[AppinIsobel]

Former city man receives AMA medal

http://www.lethbridgeherald.com/cont...ew/236385/110/

Lethbridge Herald , Sept 24 2010

　
A former Lethbridge resident has been recognized for his years of work to ensure people living with mental illness receive quality health care. Austin Mardon, 48, received the Medal of Honour during the Alberta Medical Association’s annual general meeting in Edmonton, Friday.

The Medal of Honour is presented to non-physicians who have made a significant contribution to ensuring quality health care for the people of Alberta. "I feel very honoured," Mardon said from his Edmonton home only hours before he was to receive the medal.

The AMA said Mardon is an impassioned advocate for people living with mental illness, and has devoted the past two decades to educating Canadians about the challenges, stigma and struggles facing the mentally ill. Mardon is a writer, scholar and advocate, who was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was only 30 years old. Since then, he has been an outspoken advocate and public educator on mental illness, and has delivered countless speeches, conducted interviews with media and met with politicians, academics and community leaders regionally, nationally and internationally. His work has earned him many prestigious awards including the Flag of Hope Award from the Schizophrenia Society of Canada in 2001, the C.M. Hincks Award from the Canadian Mental Health Association in 2007, and the Order of Canada in 2007. He is a board member of the Alberta College of Social Workers, a member of Covenant Health’s Mental Health Committee and the Premier's Council on the Status of Persons with Disabilities.

　

[AppinIsobel]

http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opini...717/story.html
　
Possible to live 'normal' life with schizophrenia

Social stigma slowly fades as curiosity about how we cope grows

By Austin Mardon And Justin Selner, edmontonjournal.com
　
Although we as humans are simply the products of bones and DNA, we do posses the unique ability to make choices -- maybe that is where the soul is.

In the 1890s, after giving birth to her second child, my great-grandmother developed what today is called schizophrenia. For all intents and purposes, her life was over. Stricken with this mental illness, known at the time as dementia praecox, she was locked up in an asylum and left to die some decades later in southern England. During this time, her husband quickly rose in ranks as a London policeman and proceeded to divorce his ill wife and remarry.
　
Schizophrenia then reappeared in my family, surfacing in my mother after the birth of her third child. Although I was only five years old at the time, I was fully conscious of this event. My mother first developed postpartum depression; that eventually cascaded into the psychosis of schizophrenia. As a result, my mother was in and out of the hospital for most of my childhood. Unfortunately, she never responded well to the medications, but she somehow managed to function at a marginal level. Nevertheless, to this day our family remains the brunt of small-town southern Alberta hostility due to our perceived strange behaviour.

The torments I was subjected to in school were both nightmarish and brutal.

Even the teachers who taught in the school did nothing to protect me from the endless physical, verbal and emotional lashings my fellow peers endlessly bestowed upon me. Despite having been invited to present and speak in my childhood town, I have been unable to bring myself to relive those painful days.

However, enduring the abuse of my early school days prepared me for the ostracism I was to receive when I became afflicted with the psychosis of schizophrenia at the age of 30.

Just one year after obtaining my undergraduate degree, I found myself living in a tent near the South Pole, on an expedition recovering meteorites for NASA. Although I was constantly confronted with dangerously freezing temperatures and many situations in which my life was severely threatened, I did not fear dying. Rather, I experienced frequent nightmares on the Antarctic Polar Plateau of returning to those horrific times of school.

My ability to genuinely feel shame from the judgmental expressions and fear expressed in people's eyes when they discover I have the scarlet letter "S" for schizophrenia has been blunted by the layers of emotional scar tissue I accumulated in my youth.

After my first psychotic break from reality, people in my family said I should get sterilized because I was genetically inferior.

Genetic doctors have also expressed this opinion to me. I have often likened this to the Nazis, who used castration or murder in an attempt to eliminate further schizophrenic and mentally disabled individuals. From my father, I knew this province had also adopted many similar eugenic laws that had continued to be implemented until my youth.

People have often told me I am brave in my advocacy for this much maligned group -- schizophrenics and the seriously mentally ill.
However, it does not come out of any sense of bravery, but rather a deep-seated fear concerning what happens when people become too afraid to interact and participate in public life.

Before I became ill, my life centred on the pursuit of higher-level education, and was full of challenges and adventure. Although my professors trained me for a life in the field of geography and teaching, I did not use this knowledge in the manner I had expected.
Ironically, I honestly feel I used it in a way that was much more profound and beneficial.

