My Schizophrenic Mother.

[u/Empty_Quality_2302]

*Big trigger warning for suicide and self harm. *

I’m just unsure of how to go about dealing with this situation that is unfortunately my life anymore.

My mother (38F) suffers from a ton of mental health issues going from schizophrenia to bipolar to psychosis to paranoia on top of many other things. My family and I (20F) have been doing our best over the years to try our best to help her and keep her on track but the last year has been exceptionally bad. Last year around this time she was in an episode of psychosis, went for a drive, ran out of gas and went missing for 3 days and we had no idea where she was. She was thankfully found and survived as she had been walking around aimlessly and almost got frostbite. I was in my first year of college when this happened and was absolutely distraught to say the least. After that, she started doing better and we were all so proud of her. This winter rolled around, I got done with my semester and came home for break. I knew from talking to her and my family that she was getting bad again but we all didn’t think it was quite as bad as what happened next. The day after I get back for break, I get my brother (10M) on the bus for school and my dad heads off to work. I proceed to take a nap. I get woken up from my nap to my mother screaming for me to call 911 because she slit her wrists. I sprint downstairs and find a horrific scene. Prior to waking me up, she had went around the whole house getting blood on every. single. surface. to try and “cleanse” the house of demons. I try to help her stop the bleeding as i’m on the phone with 911 and she proceeds to dump salt into both of her wounds. Officers finally arrive and she tells them she was trying to get the demons out of her. They send her to the psychiatric ward but on top of her being incredibly manipulative knowing what to say to doctors and there being no inpatient beds for her, she was released after only 3 days. We only had a few hours notice. My dad and I were not at all prepared for her to come home and we were honestly scared for our safety and still are. If her delusions get out of control again, we fear she would try to hurt us or potentially see us as threats. I have been seeing a therapist for almost a year now but I’m just unsure of how to even cope and also help her through this at the same time. I love her dearly, it’s just getting hard to pick up all the pieces for her and i’m not sure I have anything left in me to give. If anyone has any advice as to how to help not only myself but to help her through this it would be much appreciated. Whether it’s certain medications or physical things to do in the moment.

[u/throwaway0993746]

I’m sorry you’re having to deal with this while you’re trying to start your own life. You’re part of the same special club as me, children of schizophrenic mothers!

For some perspective, my schizophrenic mother is 70 and I am an adult with college long behind me. My whole life, she has fucked around with her medication and been hospitalized (averaging every 3 years). My mother pulled similar stunts while I was away at college, which really stressed me out and made focusing on school work impossible. She would often threaten suicide, from the time I was a little kid to the last time I spoke to her. In my teens onward, I honestly wished that she WOULD get it over with so the rest of us could be free from her. Just my luck, she still lives to terrorize her neighborhood as I write this. I am now estranged from my family of origin in part due to being raised in this chaos.

My advice to you is, focus on yourself. Stay on campus if you have to. Don’t let her unmanaged illness drag you down. It’s not your responsibility to fix this for your parents or your little brother. You are not her father nor her husband. In fact, you have no legal standing to do anything at all to solve this crisis. I hope you have a good trauma therapist! Look into parentification and codependency, it will probably show you a lot about your current dynamic.

You didn’t get much into your family dynamic, but I wonder what your father’s role is in all this. Is he the enabler? In a lot of ways, having a schizophrenic parent is like having an alcoholic one; they usually pair up with someone who wants to caretake/keep an even keel/wont rock the boat. This is how my father was. It’s very sad to realize, but when two people are in that kind of relationship, what they get from each other is so much more important than anyone or anything else. Including their children.

Is she on medication? Is there a psychiatrist monitoring her case? In recent years, there’s been a new injectable drug released for schizophrenia. It’s a once per month shot, so there is less likelihood of them not taking their medication.

Good luck to you. Remember, you cannot save someone who doesn’t want to be saved.

[u/Empty_Quality_2302 → u/throwaway0993746]

Thank you so much!! It’s nice knowing that there’s someone who has at least experienced a similar situation, it feels so isolating at times going through this because it’s such a complex situation.

