This month MerelyMe of our sister depression web site graciously offered to answer some questions I had about living with a loved one who has schizophrenia.

Her mother was diagnosed with this illness.  I wanted to give an insider's view because so many community members write in about their hardship coping with a loved one's SZ.

MerelyMe also interviewed me for a piece on depression and schizophrenia so as soon as she posts it I will provide the link here.

Loving Someone With Schizophrenia:

When did you first realize something was different about your mother?  How old were you?

I was fairly young when I realized that my mother had a mental illness.  I remember telling a friend that my mother was "crazy" when I was about six years old.  I didn't have a bad connotation of that word because it was a term my mother used to describe herself.  I thought it meant happy or silly.  But my grandmother overheard and she grabbed me by the arm and scolded me never to say that again to anybody.  I hadn't realized at the time that I was doing anything wrong or that this was something I needed to keep a secret.

What was the family dynamic growing up as a kid and then a teen with your mother having schizophrenia?

It was just me and my mother growing up as my father had died when I just four.  My mother and father had met while they were hospitalized at a mental hospital.  She was there to be treated for schizophrenia and my father was being treated for his severe depression.  He later died from complications of his addiction to alcohol.  My mother never got over it and never remarried.  Our extended family pretty much gave up on her and we were alone in the world. 

Did she take her medication?  How did her symptoms play out as she navigated the role of being a mother?

I would say that my mother took her medication sporadically.  She would do things like cut her pills into halves or even quarters.  I can't say I blamed her for not wanting to take her medication.  They seemed to either knock her out, and make her sleep all day or they gave her dry mouth or they made her nervous and jumpy.  I remember her taking medication such as Haldol at that time.  My mother would have auditory and visual hallucinations.  She would talk to my dead father or other people she thought she was seeing.  Sometimes she would grow frightened and even violent when her stress level was high.  She made every attempt to take care of me and be a good parent but the symptoms of her mental illness were too much.  My mother would sleep whole days, other days she would smoke and drink coffee all day.  Then there were times when she had things together and could even go to school and hold down a job.  But the good times would never last and ultimately she would cycle into having a breakdown and have to be hospitalized.