After my first psychotic break from reality, people in my family said I should get sterilized because I was genetically inferior.
　
Genetic doctors have also expressed this opinion to me. I have often likened this to the Nazis, who used castration or murder in an attempt to eliminate further schizophrenic and mentally disabled individuals. From my father, I knew this province had also adopted many similar eugenic laws that had continued to be implemented until my youth.

People have often told me I am brave in my advocacy for this much maligned group -- schizophrenics and the seriously mentally ill.

However, it does not come out of any sense of bravery, but rather a deep-seated fear concerning what happens when people become too afraid to interact and participate in public life.

Before I became ill, my life centred on the pursuit of higher-level education, and was full of challenges and adventure. Although my professors trained me for a life in the field of geography and teaching, I did not use this knowledge in the manner I had expected.
Ironically, I honestly feel I used it in a way that was much more profound and beneficial.
　
People usually become bored when I start talking about my scientific and scholarly research on meteorites, Alberta politicians, or space science.
What does fascinate them is the story of my illness and how I have lived with this burden. Because it is such a unique and odd illness that anyone can get, people sometimes observe, "there go I but for the Grace of God."

I tell my wife all the time I missed out on that 20-year-period of work my contemporaries are now concluding by gazing at their fast approaching retirements.

In contrast to them, we will likely face a retirement below the poverty line. I hear many people talk about how poor they are when they earn $50,000 or less, but for nearly every person on AISH, this is an unattainable dream.

During a typical day, I can spike up for normal activities, but pay for it with long naps and stressful babblings to my wife.

Even good stress has resulted in psychotic symptoms.
　
This is best exemplified in my investiture as a member of the Order of Canada in which my family's reaction consisted of yelling at me for two weeks about the shame I had brought to our name by linking such a well-known award to the horror of schizophrenia.

Doctors are human and within the limits of their skills as practitioners of the healing arts, I do believe they genuinely try to heal the one per cent of the population that suffers from schizophrenia.

Be that as it may, I have heard figures estimating up to 90 per cent of patients with schizophrenia do not take their medications properly.

For whatever reasons (likely fear), I am in that 10 per cent who do take their medication properly and with an almost maniacal determination.

Apart from taking my medication, I also try to reduce the stress in my life. I also have a reason to stay well and healthy as my wife depends on me to support her and leave her with the dishes. Half jokingly, I tell people that every time (which is fairly infrequent) she asks me to do the dishes I tell her I can't, due to my medication. While that lame excuse still works, it is after five years of loving marriage.

When we married, I vowed to her that, while I would likely not be able to support her above the poverty line or do the dishes, I would take my medication religiously for as long as I was alive.

While I am still paranoid, have visions, and hear voices, I am doing all I can to stay healthy.

Society may not classify me as "normal," but ultimately it is simply important for me to live, as my wife says to me often, a happy and healthy life.
　
About Austin Mardon
Austin Mardon has four decorations, including the U.S. Congressional Antarctic Service Medal, the Alberta Centennial Medal and the Order of Canada (member). He has authored several books and over 201 peer-reviewed communications. Today, he receives the Alberta Medical Association's highest award for a non-physician: the Medal of Honour. Justin Selner is a political science student at the University of Alberta.

Read more: http://www.edmontonjournal.com/opinion/Possible+live+normal+life+with+schizophrenia/3571717/story.html#ixzz10XJNq6Rp
　
One reader comment:
saspence
11:13 AM on September 24, 2010
I have faced this illness with my husband, who is now in prison for not taking his medication properly. My husband and I are legally married and he has had this illness for quit sometime. He gets episodes where he gets parinoid of myself. knowing that someone is living a good life with this illness is uplifting.
　

[SakuraLi]

I've been with my schizophrenic boyfriend for 7 years and he's a good man, kind, loving, non-violent takes his meds, maintaining his health and is working hard in school and at work. But I've always had extreme anxiety about him changing for the worse out of nowhere one day.

Mr. Marden's story is inspiring and gives me hope, but I tend to think he is an accomplished and successful yet rare person living with schizophrenia. I've researched a month and this was the only positive story about a person with schizophrenia that I found so far, the rest are horror stories.

What can I do to help my boyfriend stay on the right track?

[WikidPissah]

Originally Posted by SakuraLi

I've researched a month and this was the only positive story about a person with schizophrenia that I found so far, the rest are horror stories.

Well, you have to understand that the horror stories are the ones that are publicized. MANY of us live a positive life, we just don't get the press.

