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If a loved one is struggling with schizophrenia, your first question would be “How to help them manage this illness?” The schizophrenia recovery process is a challenging journey but there are several ways in which you can help your loved one while ensuring your own mental and physical wellbeing.
At Cadabams, we not only focus on recovering individuals but also ensure support and care for their family members and caregivers. Through our family intervention programs and support groups, we equip families to deal with difficult situations in the recovery journey of their loved one.
Schizophrenia can affect an individual to an extent that they become incapable of taking care of themselves. At this time, the role of a caregiver, family, or friend becomes important. Taking care of an individual suffering from schizophrenia can be challenging as they can get aggressive due to the symptoms of the condition.
Schizophrenia can change a person drastically; the way they think, see the world, converse with others, and even their social behavior. It can change almost everything about them.
It rarely happens that the pain and agony experienced by people with schizophrenia tend to stay only with them. That’s because it also affects their family members, disrupts relationships with friends, and severely hampers their social life. Schizophrenia patient’s caregivers who stay with them, also get mentally, psychologically, and physically affected. And, the worst manifestation of it is a feeling of guilt that further compounds the problem for the patient and their close family members.
Sometimes, the schizophrenia effect on the family can be quite drastic. People with schizophrenia are often emotionally unavailable because they are preoccupied with their mental stress. One of the prominent schizophrenia effects is delusions. Their false notions, delusions, and hallucinations make them paranoid and confused about everything around them. Consequently, family members often feel hurt and frustrated. Here are a few causes, effects, and aftereffects of schizophrenia patient care –
Dealing with this condition can be very frustrating for family and friends, and for anyone who knew the person before they got ill.
It is observed that an individual develops this condition mainly during their adolescent years, often causing the parents to overlook the early symptoms and dismiss them as just normal teenage behavior. Awareness about schizophrenia is very important to ensure early detection of the symptoms and proper care of the individual.
Once this condition is detected, it can be disruptive to families; the members of the family constantly keep searching for someone to blame for the development of this condition. The reactions of the family members (to another family member acquiring this disease) may, at times, result in the ‘shame and blame’ syndrome. This can cause estrangement and disagreements among the family members.
It may be hard for the family to cope with the change in behavior, attitude, and the way in which the person suffering from schizophrenia communicates. What adds more to the stress and trauma for family and friends is to see their loved one struggling to keep up with reality and experiencing auditory hallucinations and other kinds of hallucinations at times.
This condition can cause depression in both the patient as well as the family or caregiver. Anyone close to them gets affected by their sudden and extreme change in behavior.
Stigma around mental disorders are still very prevalent in our society and this restricts people to seek support and professional help. It is frequently found that having a mental disorder such as schizophrenia could affect the social standing of the patients as well as their family. This causes them to stay in denial of the condition. Even when there is suspicion of the condition due to some reasons, the patient may refuse to get help or even a proper diagnosis. It may continually result in household quarrels and long-lasting family feuds, and it may cause the patient to feel neglected and out-of-place.
It is important for the family to understand the condition and accept it completely. It is essential to have a strong support system because it will help with the recovery process.
It is important to know that recovery doesn’t mean that the condition is going to go away. It is helping one cope with the symptoms and the conditions enabling the patient to live and enjoy a normal life.
Despite these effects and hindrances, the patient and their family can lead a normal and happy life, considering there is proper medication combined with psychotherapy involved in schizophrenia treatment. It is important to remember that having schizophrenia is not the end of the world, it does not bring down your social status in any way. It is treatable and the condition may be stabilized to some extent. The key is to stay positive.
The effects of these treatment options may vary from individual to individual. It is more effective when the individual goes through both medications and psychotherapy. Though the effects of schizophrenia are devastating, it can be managed effectively with the help of available therapies and family and social support. Living with schizophrenia can be quite tough. At Cadabams, we aim to help people get an early diagnosis and speedy treatment plan for a better and healthy life. Our expert team of psychiatrists is the best in the country and holds three decades of experience in treating the most complex cases of schizophrenia. The specialists at Cadabams carefully tailor a schizophrenia patient care plan for every individual.
Taking care of a schizophrenia patient can be overwhelming and you may feel exhausted. It is important that the caregivers take care of themselves first, and monitor their physical and mental wellbeing while taking care of the patient. Cadabams Hospitals not only have expertise in providing the best Schizophrenia treatments but also offer many different therapies and counseling options for the caregiver to stay mentally stable while taking care of others.
To understand treatment options available for schizophrenia, call us on our helpline @ +91961194949.