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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I'm the PP sister who shared about NIH article -- and yes, the NIH /doctors definitely do NOT say schizophrenia doesn't need meds, and you are right, each untreated psychotic episode makes it harder to recover. As another reader said, the issue is that pre-schizophrenia is not easily detected.

My brother was in special ed for 'emotionally disturbed' (as they called it at that time) starting in third grade, I think? My brother is in his mid-50s, so special ed was very different back then. But that certainly wasn't for schizophrenia...

I am not totally sure when he was diagnosed, as he spent a lot of time in mental hospitals as a teen, but I guess before 18.

He is doing pretty good now. I later dated a psychiatrist, and she told me a lot of schizophrenics 'burn out' in middle age, and I think it's true of him. What she meant by that is that the negative symptoms remain -- difficulty meeting social expectations/hygeine -- but the florid symptoms subside.

He lives in a supported apartment with a couple of other guys with serious mental illnesses. It has been a long time since has needed to be hospitalized, even briefly (15 years?). Switching from Risperdal to Abilify (something I pushed for) seemed to be a quality of life improvement.

He became very religious as a young adult, and has found acceptance in that religious community & made friends with past group home staff, as well as a family that welcomes him to his home for dinner most weeks (he does not live near me/my parents).

He feels bad about himself in that he's never been able to have a real romantic relationship, and only worked briefly in minimum wage jobs in his very early 20s, but the social services agency that serves him just recently said the IT work he does for them (he is self-taught) is valuable enough they want to start paying him rather than having him volunteer. He'll have to keep his wages low enough he can stay on Social Security Disability/Medicare, but he is *very* proud of himself, as are we.

Not an inspirational story. But I'll offer one now -- I had a roommate who had severe bipolar (how I learned about Abilify) with psychotic episodes, who was twice homeless when he was unmedicated and completely untethered from reality, who now is married with two kids, and a decent paying professional job! [The second time was so sad -- he was taking meds he bought online from Canada and they turned out to be counterfeit; he felt himself going wrong and checked himself into a hospital, but got worse the next day or two and checked himself out against medical advice. His mom would find him on the street and try to convince him to come back but he was too off his head to listen...but he finally did and got back on meds.] You would never know he has a severe mental illness at all unless he told you about his life.[/quote]

NP to this thread. Thank you for taking the time to write up all of this. It's so helpful, as someone with a family member in the same situation. And great to hear the inspirational story.  Hugs to you and your brother.

If there's one thing that you get from having a family member with severe mental illness, it's empathy.   [/quote]

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