked. He climbed off our dad and stormed outside. My dad had a literal baseball size goose egg on his head. It was scary.

The sheriff shows up and my brother is off in the woods like a caged animal who escaped. My dad has the start of tears and my mom is crying. My family does not cry. Ever. We don't hug either but that's another story for another time. The sheriff says he has to take him to the hospital because he is a juvenile and does not have a record. My mom did not want my brother going to the hospital because she couldn't afford it. The sheriff said they we will have to leave him here. I flipped my shit.

I said you have to take him to juvie so that now he has a record. The sheriff could care less. I said if you leave him here, I GUARANTEE when I come home after midnight tonight from my grocery store job, I will find my parents dead. No doubt. They said they would take him to Juvie. They took him to the hospital.

My mom tried everything and everyone to get help. There just wasn't any. She didn't know who to turn to. I had just started my career in PR and I called Dateline and left a VM about my brothers issue and how he terrorizes the family and leaves a trail of holes in the wall in his path. They called me back right away and wanted to cover him. My mom said no because he was still in HS and didn't want to embarrass him. Well he dropped out.

It is now 13 years later and hard to believe. He's still very much schizophrenic and living with my parents - on a constant cocktail of drugs and pretty much out of it, sleeping a lot, but then totally OCD when he is awake, always wanting to buy something.... especially video games. But he is calmer, from what I understand. He is also heavier - he is a big boy. My entire family is small. Like all of us have fast metabolisms. We're the people you hate b/c we can eat what we want.... but my brother can't stop eating. Medication causes him to sit down and eat a quart of cottage cheese at one sitting. A half-gallon of ice cream. You name it.

It's sad. It's scary - and I have no idea how my parents have managed. There is no place for him to go. He lived in a half-way house for a time but the other men were former drug users and they picked fights with him. So that didn't last long.

The reason I'm writing this now is because of a 60 Minutes segment last night. The Virginia senator is now trying to get laws passed to get mentally-ill in the moment patients in a bed right away. But the bigger issue is the lack of mental hospitals and psychiatrists. And then there is lack of empathy.

There was a recent blog post from a mom of a mentally-ill child. The mom wrote a blog about how much people cared and took care of her and her family when she had breast cancer. But when her daughter was struggling through alcoholism no one called to talk about it and no one helped like they did when she had cancer. And she said that was the time she most needed help. My poor mother has had breast cancer three times - the whole time she was dealing with him.

But back to the story out of Virginia. The story is common. The son was bright, but then developed bi-polar and then got the voices. He attacked his father and ultimately killed himself. I really hope that Virginia politician can help.

And then there were the seven moms of mentally ill children (yes, there are girls) who have fortunately found one another and started a support group. It almost made me smile when they said they share contractor names for all the damage the children do to their house. Smile not happy - but smile from familiarity.

Another point on this.... my brother did smoke pot and it triggered the demons to come out. Shortly after I took my first full-time PR gig, I had to sift through nutrition science for my client. In that research I found a story of schizophrenics out of the Netherlands that had started that same way at a younger age. Something about it counteracting with bi-polar meds potentially - I don't believe it causes it, but may trigger it sooner. Food for thought. Either way, those voices were coming for my brother.

What's going to happen to my brother? I'm not sure. My other brothers and I joked about who gets to inherit him one Christmas. But who knows how long he would ultimately live. About 5-10 years ago, a celebrity's son died who had battled schizophrenia. He had been living on a ranch and died young - maybe late 30s from organ failure. Your kidneys and such can only take so many cocktails. So there is no good solution :(

But let's hope this discussion picks up and helps to find a fix... because the solution may be a ways off.