Tuesday, December 16, 2008
Angus: Not Cured, But Recovering
Angus’ symptoms soon came back, and he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital and put on Thorazine and Haldol. Please note that this was about 1983. In 1983, we were just coming out of the dark ages in terms of treatment for mental illness. The medications were still poor, were very sedating, and had horrible side effects. Patients were frequently warehoused in hospitals because the medical system didn’t know what else to do with them. If someone with schizophrenia can be lucky, Angus was lucky in that he knew that he was ill, and he realized that the unusual, out-of-place voices and vision that he had were not coming from external stimuli but were rather a result of his disease. That fact did make life any easier for him, but he was able to communicate with doctors when his symptoms got worse, and did not resist taking medication.
Didn’t resist, that is, until the medication made him sicker.
Angus was also fortunate that in that his parents accepted his diagnosis and wanted to help. No, help is not the correct word. Angus’ parents wanted to be part of his recovery. There is a subtle but important difference between the two. You might be trying to help a person with schizophrenia by trying to get them to leave, go to school, get a job, et cetera, but these efforts will fail. After a severe attack of the disease, a schizophrenic cannot just go back to what used to be his normal life, any more than a person who loses his legs in a car accident can just go back to being a star on the track team. The schizophrenic, like the amputee, needs time to heal. He needs support and rehabilitation. He needs to find out new ways of doing things, and to realize that some things he will no longer be able to do. Most of all, he needs time and patients. He has to heal at his pace, not at yours.
Back to Angus’ parents. They undertook a process to learn as much as they could about Angus’ disease. They listened to Angus when he told them about his hallucinations, and they did not deny them. When Angus was tired or irritable and just wanted to stay in his room, they left him alone. They let Angus know that it was okay that he was sick, for him to want to isolate himself, and that if he did want to come out to talk, that they would be there to listen, but they weren’t going to force him to talk. They told Angus that he would always have a place to stay with them. In return, Angus promised them that it was okay if they monitored his medication to make sure he was taking it regularly. He told them that, when he left the house, he would let them know where he was going so that if he didn’t come home they would know where to start looking for him. Perhaps most importantly, he promised to let his doctors share everything with his parents, that they could call the doctors to report worsening of symptoms, and that if they thought he needed to go to the hospital, he would go. They trusted Angus, and he trusted them.
Angus and I talked for hours that day. We talked about the dopey stuff, like school, girls, sports, and what the worst of the new rock bands were. We talked about our dreams, our plans for the future, as unrealistic as they might be. We talked about our sexual exploits (this was a very short discussion since neither of us had much of any sexual exploits at the time). Mostly, we talked about nothing, which is what friends mostly talk about. I left knowing that Angus was feeling more peaceful than before I got there. However, I also left feeling scared shitless for my friend.
Remember when I said that he gladly took his meds until they made him sicker? I had returned to school, and near the end of the semester, I got a call from his dad that Angus was back in the hospital. The medications had started to make Angus frequently nauseous, and had given him twitches in his hands and face. He had started to drool. Then his kidneys began to fail. His doctor was reluctant to reduce or eliminate the meds because they were controlling his schizophrenia. After peeing all over himself one night because he was too doped up to get out of bed, he struck a deal with his parents to slowly stop the medication to see if these problems went away. They did. But the hallucinations became worse, and Angus’ thoughts became so scrambled that consciousness was agony. He managed to obtain some hashish, and that calmed him down, and some cocaine mellowed the visions. But when the drugs wore off, his symptoms returned with a vengeance. He couldn’t sleep. He started taking his meds again, but they didn’t help, and he began to slip into psychosis. Finally, Angus remembered his promises to his parents, and agreed to let them take him to the hospital.
Except that the hospital wouldn’t admit him. Angus was responsive when he arrived, and the admittance person said that because “he wasn’t a danger to himself or others,” he didn’t need to be hospitalized. Nothing could convince this person otherwise. Not the hallucinations. Not the psychotic symptoms. Not the extreme agitation. Finally, Angus reached over and punched the admittance man in the nose. Even that didn’t immediately achieve the sought results. Instead, the police were called. However, when the police arrived and Angus was screaming at the admittance man that he was going to “tear off your fucking horns and shove them up your shiny red ass, just below your fucking pointy tail,” the police said that they couldn’t take custody of Angus because he was “too fucked up,” and Angus was admitted.
