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Schizophrenia, my brothers, and me.
May. 25th, 2014 09:10 pm I've been reflecting on my relationship with my brothers in the last few days.
For those of you who need catching up... I have three half-brothers, all older than me. The eldest two are my Mum's sons and the youngest is my Dad's son. From the top down they are 44, 41, and 39 (and I am 29, if you are also missing that piece of information). I haven't spoken to the youngest of my older brothers (often called "3 of 3" in this journal) for about 2 years since I decided that his bigotry - most explicit in his uneducated views on 'immigration' and abhorrent racism - was not something I would accept from anyone else, so why should I continue to associate with him. Brother 1 of 3 has a 16 year old son and has been unemployed on disability for about 14 years now after having a breakdown when his marriage ended, he is diagnosed as having schizo-affective personality disorder, I'm sceptical of that diagnosis but I won't get into that now. Brother 2 of 3 has recently got engaged to the woman he met 9 years ago whilst in mental hospital. He has been in and out of mental hospitals since 1995 when he had a total schizophrenic breakdown. He has been declared 'in remission' from paranoid schizophrenia for some years now and is stable as long as he keeps taking his pills.
I maintain an amicable relationship with brother 1 of 3 and 2 of 3. I have a lot in common in terms of world view, music and film taste with brother 1 of 3, unfortunately because he now sits in his flat all day everyday, has almost no human contact, and has given up on himself, he's more or less impossible to hold a conversation with him beyond pleasantries and me telling him what I have done that day/week/month. I have less in common with brother 2 of 3, although he is the glue who keeps up to date on everyone in our family, phones round, organises family events, etc etc. I spoke to him the other week, after he and his new-fiancée returned from a holiday and we talked about how he proposed to her and what he got for his birthday from other people. He asked me what I was doing and I said I had marking to do. He asked me what I was marking, I said "essays" he asked "your essays?" and I explained that no, I don't write essays, I'm doing a PhD, I'm marking the essays of students I have taught this year. "oh yes," he said "you've been lecturing this year". I didn't bother to correct him, I've explained - in the simplest terms - what doing a PhD involves several times over, and explained that I am a seminar tutor not a lecturer as many times again. Try as I might I cannot communicate anything about my life to him in a way he finds intelligible.
Last night I lamented to my Mum that I have nothing in common with my brothers (implicitly, she understands that when I say 'brothers' I only mean 1 of 3 and 2 of 3, I truly have cut 3 of 3 out of my life even though I technically now have 4 nephews and nieces thanks to his rabbit-like breeding with his girlfriend) She replied that 1 and 2 have never had anything in common, I replied that they spend quite a lot of time together now and that 2 told me that when 1 went mad they began to have a more-typically brotherly relationship. She laughed and said she supposed it gave them a point of commonality.
I went on to say I can't even get 2 of 3 to understand what I do for a living. She said she thinks his memory is no good now, and went on to tell me about the last time he was in hospital.
In some ways, every time 2 of 3 went mad it was the same, in other ways, it was very different. The first time - when I was 11 - was the scariest. If you have never seen someone totally lose their mind you can't understand what it was like. If you are thinking "oh yes, I've known people with depression/OCD/anxiety/anorexia" then nope, you can't know it either. Schizophrenia and psychosis associated with type 1 bipolar disorder are unlike any other mental illness. They are absolute. They gradually creep and take away the person you knew. You are left with a mess of a human, unable to hold a conversation, follow short logical steps, living, functioning on a completely different and entirely inaccessible (to you) plain. My brother was never violent, but he still scared 11 year old me.
Imagine being 11 and your big brother, the man who has been a hero to you ever since you can remember, the man who looked after you and played with you and teased you and laughed with you, imagine him stepping out and a stranger being in his place.
When he went mad in 2003 until 2004 it was the hardest, which is perhaps surprising as I was 200 miles away from him and my family at university and didn't have to deal with the day to day interactions with him, just the phone calls. He was mad, raving, absolutely on a different planet mad, and it was the 5th or 6th time he was hospitalised since that first time in 1995. My parents were exhausted as they'd had to fight to get him sectioned, and it just went on and on. That last time, I think all of us thought at some point that maybe he wouldn't come back. He was gone for so, so long.
My Mum told me, last night, that his doctor told her, that last time, that 3 of 3 was so ill he'd never be the same. He said that once you go that mad, for that long, a part of your brain is damaged and it never recovers. It just shuts down. My Mum hypothesised this was part of the reason for my brother's inability to understand what I'm doing, and retain that information.
I had an argument with my brother at Christmas. It was all from him, thinking I was attacking or undermining him when in fact I was confirming what he knew was correct and offering additional information. My Mum tried to tell me, when we discussed it in February, that there is no point arguing with him if he has decided something is a certain way, and I should give way to him rather than arguing. I couldn't understand why I had to give way and back down from every misunderstanding and he didn't - why should I always cave? I suppose this is the reason.
One way or another, my brothers have gone a long way away from me and if I want closeness, and a relationship with either 1 or 2, I have to work out how to do it on their terms, on their level, at their pace, with their needs first.
I'm the youngest, the baby of the family. It's very strange to have to re-conceptualise my entire relationship with them around their new, their current cognitive capacity.