Originally Posted by SakuraLi

What can I do to help my boyfriend stay on the right track?

If he stays on medications, takes care of his health, and checks in regularly with a doc to make sure meds are working, he will stay on the right track. You can help him by loving him, supporting him during stressful times, and by trusting him.

[sheila1mom]

I am encouraged already by the ooncerned replies. thank you.

[AppinIsobel]

[quote=SakuraLi;1523596]
Mr. Marden's story is inspiring and gives me hope, but I tend to think he is an accomplished and successful yet rare person living with schizophrenia. I've researched a month and this was the only positive story about a person with schizophrenia that I found so far, the rest are horror stories.

There are quite a few references online about clinical psychologist
Dr Fred Frese who is diagnosed.

http://www.ohio.com/lifestyle/health/104688389.html

[Abyssal]

I recommend to watch 'A beautiful mind' .. inspirational movie .. Anyone willing to live and fight his disease can live a normal life .. so do schizophrenics .. Its good to see that social stigma attached to mental disorders started decreasing!

[vrba44070]

I have a very good friend with schizophrenia who is executive director of a nonprofit drop-in center. He wanted to help others like him. He struggled a lot during his youth, but once he started taking atypical antipsychotics he began to function much better. He's very stable now.
He helps me when I have an episode. When I'm feeling better I help his organization.
I'm glad you started this thread & shared your story.

[spiritual_emergency]

SakuraLi: Mr. Marden's story is inspiring and gives me hope, but I tend to think he is an accomplished and successful yet rare person living with schizophrenia. I've researched a month and this was the only positive story about a person with schizophrenia that I found so far, the rest are horror stories.

Two links for you...

Schizophrenia & Hope: A collection of links related to some of the very positive studies that have been done on recovery and the attitudes people carry towards it.

Voices of Recovery: All of the individuals whose stories are shared on this blog are people who have undergone the experience known as psychosis, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder in this culture. All of them have recovered completely or to a large degree. I share their stories because, for the individual who is facing such an experience for the first time, nothing is so encouraging as the voices of those who have successfully passed through this transition and moved on in their lives.

~ Namaste

[SakuraLi]

Thank you everyone this gives me more hope. A few more things about my boyfriend he is a very good man, loving kind and gentle but since late June he`s been distant and that distance continues today hes still all these good things just less contact thats all. I told him how I felt and he said he thought everything was good with us now. He`s started a new semester at school and has been given new responsabilities at work. And I havnt heard from him in 7 days. His voice mail is full of messages I left 4 him he didnt reply to his email I sent. Im so scared. I know he loves me very deeply and i feel the same about him. But its been almost 3 and a half months since the decreased communication started. we`ve always been so close for the whole 7 years we have been 2gether. he`s told me every minutia of his day since day one (his idea :-)and always wanted to know the minutia of my day as well. so this time wthout him is so hard. Ive become so depressed and cry most days these last months. This relationship is so hard 4 me. but my love 4 him is so strong. Im in college too and have so much goals. I am going into a creative field after I graduate and I just want 2 be with my bf and live my dreams too. but he wants me to scale back my goals to stay home with even though he is high functioning. please help, what can i do to make this work 4 me and him?or do i want too much?

[Shoe]

Originally Posted by Abyssal

I recommend to watch 'A beautiful mind' .. inspirational movie .. Anyone willing to live and fight his disease can live a normal life .. so do schizophrenics .. Its good to see that social stigma attached to mental disorders started decreasing!

[AppinIsobel]

Namaste S E, Not all recover with this the non medication approach you have posted many times here since 2007.

A recent more helpful letter to the editor from the Calagary Herald.

http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/...925/story.html

Honouring Harry Calgary Herald Oct 4 2010

　
Re: "The dark night of the soul -- one man's schizophrenia," Austin Mardon and Justin Selner, Opinion, Sept. 24.

My brother, Harry, was afflicted with schizophrenia in 1969 at 27, during his last year at the University of Saskatchewan. A natural leader and elite athlete, Harry was a winner. Harry did not take medication because it made him ill (groggy).

After teaching in a number of locations and holding numerous jobs, Harry returned to our home town in Saskatchewan and lived with my mother from 1987 until her death in 2004 at age 87. Harry was ostracized while living in poverty in a small town (by both family and non-family members), but our family accentuated the positive fact that he was giving my mother a purpose to her life and, in fact, her health improved when Harry came to live with her. He certainly extended her life.

