(July 24, 2015) There are 3.5 million people in the United States with schizophrenia alone, a fate often worse than death. My son, Caleb, was diagnosed three years ago, at the age of 19. His adult life has been spent inside a living hell — literally.
The early stage was marked primarily by delusions and paranoia: there was a government conspiracy against him, Lil Wayne and Drake were writing derogatory songs about him, and pimps were trying to kill him. This was only the beginning of a downward spiral.
The first year of treatment showed only mild success. Antipsychotics are relatively fast acting, and if monitored, can be quickly adjusted or changed. But with a shortage of psychiatric beds, he was in and out of the hospital within days, still in psychosis. Further hindering recovery, he was allowed only one 30-minute psychiatric appointment per month.
It should be noted, each episode and the longer in psychosis, the more damage done to the brain resulting in increasing severity and reducing the likelihood of recovery.
This has proven true for Caleb. A year into his illness, he received a message to cut off his ear or toe or to break a leg. In the middle of the night, I awakened to his blood curdling screams. He had jumped 15 feet from a tree fracturing his back. Just prior to this feat, he attempted, unsuccessfully, to silence the commands. He branded his arm with a fork, a scar that remains today. He was admitted for psychiatric care, but released within seven days with little improvement.
Over the next two years, he was hospitalized with increasing frequency, always released within days. He is paranoid and lives in constant fear with the belief his family and friends want to kill him. He hallucinates that I say such horrific things to him as, “I’m going to chop off your head,” or “I’ll bury you alive.” He has spent nights sitting on his bed prepared to bolt if I break down the door to kill him.
Six months ago, the television told him he was Jeffrey Dahmer, and the president told him to kill me. My son isn’t violent. But statistics speak for themselves, and psychosis often leads to violent and tragic acts. It was a several-day battle to get him hospitalized, and he was released in three days in the same condition.
For a few months, his psychosis finally improved. But this rarely lasts. With his paranoia that doctors, pharmaceutical companies, and his family are trying to poison him, he often refuses medication.
He insists he is traversing. As a result, there are now two of him, or maybe three, and he doesn’t know which is the real him. He becomes confused and doesn’t know where he is and pleads with me to get him home. I try to reassure him, “you are the real Caleb, and you are safe at home.” It is heartbreaking.
But we aren’t alone. This plays out for millions of SMI people and their families day after day, week after week, and year after year as loved ones spiral further into the abyss.
KIMBERLY BLAKER
Mother
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