Monday, April 28, 2008 Jacobus M van Tonder asks

Q: My friend, a girl, will be released from hospital soon, entering the world again. how do i help her

My friend will be released soon after 2,5 months of treatment. How can I help her to step back into a, what WE call a normal life? She had for almost a year lived a wild life of lots of drugs and some wild things. There was a time that I had dropped her at the boyfriends house, she is 24 and he 50, and told her that he should now look after her, after 3 months she found my new cell number and asked me to help her. She told me that drugs, sex and boose had ripped her apart and that she want to have a good life. It all started with lots of HIV tests, from which she didn't believe 1 to the stage where the voices on the radio, the message in the paper and the stranger in the street became a spy. Within 2 days she fell apart and out of the blue she signed the medical papers for the hospital and asked me and her mom to take her.

Our relationship started at work and I went head over heels for her, then she dissepeared after 3 months. Found her the next day, but it didn't stop, it went on for 1 year. She always called me, for a pickup or to talk to the people she borrowed money from, or to get the last pay because she stayed away from work and were asked to leave.

She didn't had a stable life and I know that she wants to make it this time work, but how do I give I that support when she says that she thinks it is good to start again as a waiteres and she thinks that it will be a good idea to meet people in the restaurant indestry, because she wants to get back and wants to be known as a hard worker.

How can I help this young girl to start slow and from the begining?

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Answers (2)

Robin Cunningham, Health Guide

4/28/08 6:49pm

Jacobus:

As you intimate in your question - It will probably be hard, a fierce and long struggle, for your friend to recover, to stop her wild behavior, to escape the hold of the drugs, and begin to develop a more healthful and happier life, BUT she can do it.

She will need a lot of attention from her true friends like you. It is most important that you are just there for her. Sometimes she may just want someone to sit quietly with her, i.e., without talking. You can do that. And you can talk with her if that's what she needs for the moment. And there will undoubtedly be times when she wants you go away, to get out of her face and leave her alone. You must learn not to be hurt by this. It will most probably be her mental illness and drug addiction talking, not the person she wants to become.. In other words, it may be in the nature of her illness. She will need friends that will not be deterred by her confrontational fits.

I think most of the experts will agree that it will be important for her to have no further contact with her (old) friends(?) that continue to abuse drugs.

There are also other resources that she will need just as much as true friends. You should check to see if she has been signed up for continuing treatment in a dual diagnosis (a mental illness coupled with a drug addiction) program. These usually involve regular meetings and counseling. You can make sure she goes to all of these sessions. You can check to see if arrangements have been made for her to continue to receive her medications and you can make sure she takes these as prescribed.

You must understanding that her period of recovery will probably be most difficult and long, and for you to become involved in helping her will require a substantial commitment of time, energy, emotions and sometime agony. You need to think long and hard if you are going to be able to meet the challenges required. If you decide to continue, you must get support for yourself. Remember why the airlines advise that, "if there is a loss of cabin pressure, you should put on your mask first and then your child's." If you do not remain healthy, you will not be able to help her.

It is selfless thing you proposed to do. I commend you and wish all the very best.

Robin

Christina Bruni, Health Guide

4/29/08 11:14am

Jacobus M van Tonder,

Robin is right: get help for yourself so you can stay healthy while you remain in your friend's life. The main thing is, before she even considers waitressing or a job in the food industry, she would possibly be better served to join a day program for at least six months to a year. A MICA day program, as Robin suggested.

I feel it is premature for her to consider ao job waitressing. If she has schizophrenia, she can apply for both types of SSD from the government, since she is both disabled and, if she meets the requirements of sustained employment, had a job where she paid into the government disability fund with her taxes.

From what I know of the food industry (waitressing), it could possibly be too stressful for her and not the right environment.

Slow and steady wins the race. You friend needs to examine how she wants to spend her life and her recovery (her recovery will last for the rest of her life). When she does this, a year or two years in a day program won't be such a price to pay if she's committed to getting and staying clean and well.

Often, people with schizophrenia self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol. She needs to take her medication as prescribed, and if she relapses with the drugs, she needs to stay on the psych meds even if she slipped back into drugs.

There will be relapses along the way, be assured of this, if she gives in to the urge to do drugs. Most of all, at this time, she needs to get into a MICA day program, and take her recovery slow and "one day at a time." It's a cliche: "one day at a time," because it's true.

I wish you and your friend the best of health and happiness.

Recovery from schizophrenia is possible.

Regards,

Chri

Q: My friend, a girl, will be released from hospital soon, entering the world again. how do i help her

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