Topic : 11/23 Schizophrenia

I think it's great that your husband has your dog to help him out with reality.  I never would have thought of something like that, like seeing if your pet reacts to something. That's a great plan.  I myself have three cats and a bird.  I love them more than anything and it gives me a reason to get up each day to feed them and care for them.  They also entertain me very much by the cute things they do such as playing with one another.  I do feel unconditional love from them and it seems that they can sense when I'm "out of sorts", (depressed) and they come and give me more attention.  They don't care if I'm mentally ill.  They are my friends and my family... Thanks for your post.  Hope your husband continues to do well........... 

Yes, I agree with you. I recently read a study that showed that antipsychotics have a 50 year record of making schizophrenic patients worse.  http://psychrights.org/Research/Digest/Chronicity/50yearecord.pdf  

Sometimes meds seem to be helping initially but the brain damage and the body changes they cause are dangerous. 

For the person who thinks meds save lives, you have to become educated on this. It's not true. There's no evidence of a reduction in suicide. And even if they did stop someone from killing themselves (placebo effect, mind numbed to the point that you don't care enough to be sad anymore), the number of people they cause to commit suicide balances that effect because there is no reduction in suicide with these meds. http://www.ahrp.org/infomail/05/06/09.php 

They can also cause health problems and lead to other choices that lead to "accidental" death (car accidents, alcohol etc.) 

They actually do a lot of harm. Sometimes they seem to help initially but the effect wears off over time. It's not comparable to aspirin! http://www.ahrp.org/index.php 

What helps schizophrenics? I would say alternative forms of care that include safety measures and human caring, counseling, time to heal and restore health. There's a book about a place called Sorteria where people heal from SZ without meds. 

Schizophrenia is not a life sentence, it's something you can learn to cope with and even heal. 

Most prescription psychotropic drugs developed by drug companies have been banned and are now street drugs. But the ones that are around now are either new or for some reason still legal. It takes time to become familiar with the side effects and the doctors attribute all of them to the patient's underlying condition so it takes a long time to learn everything there is to know. 

please see www.breggin.com or www.drugawareness.org 

There is also an anti-psychiatry board you can go to to learn more about the anti-meds views at  

http://www.psychforums.com/viewforum.php?f=241&sid=21abab2fef827f39d4630dc03a82006b 

When I was young my mother had a nervous breakdown. When I turned 26 I got married and my mother once again broke down but this time instead of laying in bed all day and sleeping, she started going around the house day and night thinking people were in the attic and under the house.  My dad is no help so this is being laid on my brother and I.  At 26, I loaded my mother forcibly into the car & took her to a get professional help.  I stayed with her 16 hours a day for over a month and finally after being on constant medication , the voices decreased and she calmed down. I thought that would be the end but I was wrong. Any time there is stress in the family, the "people" show up again and try to "poison" her or "stalk" her. I've tried and tried to keep her on her medication but I physically cannot be with her everyday.  I've been told that the medication makes them sleep and they do not like it.  She has became very good at trying to hide what she is going through to the family because she thinks we will "commit her".  My brother and I love my mother dearly and try to be there as much as possible but It's coming to a point that we are going to have to do something different not for us but for her sake. We have now been going through this 14 years and we are exhausted.  We have been getting calls from neighbors she has gone to for "help" and have found surveillance cameras she has put up in the house.  This disease is something I wish no family to go through! 

I am a Christian and I still had thoughts that made me feel like there was a war between the demons and angels (induced by Zoloft). The only way I got through that time was prayer, counseling, relaxation, meditation, positive thinking,  reading self help books, etc.  

But I don't agree that if you are a Christian you are immune from mental illness, or demonic possession for that matter. I have a friend who is a former missionary who has severe mental illness, dissociative identity disorder (formerly multiple personality disorder), brought on by stress of abuse and rape and molestation. 

The brain and the body are complicated, and your 3 part theory sounds nice but then you dismiss the body part completely. Just being a Christian, or any religion for that matter, doesn't make mental illness go away. And call it what you want, but we all need to take a holistic approach that includes the possiblility that angels and demons are real, that includes treating the body as well as the spirit, that includes counseling, emotional and family support, physical support (being there, cooking healthy meals, doing things fun together, exercise). 

In this study it shows how exercise did better than medication or medication plus exercise for long term treatment. During followup, both medication groups had more that 20% higher relapse rates than the exercise alone group...Read the results section if you read nothing else. Let me know if the link doesn't work. 

http://www.psychosomaticmedicine.org/cgi/content/full/62/5/633?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&author1=Babyak%2C+M&titleabstract=Exercise+treatment+for+major+depression&fulltext=Zoloft&searchid=1131692703161_918&stored_search=&FIRSTINDEX=0&fdate=1/1/2000&journalcode=psychmed