Angus later told me that he wasn’t really hallucinating that badly at the time, but the admittance person was too stupid to realize that Angus needed help right then. So Angus got pissed and drilled the guy in the face, then purposefully started ranting about devils because he knew it would scare the cops and get him admitted. Angus said if he described an asshole, the cops would know he wasn’t hallucinating. My friend was sick, but he wasn’t stupid.
This time Angus spent six months in the hospital. For the first three months, he was mostly psychotic, and usually sedated. He remembers very little from that time. But then God, or at least medical science, intervened. Some of the early, second-generation schizophrenia medication had started to come out, and Angus was given that. It started to work. The psychosis finally receded, the side-effects were much less severe, and the hospital was able to successfully treat his ailing kidneys.
Lest you think the story ends here, I should now like to point out that it took Angus almost ten years to achieve some long-term stability. He had almost two dozen hospitalizations during that time period. He would occasionally disappear for several days, leaving his parents petrified that he had come to a sad end. He always reappeared, thank goodness, often calling his parents, or sometimes me, to pick him up since he had no idea how he had gotten to where he was.
It was about this time that I discovered an organization called NAMI, the National Alliance On Mental Illness. They are a wonderful group that offers support groups and classes to those who suffer from mental illness, as well as their families and friends.
I need to pause here. Please take a moment to scroll to the top of the screen and once again read the description of my little corner of the internet. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
OK, welcome back. Hopefully, you noticed the part where it says that everything in this blog is NOT REAL. At this point I feel the need to clarify that statement. I, Francis Spakowiak, a.k.a. Frank Spanko, am imaginary. I, and all of my exploits, are fictional, made up by the strange and twisted imagination of my author. However ……
NAMI is real. And they really do help people. A lot.
NAMI offers a class called Peer-To-Peer, which is for people who are recovering from a mental illness. It is taught by others with mental illness, not by some doctor or anyone else who has not actually experienced first-hand what it is like to suffer from the disease. The class talks about how the brain works, what breaks down when someone has a mental illness, how the meds work, how to recognize when they are suffering a relapse, and where to seek help when they do. Most importantly, the class teaches its students how to cope.
After attending the first two weeks of the class, Angus told me that he “learned more about his disease than eleven years of fucking doctor and hospital visits.” Angus likes to say “fuck” a lot, and I like to type the word.
The class is also free, which is important because so many people with a mental illness cannot work, so they survive on social security and Medicare benefits. If they are lucky, they get some help from their family, too.
Today, Angus lives alone in a very neat, small apartment about two states away. Whenever I happen to be passing through his state, I try to take time to stop and see him. We speak on the phone occasionally, and email frequently. Angus works primarily as a health care journalist, writing articles on mental illness, medications, treatments, and ways to cope. He is an excellent blogger, and his blog receives several thousand hits a day in my imaginary world. Despite this success, he rarely leaves his apartment. He does not own a car, and is afraid to drive or ride in one. On the rare occasion that he travels, he refuses to fly, but rather will take the bus or train. He used to do most of his research at the local library, but now does most of it on the internet. He says that the internet has saved his life, because it helped him stay in touch with so many people without having to leave his apartment. He is a wiz at VOIP and video-conferencing. He still sees and hears the devil, but has learned to ignore it when it is angry and converse with it when it is not. In a way, Angus’ imaginary friend is real. TO HIM.
I used to feel sorry for Angus because of his reclusiveness. Then I thought of myself. I work from home. I don’t travel much. I often world rather not leave the comfort and familiarity of my apple barn-turned-house. I don’t really like flying, although I will when it makes sense. I take meds for my ills. And I spend a lot of time on the internet. So I needn’t feel sorry for him because I’m not really much different than he. Which, when you think about it, is pretty fantastic. Except, perhaps, that my imaginary friend is indeed imaginary, but, then again, so am I.
