by Galen Gregory

Created on: May 25, 2007   Last Updated: March 15, 2009

What is it like to live with someone who has schizophrenia? There are 2.4 million people with schizophrenia in the US.; undoubtedly there are 2.4 million stories about how this disorder affects their families. All I can do is tell my story and hope that it conveys an idea of schizophrenia's impact on a family.

My point of view is that of a mother of a 23 year schizophrenic son. For me, life with my son has been a turbulent storm of emotions.

First, there was shock, even though the schizophrenia was not totally unexpected. My son is adopted and many of his biological relatives had schizophrenia, so I knew that he had an increased chance of developing the disorder. He had had many problems throughout his childhood, including obsessive-compulsive disorder, Tourette syndrome, and anorexia. But at the age of 20, he was functioning better than he had for some time; in fact, he was applying to Job Corps and planning for his future. The onset of the schizophrenia was so sudden; it happened over the course of three days. On a Friday in July, he was getting the Job Corps forms completed, and by Monday he thought someone was trying to kill him and that the police were upstairs listening to everything we said! His condition deteriorated rapidly and he was committed to the state hospital for 7 months.

Next, there was grief and depression. My son had been such a vivacious, charming little imp as a child. Now he had no affect; he was withdrawn and lethargic. Although he had had learning disabilities, every IQ test he had taken showed perfectly average intelligence. After the onset of the schizophrenia, his IQ dropped 30 points. I had never realized how this disease can affect cognitive abilities. How I grieved for the child I had lost; in his place was this stranger. And I felt so alone, as none of my friends or family seemed to understand the devastation I felt.

Next came the frustration. My son came home from the hospital. There were weekly appointments at MHMR, but I soon discovered that the only services he would get would be the weekly blood work required for one of his medications, the bi-weekly injections of another antipsychotic, and medication management. There would be no cognitive rehabilitation, no vocational training, no day programming. Obtaining his medication was so complicated and the pharmacy so inefficient, sometimes I had to make three trips to the pharmacy before I got the prescribed drugs.

For four months last fall, my predominant emotions were apprehension

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