An Interview With Paulette - Part Two

The 100 Individuals interview with Paulette continues. In this wrap-up, she talks about how David is doing now and gives some advice and words of comfort to other family members whose loved ones have SZ.

CB: What advice can you give a parent whose son or daughter lacks the insight that they have an illness?
P: That's the hardest question and there's a tough answer: you have to do what you have to do to get your child help, even if that's calling 911 and getting them into the hospital. I did that when my son went off his medicine and I could not reason with him. So I don't give this advice flippantly and I don't give this advice because I read it out of a book. I give it because I lived it. His therapist and doctor told me, ‘Don't try to reason with him. Call 911 and get him into the hospital." They were right. After a certain point when the person in your life is not treated and is not thinking rationally, the sad truth is you can't sit down and have a conversation. So you have to know when he or she is at that point where there's no talking anymore. You have to do what is the hardest thing for any family: call 911 and get them into the hospital.

The good thing about the 911 call is that if you have friends in NAMI, at the hospital, the doctor, or even in the police, set it up ahead of time. That's what helped me: the NAMI folk pushed me to do what I couldn't do. I had David's psychiatrist call ahead and he said, "Expect that David will be coming and do not release him, he needs to stay."

Unfortunately or fortunately, David was working at the time and his boss was concerned. He was making a lot of mistakes and getting lost on the job and when his boss called me I said, "I need to get my son in the hospital and I just can't do it."

It was his boss who helped me. He met me at David's job and they actually made the 911 call. I went in the ambulance with David and stayed with him in the hospital. That's the toughest thing I've had to do in my life. I don't think I could've done it without his boss, who liked him and knew him and also saw a change in him. Because like I said David was stable for awhile and got this part-time job delivering pizza and then he started unraveling again and playing with the medicine and going off the meds so he unfortunately had to be brought back to the hospital.

That's when his boss helped me because it was just me and my daughter in the house and I couldn't bring myself to make that call. I thank his boss to this day. I write him once a year at Christmas and I thank him and tell him how great David is doing and that he opened a door for us that we couldn't do for ourselves. He gave David his life back and I tell him all the good things David is doing because of him.

CB: David has been out of the hospital at least seven years.
P: Oh, yes, seven or eight years. His last hospitalization was in 2001. He started his new job where he's still working, and he went back to college taking one or two courses at a time. He's active in the peer support group and they just asked him to go for training. So I feel that's been a big help-he's growing and learning about his illness so that he can live with it. Someone once told me at the beginning, "When you own your illness, you're on the road to recovery." That you can sit and talk about it, and know your limits and your strengths, and what you can do and what stresses you out is really when you are getting better. I've felt that for David for awhile, not just recently. He knows what to do so much better when he's stressed out and feels he can't cope. He'll run-physical exercise has helped him tremendously-he'll take a bike ride, he works out at the gym, and he'll say it helps him relieve his stress. All of that is helping him greatly along with taking only one or two courses a semester. David obtained his associates degree and now he is hoping and aiming for that four-year degree.