Hi nikechick22,

This kind of situation doesn't resolve itself quickly so you have time to do what I'm going to suggest.  Your Mom might indeed have anosognosia, a symptom of the schizophrenia that in plain English is the lack of awareness that you have an illness.  So if you don't think you're sick, you won't take medication.

Xavier Amador, PhD wrote the classic guide to helping a loved one stay in treatment: I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help (Vida Press, 2010).  Buy the 2010 edition it's greatly updated.

Read my Xavier Amador Interview Part One and Xavier Amador Interview Part Two for an overview of what you can do.

A person who has schizophrenia, who does not think she is sick, can be persuaded to take medication for other reasons.  Developing a relationship of trust with the person and finding their own motivation for staying in treatment that is based on their own perceived need, not an external diagnosis, is critical and possible and the basis for the LEAP technique that Amador talks about in his book.

Your job, like the job of the numerous other family members who have written in since 2007 when I first started working here, is NOT to convince your mother she's sick and needs help.  Your job is to get her to take the medication.  And as Amador recounts in his book, he successfully got his brother Henry to take his schizophrenia medication after Amador engaged in numerous failed attempts to do so.

You need to recognize that anosognosia is a symptom caused by frontal lobe dysfunction in the brain and it also happens to stroke victims.  It not simply stubbornness or garden variety denial.  A person in denial knows something is wrong, she's just blocking it out of her mind because it's too painful.  A person with anosognosia never knows there's something wrong to begin with.

You can go on the LEAPInstitute website as well for more details.

Trust me, you are not alone in what you are going through.  Upwards of 50 percent of the people diagnosed with schizophrenia have anosognosia.  You are easily the 20th person to write in asking a variant of this common question.

Amador has coached tens of thousands of people on how to break this kind of impasse and get their loved ones to stay in treatment.

In his book, he recounts the story of a bipolar woman who kept going off her meds as soon as she felt better.  Then, she'd crash.  She didn't think she had bipolar, yet was persuaded to take the medication to help her feel less "worn out."  "Worn out" was her term for what was happening to her when she crashed.

I hope this gives you a good starting point for how to help your mother.

Regards,

Christina