I have something to tell the world that I think will both shock and awe. I think you will find that I've figured out the impossible.
Someone who is actively having delusions and is hearing voices or seeing people who aren't real don't know that those voices or people aren't real!
I've said it! The cat's out of the bag! You can bask in my greatness now.
I can't tell you how many people over the past several weeks have asked my mother if she is hearing voices or seeing people who aren't real. When she says no they will often proclaim to me she isn't hearing voices or seeing people who aren't real and she is perfectly fine. Of course I ask her things like "did you talk to Will today?" and she readily admits she's talking with him regularly (see this post introducing Will if you don't know who he is). So they bury her illness in semantics. A few of these people are doctors, nurses and social workers working in the mental health care field and really should know better. I'm guessing they just don't want to see it. This is why it is so important for family members to be there as much as they can for their loved one. I know it's not possible for every family, but if no one is there to advocate people fail to get the care they desperately need because of sentence structure and word choice (good communication saves lives, people!).
The sad part is that those technicalities are there because there are so few funds available those working in the mental health field have to weed out people who are not in an absolute crisis "I'm going to kill myself or others" state. Those who need inpatient care, but aren't seconds away from ending someone's life fall by the wayside. And they get sicker and sicker until they finally end up in that state. Then they can get help, but often it's too late. And you waste a lot of resources that wouldn't have been needed had the person received help much earlier.
It's all about trying to cut down on inpatient services in favor of community based services without actually making sure those community based services are adequate for the population it serves. Not all treatment can happen on an outpatient basis and our ERs are quickly becoming a slow moving weigh station for many people who need help with substance abuse and mental health care. If you really think about it, who do you want to receive the best care: the guy with a clogged artery or the guy with schizophrenia and a gun rack? In reality the guy with the clogged artery will receive the care while the schizophrenic will be sent home and we all know how that turns out.
Today my mother had an appointment with a Neurologist to find some answers about her constant tremors. Bottom line: they are caused by the psyche medication she's been on in the past (and possibly present) and it is permanent. She has Medication Induced Parkinsonism. The doctor told me a person could take these drugs for a short time and then nothing for 30 years and still develop this. And when I think of all those times I took my mom to the doctor for her Haldol shot or filled her Trilafon script or filled her medication dispensers I hate myself. I know on an intellectual level it isn't my fault. I was trying to help and I wasn't the one making the medical decisions. But still...
Last week my mom visited with her psychiatrist and was telling him all about how her psyche nurse was discussing my care with her and I didn't like it so I put my mom in the hospital. The doctor asked her if I was his patient and she said I was. The sad part is, if all that were true I would be the last to know.
