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From my middle school years on, I had to deal with my father's schizophrenia. It got worse and worse as he got beyond age 50, so much that my mother could not tolerate it any more and they divorced. He refused any treatment or medications, and generally avoided going to a doctor, including medical doctors. Luckily as a federal government employee, he had worked enough years so when they forced him to retire and leave the job, he got enough of a pension to live on. Otherwise he likely would have ended up homeless like all of the ones you see on the streets of San Francisco (where we lived). He lived to age 75, I am surprised he lived that long due to not caring very well for his general health.
It was really tough in my school years to deal with all of that. I just wanted to live in a "semi-normal" household like all of my friends at school. It was a burden for decades after my school years too. Not easy to describe your family situation to someone you are interested in a relationship with, to disclose the mental illness in your own family. Schizophrenia is genetically hereditary, and I was afraid it might affect me at a later age. Or, if I got married and had children, the children would be at risk. It hasn't affected me yet at age 68, but I never married or had children so perhaps that's how I eventually dealt with it. I don't think about this much topic much anymore, and time has erased a lot of the bad memories.
From my middle school years on, I had to deal with my father's schizophrenia. It got worse and worse as he got beyond age 50, so much that my mother could not tolerate it any more and they divorced. He refused any treatment or medications, and generally avoided going to a doctor, including medical doctors. Luckily as a federal government employee, he had worked enough years so when they forced him to retire and leave the job, he got enough of a pension to live on. Otherwise he likely would have ended up homeless like all of the ones you see on the streets of San Francisco (where we lived). He lived to age 75, I am surprised he lived that long due to not caring very well for his general health.
It was really tough in my school years to deal with all of that. I just wanted to live in a "semi-normal" household like all of my friends at school. It was a burden for decades after my school years too. Not easy to describe your family situation to someone you are interested in a relationship with, to disclose the mental illness in your own family. Schizophrenia is genetically hereditary, and I was afraid it might affect me at a later age. Or, if I got married and had children, the children would be at risk. It hasn't affected me yet at age 68, but I never married or had children so perhaps that's how I eventually dealt with it. I don't think about this much topic much anymore, and time has erased a lot of the bad memories.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
