Effects of Schizophrenia in Our Home

Although I am not a doctor or psychiatrist I can attest from personal experience as a father that the effects of schizophrenia within a home are devastating. You see my Son has been diagnosed with schizophrenia bipolar disorder! Now I wished I could tell you that it was as simple as visiting our local mental health facility on a routine office visit when he received this diagnosis, but I can't. The devastating effects of schizophrenia can’t be fully measured since we have a life time to go before we will know for sure what the full effects with be! Worse my son will most likely out live my wife and I and be left on his own to survive. Although I consider myself to be a very good leader, fairly intelligent, someone with common sense, hard working, good father and good husband, I was not prepared for this at all. The purpose of this story is to hopefully help anyone who has personal experience with this disorder or is interested in learning more about it from a very personal viewpoint. Some parts of this ongoing story will be very difficult to put into words, but I feel it is very important to try so that it will help those out there living with the effects of schizophrenia to know they are not alone. I will begin my story with the crisis that led to the diagnosis. I will go back and fill in the blanks later how we got to this point and how we are doing as each day passes.

My wife, Robin, went down stairs to collect the dirty dishes from my son’s room. We have four children. Three boys ages 21, 20, and 15. Our daughter is 13. When she got downstairs she noticed our son, Ricky age 20, was on the computer continually striking a key that was causing the screen to flash on and off quickly. He was striking the key so fast that it was similar to a strobe light. As he struck the key he was staring directly at the monitor. Robin as she passed by him to go into his room to collect the dirty dishes asked him to stop! He continued without any acknowledgment of her request. Almost in a trance. She stopped and with a more firm voice demanded that he stop striking the keyboard. He yelled back to her to leave him alone! I was doing the dinner dishes upstairs and could hear the exchanges getting louder and louder. When I heard Robin yell at him that if he hit her it would be the last thing he ever did! I quickly scrambled downstairs to find them almost nose to nose by the computer. He had gotten up and was in his mothers face. She was not backing down which was very typical of Robin! Ricky had never been violent in the past so it was just a yelling match at this point! I entered into the situation because I was not going to tolerate our son speaking to his mother that way. When I got there I began to get in between them and while doing so I put my finger up to firmly tell him to get out of his mothers face. As I did he grabbed my finger and began twisting it. I was able to pull it away fairly easily! My first reaction was that I wanted to strike him right in the mouth with a closed fist, but I held back. The look in Ricky's eyes was one I had never ever seen before. He was not himself at all. It was like looking into a horror movie! I saw rage in his eyes like I had never seen before! His facial expression and the tension in his body told me he was ready to do battle! I grabbed Robin and told her we were going upstairs and I was calling the Police. He followed us up the stairs and as I called 911 the verbal exchanges were getting hotter and hotter. As I spoke with the 911 operator I was begging her to send a policeman now. She assured me she was. Ricky with fire in his eyes and his fists clinched he was demanding that we get out of his house! The conviction in his speech told us that he actually believed it was his house. He was not himself anymore! As I was still on the phone with the 911 operator Ricky tried to grab the keys to our car. Robin was close by when I knocked his hand down with the hand I wasn't holding the phone with it triggered the beginning of the end. He lounged and swung at me with his closed fist. I backed up and he missed. However, what I found out later was he had struck his mother instead of me right in the eye! I still had the phone in one hand when Ricky's younger brother came out of his room down the hall and jumped on Ricky from behind. Ricky flung him off and was about to strike him in the face when I grabbed Ricky and threw him to the ground! I put him in some kind of hold, not sure what, to keep him from getting up or striking me, or anyone else. I ordered everyone else out of the house while I tried to hold Ricky until the police arrived. If he got loose I didn't want him to hurt any of them. Both of us must have had super strength that day, because it took every ounce of energy I could possibly muster up to keep him down. He began to scream that I was hurting him. I can't blame him since I was using every muscle in my body to hold him. I knew if I let him go he was going to come up swinging and someone was going to get hurt. The police were taking forever! Where were they I would keep screaming out to them in the front yard? I could hear them pleading with the 911 operator to get the police here now. Ricky them squirmed around a little and began biting my arm. I just let him bite! I was not giving up my grip on him no matter what. It was a battle of the wills now and I was not giving in. The biting hurt like no tomorrow, but I did not cave. It was for his own safety that I held on. Finally the police arrived! As I released my grip, Ricky flew up to his knees and was ready to take on the policeman and me! The policeman told Ricky to get onto his stomach or he was going to taze him! Sensing that Ricky was not going to comply I assisted the police with taking him down again so that he could be handcuffed. I did not want Ricky to get tazzed! I will continue this story and fill in all the missing details of our life prior to this and after this. It will be a continuing story that I hope will help! May God Bless You!