It makes me sad.
For those of you who need catching up... I have three half-brothers, all older than me. The eldest two are my Mum's sons and the youngest is my Dad's son. From the top down they are 44, 41, and 39 (and I am 29, if you are also missing that piece of information). I haven't spoken to the youngest of my older brothers (often called "3 of 3" in this journal) for about 2 years since I decided that his bigotry - most explicit in his uneducated views on 'immigration' and abhorrent racism - was not something I would accept from anyone else, so why should I continue to associate with him. Brother 1 of 3 has a 16 year old son and has been unemployed on disability for about 14 years now after having a breakdown when his marriage ended, he is diagnosed as having schizo-affective personality disorder, I'm sceptical of that diagnosis but I won't get into that now. Brother 2 of 3 has recently got engaged to the woman he met 9 years ago whilst in mental hospital. He has been in and out of mental hospitals since 1995 when he had a total schizophrenic breakdown. He has been declared 'in remission' from paranoid schizophrenia for some years now and is stable as long as he keeps taking his pills.
I maintain an amicable relationship with brother 1 of 3 and 2 of 3. I have a lot in common in terms of world view, music and film taste with brother 1 of 3, unfortunately because he now sits in his flat all day everyday, has almost no human contact, and has given up on himself, he's more or less impossible to hold a conversation with him beyond pleasantries and me telling him what I have done that day/week/month. I have less in common with brother 2 of 3, although he is the glue who keeps up to date on everyone in our family, phones round, organises family events, etc etc. I spoke to him the other week, after he and his new-fiancée returned from a holiday and we talked about how he proposed to her and what he got for his birthday from other people. He asked me what I was doing and I said I had marking to do. He asked me what I was marking, I said "essays" he asked "your essays?" and I explained that no, I don't write essays, I'm doing a PhD, I'm marking the essays of students I have taught this year. "oh yes," he said "you've been lecturing this year". I didn't bother to correct him, I've explained - in the simplest terms - what doing a PhD involves several times over, and explained that I am a seminar tutor not a lecturer as many times again. Try as I might I cannot communicate anything about my life to him in a way he finds intelligible.
Last night I lamented to my Mum that I have nothing in common with my brothers (implicitly, she understands that when I say 'brothers' I only mean 1 of 3 and 2 of 3, I truly have cut 3 of 3 out of my life even though I technically now have 4 nephews and nieces thanks to his rabbit-like breeding with his girlfriend) She replied that 1 and 2 have never had anything in common, I replied that they spend quite a lot of time together now and that 2 told me that when 1 went mad they began to have a more-typically brotherly relationship. She laughed and said she supposed it gave them a point of commonality.
I went on to say I can't even get 2 of 3 to understand what I do for a living. She said she thinks his memory is no good now, and went on to tell me about the last time he was in hospital.
In some ways, every time 2 of 3 went mad it was the same, in other ways, it was very different. The first time - when I was 11 - was the scariest. If you have never seen someone totally lose their mind you can't understand what it was like. If you are thinking "oh yes, I've known people with depression/OCD/anxiety/anorexia" then nope, you can't know it either. Schizophrenia and psychosis associated with type 1 bipolar disorder are unlike any other mental illness. They are absolute. They gradually creep and take away the person you knew. You are left with a mess of a human, unable to hold a conversation, follow short logical steps, living, functioning on a completely different and entirely inaccessible (to you) plain. My brother was never violent, but he still scared 11 year old me.
Imagine being 11 and your big brother, the man who has been a hero to you ever since you can remember, the man who looked after you and played with you and teased you and laughed with you, imagine him stepping out and a stranger being in his place.
When he went mad in 2003 until 2004 it was the hardest, which is perhaps surprising as I was 200 miles away from him and my family at university and didn't have to deal with the day to day interactions with him, just the phone calls. He was mad, raving, absolutely on a different planet mad, and it was the 5th or 6th time he was hospitalised since that first time in 1995. My parents were exhausted as they'd had to fight to get him sectioned, and it just went on and on. That last time, I think all of us thought at some point that maybe he wouldn't come back. He was gone for so, so long.
My Mum told me, last night, that his doctor told her, that last time, that 3 of 3 was so ill he'd never be the same. He said that once you go that mad, for that long, a part of your brain is damaged and it never recovers. It just shuts down. My Mum hypothesised this was part of the reason for my brother's inability to understand what I'm doing, and retain that information.
I had an argument with my brother at Christmas. It was all from him, thinking I was attacking or undermining him when in fact I was confirming what he knew was correct and offering additional information. My Mum tried to tell me, when we discussed it in February, that there is no point arguing with him if he has decided something is a certain way, and I should give way to him rather than arguing. I couldn't understand why I had to give way and back down from every misunderstanding and he didn't - why should I always cave? I suppose this is the reason.
One way or another, my brothers have gone a long way away from me and if I want closeness, and a relationship with either 1 or 2, I have to work out how to do it on their terms, on their level, at their pace, with their needs first.
I'm the youngest, the baby of the family. It's very strange to have to re-conceptualise my entire relationship with them around their new, their current cognitive capacity.
It makes me sad.