I\u2019m not a scholar, but I noticed subtle changes in Mike and questioned him about them.\u00a0 Each time he came back with a logical explanation that made sense to me, and put my mind at ease.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I didn\u2019t see them.\u00a0 It was Mike who wrote them off!<\/p>\n
Mike had always been a happy-go-lucky guy, with a dry, but kind sense of humor.\u00a0 It seemed that \u201cout of the blue\u201d he was experiencing anxious moods.<\/em> After a lot of conversations with Mike, I thought that he was \u201csick and tired\u201d of college.\u00a0 He also told me about the 100th<\/sup> time that he wanted to be an actor.\u00a0 But in the summer of 2005, he was talking about taking off and going to LA!\u00a0 Now this idea made me terribly nervous! I bargained with Mike that we would pay for modeling and acting lessons locally, provided he finished his degree.\u00a0 I knew that he was totally unprepared to go to a big city like LA with absolutely no support system, and of course no healthcare benefits.\u00a0 Any psychiatrist would have thought Mike\u2019s idea of becoming an actor was grandiose.\u00a0 But they couldn\u2019t possibly have known that he had always been a performer, dancing around and perfectly imitating celebrities since childhood.\u00a0 So for me, Mike\u2019s anxious moods seemed appropriate.\u00a0 I thought he was frustrated!<\/p>\n Over a period of about six months, Mike had lost almost twenty pounds.\u00a0 I questioned him each time I saw him, and thought he was losing weight.\u00a0 My first instinct as a former nurse was that he might be developing diabetes!\u00a0 I asked him if he was drinking a lot of water and urinating frequently.\u00a0 His answer was No. He was smoking and he thought it had changed his metabolism.\u00a0 This made sense to me and I never would have put the symptom of weight loss <\/em>together with the onset of schizophrenia.<\/p>\n Mike\u2019s withdrawal <\/em>was more apparent to his dad than me.\u00a0 I was working long hours and his father was a teacher, home for the summer months, and there to see the change in Mike.\u00a0 Still, it was subtle.<\/p>\n Both of us saw a decline in function.<\/em> We simply couldn\u2019t figure out why Mike wasn\u2019t motivated to get a summer job.\u00a0 He had never been lazy!\u00a0 I thought that because Mike had never been a discipline problem or openly defiant, that his behavior was a symptom of depression, or maybe passive-aggressive behavior.\u00a0 I also thought that maybe this was simply a \u201cphase\u201d that he would eventually get over. Young people certainly have them!<\/p>\n What probably stumped me the most was Mike\u2019s lack of attention to personal hygiene.<\/em> He had always been a \u201cprimper,\u201d taking showers regularly, brushing his teeth and fussing with his hair.\u00a0 Once again, I thought he might be depressed and simply could care less about his appearance as he fretted about his future.\u00a0 All of it was quite confusing.\u00a0 If we had known more, we could have put all the clues together.<\/p>\n I\u2019ve attended many educational programs over the years.\u00a0 While all of the afore mentioned \u201cprodromal symptoms\u201d are important to know about, the \u201cbiggie\u201d is change in sleep patterns. <\/em>Almost every presenter in these seminars sited that this is the ONE BIG CLUE that something could be going wrong in your child\u2019s brain.\u00a0 If I can only pass on but one piece of information that I learned; this would be the most important.\u00a0 The problem for us personally, was that we were sleeping, while Mike was awake. I also learned that anyone who is sleep-deprived over a period of time can hallucinate.<\/p>\n Illogical thinking and lack of insight<\/em> were probably the last to show up before Mike\u2019s psychotic break. And still, Mike explained these symptoms away when I questioned him about why he had said something that didn\u2019t make sense to me.\u00a0 His answers were quite logical and believable!\u00a0 But when a person\u2019s brain isn\u2019t functioning properly, he or she doesn\u2019t know it!<\/p>\n Schizophrenia is nothing to be ashamed of, and a medical disease.\u00a0 Early diagnosis and treatment have been proven to provide better outcomes.\u00a0 Unfortunately, there\u2019s little education out there, and most people still want to keep it in the closet for fear of prejudice and stigma.\u00a0 If I could give only one piece of advice, it would be this:\u00a0 Psychiatrists are highly trained medical doctors.\u00a0 They\u2019re also sophisticated scientists and chemists who have experience in finding the proper mix of medications that will help your child to recover. They chose the lowest paying of all specialties for a reason—they want to help people with brain diseases.\u00a0 They understand that parents don\u2019t cause the disease, and they\u2019re not going to lie your kid down on a couch and try to psycho-analyze him or her!\u00a0 Please, if you see unusual and unexplainable behaviors in your child, seek help promptly!\u00a0 You wouldn\u2019t hesitate to go to your doctor, if your child had a fever!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" What are the early warning symptoms of schizophrenia? And why might parents write them off? I\u2019m not a scholar, but I noticed subtle changes in Mike and questioned him about them.\u00a0 Each time he came back with a logical explanation that made sense to me, and put my mind at ease.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t that I … Continue reading Warning Signs<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-27","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":29,"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/27\/revisions\/29"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.susiedunham.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}