Although, if I am imaginary, and I have an imaginary friend, that might mean, by the rule of double negatives, that my imaginary friend is actually real.
Didn’t resist, that is, until the medication made him sicker.
Angus was also fortunate that in that his parents accepted his diagnosis and wanted to help. No, help is not the correct word. Angus’ parents wanted to be part of his recovery. There is a subtle but important difference between the two. You might be trying to help a person with schizophrenia by trying to get them to leave, go to school, get a job, et cetera, but these efforts will fail. After a severe attack of the disease, a schizophrenic cannot just go back to what used to be his normal life, any more than a person who loses his legs in a car accident can just go back to being a star on the track team. The schizophrenic, like the amputee, needs time to heal. He needs support and rehabilitation. He needs to find out new ways of doing things, and to realize that some things he will no longer be able to do. Most of all, he needs time and patients. He has to heal at his pace, not at yours.
Back to Angus’ parents. They undertook a process to learn as much as they could about Angus’ disease. They listened to Angus when he told them about his hallucinations, and they did not deny them. When Angus was tired or irritable and just wanted to stay in his room, they left him alone. They let Angus know that it was okay that he was sick, for him to want to isolate himself, and that if he did want to come out to talk, that they would be there to listen, but they weren’t going to force him to talk. They told Angus that he would always have a place to stay with them. In return, Angus promised them that it was okay if they monitored his medication to make sure he was taking it regularly. He told them that, when he left the house, he would let them know where he was going so that if he didn’t come home they would know where to start looking for him. Perhaps most importantly, he promised to let his doctors share everything with his parents, that they could call the doctors to report worsening of symptoms, and that if they thought he needed to go to the hospital, he would go. They trusted Angus, and he trusted them.
Angus and I talked for hours that day. We talked about the dopey stuff, like school, girls, sports, and what the worst of the new rock bands were. We talked about our dreams, our plans for the future, as unrealistic as they might be. We talked about our sexual exploits (this was a very short discussion since neither of us had much of any sexual exploits at the time). Mostly, we talked about nothing, which is what friends mostly talk about. I left knowing that Angus was feeling more peaceful than before I got there. However, I also left feeling scared shitless for my friend.
Remember when I said that he gladly took his meds until they made him sicker? I had returned to school, and near the end of the semester, I got a call from his dad that Angus was back in the hospital. The medications had started to make Angus frequently nauseous, and had given him twitches in his hands and face. He had started to drool. Then his kidneys began to fail. His doctor was reluctant to reduce or eliminate the meds because they were controlling his schizophrenia. After peeing all over himself one night because he was too doped up to get out of bed, he struck a deal with his parents to slowly stop the medication to see if these problems went away. They did. But the hallucinations became worse, and Angus’ thoughts became so scrambled that consciousness was agony. He managed to obtain some hashish, and that calmed him down, and some cocaine mellowed the visions. But when the drugs wore off, his symptoms returned with a vengeance. He couldn’t sleep. He started taking his meds again, but they didn’t help, and he began to slip into psychosis. Finally, Angus remembered his promises to his parents, and agreed to let them take him to the hospital.
Except that the hospital wouldn’t admit him. Angus was responsive when he arrived, and the admittance person said that because “he wasn’t a danger to himself or others,” he didn’t need to be hospitalized. Nothing could convince this person otherwise. Not the hallucinations. Not the psychotic symptoms. Not the extreme agitation. Finally, Angus reached over and punched the admittance man in the nose. Even that didn’t immediately achieve the sought results. Instead, the police were called. However, when the police arrived and Angus was screaming at the admittance man that he was going to “tear off your fucking horns and shove them up your shiny red ass, just below your fucking pointy tail,” the police said that they couldn’t take custody of Angus because he was “too fucked up,” and Angus was admitted.
Angus later told me that he wasn’t really hallucinating that badly at the time, but the admittance person was too stupid to realize that Angus needed help right then. So Angus got pissed and drilled the guy in the face, then purposefully started ranting about devils because he knew it would scare the cops and get him admitted. Angus said if he described an asshole, the cops would know he wasn’t hallucinating. My friend was sick, but he wasn’t stupid.
