Friends/Family with bipolar/schizophrenia?

Post Reply New Topic

Does anyone here from WP have a family member or friend that you know who have the disorder before I start blabbering about my side of the story?

I thought I be one of the first people to create a thread on this board.

I have schizoaffective, does that count?

My nephew is paranoid schizophrenic and has been in prison for years. He has finished his sentence and now has been committed

to an institution. This breaks my heart for I can't stop remembering him as the sweet shy kid he was. He is scared and confused

as to why he's not free. He is really sick and potentially dangerous judging from past actions. I can remember how his older brother

who is very bright and tends toward mania tormented him when they were small and mocked his lack of a quick wit. He struggled

in school and had an obvious learning disability but the " experts" decided he didn't. He is in his 30's now and only functionally

literate. My sister, his mother, says she thinks he found a group who accepted him and that was the drug crowd. He started using

meth and then started committing crimes to support his habit. It's unclear how much if this is due to brain damage from the meth

but my sister was told by professionals that had seen him when he was younger (pre-drugs) that he showed the signs of

schizophrenia then. It's hard to communicate with him because he is so likely to interpret anything he doesn't want to hear as

evidence that you are part of a conspiracy against him.

Yes, that counts.

My grandmother was probably schizophrenic (not paranoid). She would ramble a lot and change thoughts mid-sentence, but she sure could play the piano. She was a gifted piano player who could hear a song, and then immediately play it. She was unable to live on her own after her second husband died.

Last edited by sgrannel on 03 Oct 2010, 11:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I have a friend who is bipolar and her brother is too. I also have a friend who has schizophrenia.

I'm bipolar and I have a really good friend who is schizoaffective/bipolar.

..

Last edited by Meadow on 03 Oct 2010, 11:17 am, edited 1 time in total.

if you know anyone with bipolar/schizophrenia, please invite them to Wrong Planet!

That sounds like an acknowledgment that AS and ADHD are not the only ways someone can be neuro-divergent, which I wholeheartedly support .

I'm afraid of people with paranoid schizophrenia. I try, but I don't know how not to be. Early trauma. I'm not a happy camper right now.

Thanks. I look forward to growing this part of our community!

I wouldn't be surprised with BPD, but then again, I am the only in my family that has sought diagnosis for any mental disorders. More by force than desire.

I understand this thread is bringing back bad memories for you and I'm sorry. It was only after medication that I was able to think

about past events that hurt me without fully feeling all that I felt when it happened. It is right and normal to be afraid/cautious

around paranoid schizophrenics. My sister loves her son, but she also knows his disease could cause him to harm her. He has

already assaulted her before.

The oldest of my three younger brothers wears that label.

My aunt has schizophrenia. I haven't seen her since I was 8 and I never saw her illness but I knew she was sick then because I was informed she was. I thought she was sick because she smoked cigarettes and her teeth were bad. But then at age 14 I learned she had schizophrenia. Now she she lives in a group home and she has grand kids. Sometimes she doesn't know who she is (she thinks she is someone else) and sometimes she knows who she is according to my grandparents.

According to my mother, she doesn't exist anymore because she isn't herself due to her illness and the fact she thinks she is another person and has all these different memories about her life that have never happened. My mom says she is gone. It makes her cry.

I don't know why type of schizophrenia she has but she hears voices and sees things that aren't there. Plus she has memories that never happened and she thinks they did and the fact she thinks she is someone else.

And I have been told my cousin has Bipolar but I never saw it in her. I never asked her about it either.