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'The world was spinning the wrong way around'

"I hope that hearing my story will help people understand what it's like to live with mental health problems," concludes Nicola. "And understand that we're beautiful people too." http://www.cambridg e-news.co. uk/cn_news_ features/ DisplayArticle. asp?ID=361056

A tale to raise the eyebrows That Scally has written one of the few books ever written from the perspective of someone living with his illness is remarkable enough. That he has made it both moving and, at times, grittily amusing makes it unique.

"That's something about the book that makes it different - a paranoid schizophrenic with a sense of humour," he says. "It doesn't sit well. It takes people out of their comfort zone." http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk:80/entertainment/arts/s/1062160_a_tale_to_raise_the_eyebrows 

Eyebrows And Other Fish, by Anthony Scally, is published by Chipmunka. Click here

Mental Health Video’s Watch them from this Link to the Scottish Recovery Netwrork (SRN) website http://www.scottishrecovery.net/content/

Denial:      When I was in my early twenties some doctor was experimenting using Lithium with his schizophrenic patients. I didn’t like the side effects- frequent urination and excessive thirst, to say the least.  I didn't think that the Lithium was helping me anyways so I stopped taking it.

I was fine without the lithium for two years, a dn at the time was also taking Trilafon, (a nueroleptic) My treatment team agreed that the Lithium wasn't harming or helping me-so it was okay to go off of it.

later on I thought that well if I didn't need the Lithium, and was doing well on the Trilafon, maybe I could get along without the Trilafon as well. So I weaned myself off of it without my doctor knowing it. It happened over a summer that I became very withdrawn from the world, had auditory hallucinations and developed an elaborate delusional system.  I hadn't any idea that I was sick. As you said about people stopping their meds when they started feeling better-I was feeling well so I stopped the Trilafon.

Suffice to say, I became acute and had to be  hospitalised for three months. I had a friend who was also schizophrenic and she was doing very well on her meds and get this- her doctor took her off of them because she was doing so well. And likewise, she ended up in the hospital a few months after her doctor took her off of her meds.

I have learned my lesson about staying on my medications from both experiences.  I have heard of so many people going off of their meds because t hey felt better and then relapsing soon afterwards. I will never go off of mine again of course unless they come up with a cure for the illness.

Dry mouth and constipation are a small price to pay in my opinion. Not all meds have the same side effects and some are worse than others.  A good idea is to try different ones and see what works best for the patient.  I find that the Prolixin has fewer, but another person may react differently to the Prolixin than I do. I know of people who swear by Geodon but I thought it was the worst medicine I ever took.  It gave me insomnia and made me more agitated than I already was. Everybody responds differently to different meds. But what ever works best-I say stay on them!!!   Claudia

How do you confront someone in denial? My brother-in-law is demonstrating symptoms of schizophrenia. It appears that he has been diagnosed as such, since he has prescriptions for several anti-psychotic medications. However, he does not personally believe that he is mentally ill.  http://psychcentral.com/ask-the-therapist/2007/04/30/how-do-you-confront-a-schizophrenic/

What it is like for a family member when a loved one becomes unwell

My son had a diagnosis of schizophrenia and had returned home to live with us. I knew nothing about schizophrenia only what I had read in the media – a potential for violence. 

It was 2am when my son woke me, he was really paranoid and delusional. This was my first experience of psychosis, at first I just sat with him hoping that he would calm down. The longer I sat with him and tried to console him the worse he got, he started to frighten me by what he was saying and how he kept banging the table shouting no, no over and over. 

By this time I felt he needed medical help, so I phoned the out of hours GP. The GP refused to come once I had informed of my son’s diagnosis, this only endorsed the fear I was feeling. If  the GP wouldn’t come then he must be afraid! He gave me the number for the out of hours mental health services, I contacted them expecting someone to come here, instead I was told to phone the police! 

Why should I phone the police? He was ill and in need of medical help, not a criminal. It took 15 hours from my first phone call before I felt I had no choice but to phone the police, it was the only way he was going to get the help he needed. By this time I was quite traumatised, there were about 6 people who came to my house, which included two police officers. I had to sit in a separate room, no one explained to me what was happening. It would have been nice if someone sat with me while my son was being assessed, someone who would have given me some sort of support and explained to me the process of a section. 

When my son was taken away, he was begging and pleading with me not to let them take him. Feelings of helplessness came over me, guilt that I had let my son down by phoning the police. As a mother, that I couldn't help sort out my son's difficulties this time. I later discovered what the banging and shouting was all about, he was hearing voices telling him to attack me!! 

Once under section and you start to ask questions, something that anyone would want to know when it involves someone you care about, suddenly everything is confidential my son was not well enough to give his consent. This feels like an iron curtain of silence has been put up, it no longer has anything to do with you. You feel pushed out and excluded, you start getting the feeling that you have done something wrong and there is nothing that you can do about it. It does not feel as if you have any rights at all and are used in law only to suit the state when it comes down to putting people under section.   

You can be given a leaflet of the rights of the nearest relative, even with this you do not understand what most of it means, nobody sits down and explains it to you. Only that your relative seems to be a property of the state and not part of your family any more. When a family member calls for help they are seeking medical help, having their relative placed under section does not enter their head. I am now aware that a relative can apply for a sectioning, to date I have met and spoken with hundreds of carers and never heard of any carer exercising this right. 

When someone ends up needing to be sectioned, there are usually warning signs, weeks if not months before a crisis occurs. Family members can see this coming, many contacting services numerous times for help or intervention. The fear of knowing this is coming and being told that their relative has to ask for the help, when they know their relative cannot see that they need help is the most distressing experience you could imagine. The more stressed the carer becomes, the more this can impact upon their relative and the worse things become. Common sense should prevail here, avoiding a crisis can save a lot of heartache and trauma. Even if you can’t force the service user to accept help, intervention and support for the carer could make a lot difference. 

I now work with families and one particular comment I received from a carer who is a senior member of staff at a general hospital said it all. “I have received mental health awareness training and carer awareness training. Even with all of this training, I could never have imagined how traumatic an experience it was for the carer, until I had experienced it myself” 

Copyright Oxford University Press 2008 (by permission)