This time Angus spent six months in the hospital. For the first three months, he was mostly psychotic, and usually sedated. He remembers very little from that time. But then God, or at least medical science, intervened. Some of the early, second-generation schizophrenia medication had started to come out, and Angus was given that. It started to work. The psychosis finally receded, the side-effects were much less severe, and the hospital was able to successfully treat his ailing kidneys.
Lest you think the story ends here, I should now like to point out that it took Angus almost ten years to achieve some long-term stability. He had almost two dozen hospitalizations during that time period. He would occasionally disappear for several days, leaving his parents petrified that he had come to a sad end. He always reappeared, thank goodness, often calling his parents, or sometimes me, to pick him up since he had no idea how he had gotten to where he was.
It was about this time that I discovered an organization called NAMI, the National Alliance On Mental Illness. They are a wonderful group that offers support groups and classes to those who suffer from mental illness, as well as their families and friends.I need to pause here. Please take a moment to scroll to the top of the screen and once again read the description of my little corner of the internet. Go ahead, I’ll wait.
OK, welcome back. Hopefully, you noticed the part where it says that everything in this blog is NOT REAL. At this point I feel the need to clarify that statement. I, Francis Spakowiak, a.k.a. Frank Spanko, am imaginary. I, and all of my exploits, are fictional, made up by the strange and twisted imagination of my author. However ……
NAMI is real. And they really do help people. A lot.
NAMI offers a class called Peer-To-Peer, which is for people who are recovering from a mental illness. It is taught by others with mental illness, not by some doctor or anyone else who has not actually experienced first-hand what it is like to suffer from the disease. The class talks about how the brain works, what breaks down when someone has a mental illness, how the meds work, how to recognize when they are suffering a relapse, and where to seek help when they do. Most importantly, the class teaches its students how to cope.
After attending the first two weeks of the class, Angus told me that he “learned more about his disease than eleven years of fucking doctor and hospital visits.” Angus likes to say “fuck” a lot, and I like to type the word.
The class is also free, which is important because so many people with a mental illness cannot work, so they survive on social security and Medicare benefits. If they are lucky, they get some help from their family, too.
Today, Angus lives alone in a very neat, small apartment about two states away. Whenever I happen to be passing through his state, I try to take time to stop and see him. We speak on the phone occasionally, and email frequently. Angus works primarily as a health care journalist, writing articles on mental illness, medications, treatments, and ways to cope. He is an excellent blogger, and his blog receives several thousand hits a day in my imaginary world. Despite this success, he rarely leaves his apartment. He does not own a car, and is afraid to drive or ride in one. On the rare occasion that he travels, he refuses to fly, but rather will take the bus or train. He used to do most of his research at the local library, but now does most of it on the internet. He says that the internet has saved his life, because it helped him stay in touch with so many people without having to leave his apartment. He is a wiz at VOIP and video-conferencing. He still sees and hears the devil, but has learned to ignore it when it is angry and converse with it when it is not. In a way, Angus’ imaginary friend is real. TO HIM.
I used to feel sorry for Angus because of his reclusiveness. Then I thought of myself. I work from home. I don’t travel much. I often world rather not leave the comfort and familiarity of my apple barn-turned-house. I don’t really like flying, although I will when it makes sense. I take meds for my ills. And I spend a lot of time on the internet. So I needn’t feel sorry for him because I’m not really much different than he. Which, when you think about it, is pretty fantastic. Except, perhaps, that my imaginary friend is indeed imaginary, but, then again, so am I.
Although, if I am imaginary, and I have an imaginary friend, that might mean, by the rule of double negatives, that my imaginary friend is actually real.
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Interesting. If we could finally, fully, move past the stigma attached to mental illness, and make greater strides in treating mental illness, the world would be a much better place.
Hugs,
Kallisto
Hugs,
Kallisto
Very interesting reading! Thanks also for your kind comments in my guestbook on my blog. They were much appreciated.
Hugs,
Purple Angel
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Hugs,
Purple Angel
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