It's hard to write this journal, but I do it for a good reason.
BECAUSE THERE'S NOTHING OUT THERE from the perspective of a family member
dealing with their child with schizophrenia and OCD and anxiety attacks.
***
WEEK 6
Sept. 8-14
Our son is starting to drive again and did well. Driving on feeder roads until he gets used to his car.
Sept. 10...our son drinks a high caffeine drink...very irritated and on edge. Caffeine messes with his anxiety.
Sept. 11...drank a pepsi. Lots of anger, banging on table at night. Our son wants to give up. Hard for us to go to work each day. Our son still in a day care support group.
Sept. 12...third day to mess with caffeine. Why!!! Says he's stressed without it. We dread this current trend.
Sept. 13th...no caffeine. Better day.
Sept. 14th. Our son is always fighting us about taking his medicine. Feels like his medicine is some form of punishment. Very mean words to us. We say it is a form of bullying and send him outside to cool off. We bring him after a minute and tell him that HE IS NOT going to sit in the living room and spout off how terrible his family is. This form of bullying promotes no positive energy and no desires to help our son with his problems.
***
WEEK 7
Sept. 15-21
Xanax is the only thing helping with nightly anxiety attacks. Why only at night?
Visited with Dr. M.....he did not let us go in the room with our son. We feel utterly alone.
Our son cannot make his own decisions at this point in his life. What can we do?
Thursday...A. is still in half day program but it's nearing the end. Tells driver that his dad is to blame for everything. Ugh!
Sat..Sept. 21st
We go to an all day seminar on how to deal with caring for a child with mental illness.
Great information on how to deescalate events.
Still battling our son's self-induced anxiety from high doses of caffeine in Mountain Dew.
Stimulants are bad.
From time to time, we let our grown son take meds on his own. He forgot them on Saturday, so that means we take over the responsibility again. (He skipped them while we were at the conference!)
I've taken myself off all caffeine drinks in cans...the last being Diet Dr. Pepper.
August 7th, 2013 - September 7th, 2013...one month of freedom!
***
WEEK 8
Sept. 22-28
Monday was a good day. We found out about an out patient day center called "The Gathering Place".
We will tour it and see if it is a good fit.
Our son has quit shaving again because of fear and anxiety.
Sept.25th
The counselor phone call did not go well. She says that we stress over the little things and tells us not to 'hover'. Huh...why doesn't she come to our home and join the war instead of sitting in a nice room.
She says not to worry about the insurance running out.
I wonder.
Sept. 28th.
My wife and I to a nice restaurant for our 30th anniversary.
One nice break from the constant turmoil of mental illness.
Son has another Mountain Dew with 131mg of caffeine/77 grams of sugar.
This is more than halfway to a full blown energy drink.
The caffeine demon just won't stop!
***
For today's 5 minute break from mental illness, we turn to this very cool song. I don't quite like the pass-a-long video that goes with it. But this girl can sing and the keyboard artist is superb as well as the percussion dude. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtKZKl7Bgu0
Monday: Trip to College Station has its ups and downs. When the medicine wears off, the symptoms come back in very strange ways. Long day trips have not bee good for stability.
Tuesday: Our son cannot go to the bathroom! Alarming information. We call doctor and find out it is one of the side effects. Almost ready to go to emergency room. Son finally goes to restroom. We lower the dosage of one of his medications.
Wednesday: Heat wave makes us all miserable.
Thursday: Goes to half day program. Still taking bus.
Friday: Our son says he hates weekends. Most people love weekends. I've also seen a pattern where our son wants to complain all weekend about how bad his life is. We try to be encouraging, but it is wearing us out.
Saturday: BIG NEWS. Our son gets his car back. He makes a couple of short drives around the area with great success. This really boosts his confidence and level of freedom.
Sunday: Our son drives to church then along the feeder to a place he likes to visit. He is not taking the freeway yet. Returns home with great success.
End of week.
***
Today's 5 minute break features one of my favorite all time music videos.
The whole thing seems like a party and celebration.
Got call from psychiatrist asking if our son was showing improvement during the week in the psychiatric ward. He thought so and so did we. The meds are now covering the paranoia and troubling thoughts.
Monday:
Got call from the staff that our son was being discharged. This is both an exciting moment and then a troubling one. Will he be better at home? Or will it be another roller coaster ride?
The first night was good and he took his medicine without any fights.
Tuesday:
Our son takes one day off from the outpatient program. Everything is good until the afternoon. Our younger son sees him drinking a Full Throttle at the park! This high dose of caffeine coupled with his meds is what got him into trouble in the first place! What a mess.
We all sat down and had another family meeting. He said he would stop.
Wednesday:
Back into the PHP program all day long. This is a good thing.
Thursday:
We visit the psychiatrist and have a family meeting. He agrees that our son needs to stay on the higher dosage and needs to avoid any energy drinks with additives.
Friday:
Good day
Saturday:
Had friends over. Good day.
Sunday:
Went to church and had one friend over. Good day. We are getting hopeful that this might be it.
Ate out with friends at church. First time to socialize in public. All went well.
Monday:
One hallucination about food. Other than that, good day.
Went out of town to visit brother. Strange day for our son. For some reason long trips away from home stir up delusions. Today it was a false belief in things simply appearing. He also thought I could perform magical thinking by making things come true. Very strange.
Had problem when we changed the restaurant we were going to.
