For anyone that has dealt with a child with mental health issues, especially bi polar disorder or schizophrenia, I don't have to tell you that it is pure hell on earth. As parents, my wife and I struggle everyday with the guilt of not being able to do enough for our child. As the leader of our home I am continually looking for a better way to handle this never ending battle.

For anyone that has dealt with a child with mental health issues, especially bi polar disorder or schizophrenia, I don't have to tell you that it is pure hell on earth. As parents, my wife and I struggle everyday with the guilt of not being able to do enough for our child. As the leader of our home I am continually looking for a better way to handle this never ending battle.

Our son is now twenty-one years old and although he is living in an apartment on his own, we must visit every single day to make sure he takes his medicine. He will never have what we would call a normal life. It just breaks our hearts to think that the little sweet innocent baby boy that we brought into our home at the very young age of three months old will most likely never hold a job or have a family of his own. Anyone that doesn't think that bi polar or schizophrenia is not a crippling disease, needs to witness the life of our adopted son.

He used to love to drive! He took the bonds that his grandfather had been given to him every birthday since his very first one and bought a car at his graduation. He also enrolled in a Trade School to become an industrial electrician. I can't tell you how excited we all were for him even though at that time the only thing that had manifested itself was the bi polar disorder. My wife and I helped out by taking out a college loan in our name to help pay for the schooling and books. He had just turned eighteen a few months earlier.

I guess he attended about one month of classes prior to missing a day here and there. Then he was missing two or 3 days at a time. Not long after he dropped out completely. We had been very upset with him at that point not knowing or understanding that he not only had bi polar but now he was beginning to take on the psychological illness of schizophrenia. We did not know anything except that we began to see stranger and stranger behavior from him.

It was not long afterwards he smashed up his vehicle. He had been driving very quickly and slid right into a tree in front of somebody's house. We nevertheless failed to grasp the condition at this point and merely presumed he had been irresponsible. He'd quit college, wrecked his vehicle, did not have work, and would sleep constantly. In our book he had been simply lazy and irresponsible.

What we were clueless of was that the pacing, speaking with nobody, the sleeping, the unpredictable actions was part and parcel of bi polar and schizophrenia disease. The regrettable factor was that this was only the tip of the iceberg. All heck was starting to expose itself and we failed to recognize precisely what we were in store for. His bed room was in the basement and he wasted most of his time down there in most cases sleeping. On the other hand, he then would spend the majority of his nights up, going through the fridge and cabinets creating chaos. Not to say he seemed to be wandering through the entire home creating disturbance and keeping the rest of us awake.

Disagreement after disagreement took place, however absolutely no improvement had been made. For those who have any kind of knowledge of bi polar or perhaps schizophrenia you should understand that without proper medication it will get absolutely unmanageable. Well that's precisely what had been occurring. Within the genuine sense of the expression, things had been getting nuts. Our answer had been that we had to become more forceful and demanding of what we expected of him. Completely wrong solution, at least in our situation!

He had been becoming a lot more delusional. He started mentioning the home as his and that we had been a guest there. He started strange motions with his hands and head. He'd look right through a person even though a person would be speaking with him. Following a short time he'd then reply to a question you may have asked 2 or 3 minutes back. He grew to become increasingly more hostile in his actions. His mom started to get anxious of him.

This all continued until the day he completely exploded into violence. He swung and struck his mother in the eye. Although I wanted to unload on him, I took him to the floor and held there until the police arrived. I never used that much energy to hold a person down. He struggled with every ounce of his being to get loose. I was not about to let that happen until the police arrive. He would bite my arm that I have around his neck and face. I spent twelve years in the Marine Corps and never did I experience anything so completely out of control.

I understand that I wanted to beat him to a pulp however I couldn't simply because he was my boy. The police finally showed up and managed to hand cuff him. They recognized instantly that he had some form of psychological medical concerns. They did not arrest him based on our pleas to have him get psychological help. Rather they placed him on a hold in a community psychological locked ward.

As soon as he had been examined they instantly established he had not merely bi polar, but additionally schizophrenia. It had been like a light went on for us. It absolutely was great to understand that there was reasons for his actions and not that he had been merely a misfit. That has not necessarily made living any simpler; however we recognize much more about it. As a matter of reality we're turning into experts through the University of Hard Knocks. Not really a university you would like to go to, believe me.

If you're a parent who has a kid with either bi polar disorder or schizophrenia, trust me when I inform you that we understand. Get assist and stay focused.