If your parent has been diagnosed with a significant mental illness, it impacts you and your family. While a parent diagnosed with schizophrenia may seem like two people, she does not suffer from "split" or multiple personalities. Most people suffering from schizophrenia are not dangerous, although their delusions may sometimes cause them to act out violently, writes Help Guide. Schizophrenia leads to disorganized thinking, characterized by loose associations, repetitive behaviors, and the uttering of nonsense words, according to the nonprofit mental health website HelpGuide.org. Schizophrenia has a genetic component, meaning one of your grandparents passed the gene to your parent. Schizophrenia is only influenced, not determined by genetics.
Step 1
Learn what schizophrenia is--a brain disorder affecting how your parent perceives the world around him, thinks and acts, writes Help Guide. Your parent suffers from an altered sense of reality, believing in things that don't really exist, that other people are out to "get him," talking to people who aren't present, laughing inappropriately and feeling like he is being watched.
Step 2
Reach out to the mental health providers in your community for the help you need in living with your parent's illness. If she is able to gain access to therapy, medication and support from mental health professionals, her outlook can be good, says Help Guide. Complying with a medication schedule is important.
Step 3
Become familiar with your parent's schizophrenia symptoms. His doctor should tell you what kinds of delusions your father suffers from. These often include delusions of persecution, control, grandeur and reference, writes Help Guide. These faulty thought patterns affect how he interacts with the world, which could affect how he acts around you.
Step 4
Ensure that your mother stays in frequent contact with her mental health case manager. This professional is able to help your mother get access to all the services she needs, such as medication and therapy. If she begins to become suspicious of her case manager, let this person know right away.
Step 5
Keep your father as involved with your community as is practicable. Make sure he has access to treatment and therapy, as well as medication, J. Palazzolo and fellow researchers from the Centre Hospitalier Sainte-Marie recommended in the March-April 2005 edition of the French journal "Encephale." Schizophrenics tend to become isolated socially because it becomes difficult to learn new things and maintain relationships.
Tips and Warnings
- Your parent's schizophrenia can interfere with her ability to stay organized, leading to a decline in her appearance and self-care, strange behaviors, unpredictable or inappropriate emotional responses and lack of impulse control, writes Help Guide.
- If your parent suffers from catatonic schizophrenia, he may switch quickly from the stuporous form to the excited form of schizophrenia. If this happens and he becomes frenzied, he may talk quickly, pace back and forth, shout or act out violently toward himself or others, according to Help Guide.
