Reply to Passing info on to therapist and psychiatrist

Forum Index » Family Relationships

Reply to "Passing info on to therapist and psychiatrist"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]14:29 again.  
[b]
PP @ 16:17, may I respectfully suggest you read these books yourself?  You are not helping your friend by pressuring him to do something that he clearly feels uncomfortable with.  How about instead of pressuring him to give up the relationship or stop helping, you offer to support him in ways that enable him to help his sibling?[/b]

I think one of the hardest things about having a family member with MI is the constant encouragement we receive to abandon these loved ones.  Sometimes this encouragement comes because people mistakenly believe that the MI loved one is deliberately choosing to engage in "bad" behavior.  It can be very hard to separate what is chosen behavior and what is driven by illness -- lying, anger, hypersexuality, money problems, irritability, irresponsibility -- all of these can seem like choices when often they are the result of mania or depression.  Although it is true that sometimes we have to separate from the MI loved one to keep ourselves safe, it is more often true that "bad" behavior is a sign that the illness is not being properly treated.

Sometimes we are advised to "let go".  We are told we are "co-dependents" and that we need to learn that we can't control anyone else.  We are told that the MI loved one can't get better until they "hit bottom" and "learn to care for themselves".  But, as Amador's book so elegantly shows, there is a feature of MI called "anosognosia" (which means that the patient lacks awareness of their own symptoms) which often prevents patients from fully reporting their symptoms to providers.  These patients aren't making a conscious choice to hide their symptoms, rather they simply lack insight into the existence of these feelings/behaviors as symptoms of illness.  Hitting "rock bottom" is unlikely to change much because the "bad" behavior is not a result of denial but rather of anosognosia  That is why the "best practices" documents of major organizations like the American Psychiatric Association encourage the inclusion of family members in treatment.  There is also evidence from medical trials that therapy which includes the family (Family-focused Therapy or FFT) leads to longer periods of stability for the MI loved one.  This is why, in fact, reporting from the family to the provider is SO important.

I received all kinds of advice from therapists and doctors to abandon my MI spouse.  The advice left me aghast.  There is no way that if my spouse had major cardiac disease or cancer that I or he would have been treated the same way.  I can't imagine that if my MI spouse came down with major cancer and refused to acknowledge it, take meds or keep appointments that I would have been told to "let him hit rock bottom."  If my spouse had cancer, no one would have advised me to stop supporting him because I was spending my retirement money to ensure his treatment or that I was using so much time talking to doctors and ensuring that he took medications that I didn't have time to take care of myself or my own career.

No, actually, if my exDH had cancer, our entire network of neighbors, friends and work colleagues would step forward and organize nightly dinner deliveries, offer to babysit or run errands or donate some sick leave to cover his time off work.

I can assure you that none of this happens when you have a chronic mental illness.  Sadly, people just encourage you to let go and give up.  Karp's book eloquently addresses the additional pain this causes for the family members. [/quote]

See bold above. I posted at 16:17. I think you read some intentions into my post that were not there. My brief post was mostly:
[i]A close friend is very involved in his brother's mental health issues and treatment (and resistance to treatment at times), and I fear it's compromising my friend's own day to day life now. The books are resources I'll ask him to check out.[/i]

I don't say or indicate there that I am, as you put it above,  "pressuring (my friend) to give up the relationship or stop helping" his brother. Sorry if you misread "I fear it's compromising my friend's own day to day life" as "I think he should stop helping" -- not at all the case. I didn't want to get into details in a post. I'm just concerned that the caregiver brother does not always remember to look after himself well at times. He won't be able to keep helping his brother if he is worn out himself, and it's pretty vital that he be in good enough shape to be there for the MI brother for a long time to come. Caregivers do burn out  -- but I would never "just encourage (him) to let go and give up." I'm so very sorry that you have had the awful experience of people telling you to abandon an MI loved one--that's a tragic statement, coming from the therapists and doctors who said it to you. But that is not at all what I meant regarding my friends.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics