Surviving schizophrenia or dealing with a mental illness can be as difficult or simple as you make it. Schizophrenia can be traumatic for the sufferer, family members, and partners – or it can be just another fact of life.
Surviving schizophrenia can be a matter of perspective.
Here's an interview with someone who's boss has a brother with schizophrenia.
Surviving Schizophrenia: A Schizophrenic Brother
When I left work the other day, my boss’s brother was lolling in the middle of the driveway in a big patch of sunlight – as if Barney, the beer-bellied, burping, slurring cartoon from The Simpsons was visiting – except my boss’s brother is schizophrenic, not alcoholic. “Oh, that’s my schizophrenic brother,” Larry says all the time, “Don’t mind him.” Not many people announce the presence of a relative with schizophrenia that openly and easily. I know I don’t. Nor can they handle the bizarre behaviors and peculiar conversations of a loved one so matter-of-factly. Shrugging it off is one method of surviving schizophrenia.
Surviving Schizophrenia: Urban Versus Rural Settings
In any city, Larry’s schizophrenic brother would meld into the pace of the traffic, people, and business of the day. Nobody would know whose schizophrenic brother he was, and Larry wouldn’t need to say anything to his friends, employees, or clients. In any city you see people with schizophrenia all the time: they talk to themselves on the bus, scrounge cigarettes from the sidewalk, root through trash cans, and even dodge traffic.
Larry doesn't live in a city, though. Larry’s schizophrenic brother lives next to Larry’s home office. When I’m working, Larry’s brother roams around upstairs, sits on the stairs smoking, and occasionally hangs around outside the office window. When he responds to his auditory hallucinations, Larry simply pokes his head out of the window and calls for quiet.
Surviving Schizophrenia
How Larry is surviving schizophrenia: somewhere along the way – or from the very beginning – he’s become comfortable with it. “Don’t mind my schizophrenic brother,” he says, waving away the random shouts floating through the air. “Can you believe how hot it is today?” Larry has nothing to hide, nothing of which to be ashamed. The whole idea of "surviving schizophrenia" isn't really on his radar screen. He’s spent almost all of his life in his town; he’s used to everyone knowing about his brother. It helps that his brother is safe and can’t get lost on the bus routes, in traffic, or at the mall. He’s always either hanging out at home or hitchhiking or sitting on the side of the road, watching the ferry passengers and cars. He’s safe.
Surviving schizophrenia is definitely easier when you know they're safe. It's too bad surviving schizophrenia isn't this simple for all families. Is it as simple as shrugging it off?
If you found Surviving Schizophrenia: How One Man Copes With a Mentally Ill Brother interesting, you may want to read:
- 5 Steps to Building Resilience
- Who Gets Schizophrenia
- Treating People With Schizophrenia
- Psychological Disorders