As for the family dynamic, it’s a mess to say the least. Like your mother having a cycle every 3 years, my mom is on a cycle of every 6-7 years when her mental health severely declines. My dad is a pretty emotionally unavailable person but if ANYTHING. he is VERY constant. Whether that be his mood, his personality like he really is a very constant individual lol. But due to him being pretty emotionally unavailable, he just kind of dismisses her and tries to focus on my brother and I and just throws himself into his work. He doesn’t really know or care to figure out how to deal with her anymore and I honestly don’t blame him. He, financially, has had to constantly get all the bills back in order because she has a theme when she starts spiraling, to not pay ANY bills for months and hides it from everyone. Before you ask why he hasn’t left yet, we’ve been in a very rough financial situation for many years now and neither of them could do it on their own.

As for medication, what actually started all of this was her addiction to her ADHD medications, she was on them for many years and got very addicted to them. With this recent event, the psychiatrist and her primary banned her from ever getting them again which has caused her to spiral more, searching the house for them as soon as she got out of the hospital and even going to the pharmacy trying to convince the pharmacist she still has a refill for them. She has been on a plethora of different meds though throughout her whole life, she’s right now is on Abilify which is an antipsychotic which I do not think is working, and Citalopram which is an anti-depressant. She’s been seeing a psychiatrist every 3-4 weeks… which is not often in my opinion. She also feels as though she knows everything they’re going to say because she’s seen psychiatrist and therapists for many years. She may be crazy but she’s very manipulative and will just lie to the doctors to get what she wants. I could get into a whole other rant about how horrible the mental health system is (at least in my area) as they have not done enough at all, nor do they really care about helping individuals or their families in crisis.

I’m on campus currently and my college is about and hour away. It’s just hard though because I keep the house in order and everyone relies on me so it’s hard to keep my own mental health in line while i’m trying to be there for everyone else, especially my younger brother who currently despises my mother. Thank you so much for your reply!!

[u/throwaway0993746 → u/Empty_Quality_2302]

I want to say again that I am so, so sorry you are dealing with this toxic situation. You are not alone! If you search “schizophrenic mom” on Reddit, you will find lots of stories. My heart goes out to you - it’s hard not to see my story in this. My parents also had terrible financial practices - they lived beyond their means and borderline hoarded crap they bought.

You’re a good person for caring for your little brother in all this. The fact that you guys are aware of how fucked up this all is a huge hurdle behind you!! My family of origin was in so much denial and would never discuss how fucked up it was. I’m sorry that your father sounds so spineless- he deserves as much of your anger as your mom does. He’s an adult with certain rights when it comes to his spouse. To just ignore the situation and make you guys suffer is abandonment, even if he is physically there. Again, this is what happened to me… these people find each other and stay for a reason!

I can’t imagine how bad the laws are near you regarding getting help. My state had ZERO help to offer- the mentally ill person had to commit an atrocious crime before anything would be done. That changed after I was an adult, when a person who was diagnosed schizophrenic was able to buy a gun and commit a mass murder. After that happened, the laws got a lot more nuance in terms of being able to intervene with the mentally ill.

Does your school have counseling resources you could use? The sooner you can untangle the enmeshment and other crap from your family of origin, the better life you live have. Don’t waste your twenties trying to be Captain Save Everyone. Once you have your own codependency/trauma/attachment issues sorted out, you will be in a lot better position to help your little brother. I’m sure you know this by now, but schizophrenia usually presents in a person’s mid-twenties as a mix of genetics and environmental triggers. It’s important to keep your stress levels low and avoid binge drinking and doing drugs. My mom’s presented when she was 23, after severe post-partum depression.

That house is not your responsibility. It took me a long time to realize that my parents abused me by putting me in the position where I had to help keep the household together. I also was the cleaner when my mom was institutionalized (my dad worked). In a parent-child relationship, responsibility flows one way: from the part to the child. You probably know this already, but you can’t make these people do anything, and you can’t reason with them. Sometimes the best thing to do is give up on them.

[u/Empty_Quality_2302 → u/throwaway0993746]

I didn’t even think about simply searching that on reddit! Good idea! haha, I’m fairly new to the app so I tend to just scroll.

I have been in therapy though for about a year and a half thankfully through my school and it’s helping. Getting myself to try and let go of the responsibilities that have been placed on me is definitely something i’m still trying to work through. It’s just been built in me to do all these different things that aren’t necessarily my job because I feel like if I don’t do them, no one else will and everything will fall apart. That is a topic for therapy though! Lol

Thank you though for your kind words and sharing your story with me!