Tips When Living with Schizophrenia

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Tips When Living with Schizophrenia

Friday, June 19th, 2009 Subscribe To Our Feed

Outpatients living with schizophrenia should be subtly pushed by friends and relatives to recover, researchers suggest. Encouragement and bargaining should be used to facilitate change. People with mental illness should be included in household responsibilities, such as washing the dishes, gardening or setting the table. Planning group activities several times a week or even creating a daily ritual can decrease feelings of social anxiety and detachment.

For severe cases of schizophrenia, it may mean a lifetime on anti-psychotic drugs like Clozapine, Zyprexa, Olanzapine or Perphenazine. These drugs can help schizophrenia patients overcome debilitating delusions, auditory and visual hallucinations, paranoia and anxiety. An anti-depressant, like Lithium, has also been effective.

While some people may require hospitalization, many schizophrenic patients find living with the illness quite bearable with medication. Take, for example, 27-year-old Charlie Chastain, a schizophrenic who was recently profiled by CNN. He was first diagnosed around age 15 when he began hiding in his room all the time, feeling constant paranoia and anxiety. Charlie has a college degree in psychology and works full-time at a mental health center in Clayton, Georgia. “I really think that if I went off my medication, I would end up in a psychiatric hospital,” he relates.

However, the drugs can only help most patients so much. The ultimate goal for anyone suffering from a mental illness is the ability to live independently. Living with this illness is often difficult because listlessness, depression and social isolation block normalcy. Duke University researchers found that only 10% of the 1,500 schizophrenia patients surveyed held a job.

“Families of schizophrenics have known this stuff for years - that medications aren’t enough on their own,” Ken Duckworth, medical director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness, told USA Today. “We know that the counseling and job services are underplayed and underpaid for by insurance… Finally, the scientific community is catching up with the families.”

Living with schizophrenia doesn’t have to be a lonely, terrifying experience. Managing side effects - like combating weight gain with exercise or drinking lots of water to fight off dehydration - is only part of the equation. Doctors find that the best treatment entails the help of an anti-psychotic or an anti-depressant schizophrenia drug, a daily routine full of meaningful activities, counseling and a support net of loving family and friends.

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