We often wonder what Harry's life would have been like had he taken his medication. His health deteriorated until having a normal conversation was not possible, adding to the daily stress of my sister and her children's families who lived in the same town.

Harry was a kind man, my best friend, and a wonderful human being. Sadly, he died alone in his bathtub (heart failure) at age 67 on Aug. 15, 2009.

Your article has helped me get one step closer to putting closure to Harry's life. Thank you, Mr. Mardon!
D.D. Herman,
Calgary

Web reference: http://www.calgaryherald.com/health/Honouring+Harry/3618925/story.html#ixzz122ykYki5

[spiritual_emergency]

AppinIsobel: Not all recover with this the non medication approach you have posted many times here since 2007.

AppinIsobel -- did you click through and read the studies and personal stories of recovery via those links? I've got a feeling your answer is no.

Meantime, it is true that the three treatment approaches I recommend most used minimal or no medication. However, they also managed to produce a recovery rate in the range of 85% and I think others might find the approach beneficial.

- Jaakko Seikkula - Open Dialogue Treatment
- John Weir Perry - Diabasis
- Loren Mosher - Soteria House

It's further true that the World Health Organization has found, in three international studies spanning decades, that the highest rates of recovery were found in non-industrialized countries. In those nations, hospitalization and long-term medication is simply not an option for most people -- it's far too expensive -- and yet they also enjoy a higher rate of recovery than most in the West.

- Recovery From Schizophrenia: An International Perspective. A Report From the WHO Collaborative Project, the International Study of Schizophrenia

[See also: Long Term Studies]

The jury is still out as to why people in poorer nations with fewer treatment options would have higher rates of recovery but a more recent study may shed some light. It was found that when individuals in those cultures/nations did use medications as they are used in the West, the third-world advantage vanished -- that is to say, the recovery rates then matched the poorer rates seen in the West.

- A Schizophrenia Mystery Solved

Of course none of that has anything to do with whether or not an individual in this culture personally finds medication to be helpful or not.

I know people who are recovering with medications and people who are recovering without medications. The Voices of Recovery blog features stories from both camps. The most effective treatment is the one that works for that particular person.

My own recovery came about without medication. As a result, that's tended to be where I invested my research efforts and also, what I tend to share with others. Naturally, others are free to share from their own experience as well.

Enjoy your evening AppinIsobel.

[AppinIsobel]

Yes, I've read your material here and elsewhere many times.

[spiritual_emergency]

Yes, I've read your material here and elsewhere many times.

Like schizophrenia.com? You're not that same moderator who followed me around and called me "nasty" all the time, are you? That would be creepy.

That reminds me... I bumped elbows with your good friend D.J. Jaffe over the weekend. He had a modest little flip out over the idea of people going to an Alternatives convention. D.J. seems to prefer the idea that "schizophrenics" are forever on the verge of a psychopathic meltdown and the most loving, compassionate thing he can do -- what he feels we should all do -- is to put laws in place that will allow for them to be forcibly treated for their own good and the betterment of society. He does not care much for talk of recovery, no way, no how.

He doesn't care much for talk of severe side effects either, even the kind that kill people. Those sorts of posts will get erased pronto. It's okay to talk about the rare schizophrenic who kills someone -- it does, in fact, make up the bulk of his many arguments -- but it is certainly not okay to talk about the thousands of people who die as a result of treatment with anti-psychotic medication.

Bit of an odd bird, that one.

[AppinIsobel]

Bravo Jaffe

I'm just an AuroraMax fan.
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astrono...ax/default.asp

[spiritual_emergency]

Bravo nothing. I'm sick to death of people like Jaffe presenting false stereotypical images of "schizophrenics" as psychopathic monsters at worst and victims of anosognosia at best.

I've rubbed elbows with Jaffe before in a community of schizophrenics which he was finally banned from because never once did he try to actually get to know any of the people there, never once did he acknowledge their kindness or compassion towards one another. Instead, he would just show up long enough to post yet another one of his collected stories of travesty as if somehow constantly reminding people that most of society thinks they are little more than brain-damaged neanderthals was supposed to help them get well.

His story just before he was banned was about a young man who had triggered a psychotic episode through marijuana use. In the process of that experience, he had threatened two securities guards -- not hurt them although he probably frightened them. They lived. He did not. His body was probably still warm at the point that Jaffe appointed him his new anosognosia poster child, to be used as a demonstration of why "schizophrenics" must be treated like criminals for the betterment of society. He did not consider that he was in a community of parents of individuals labelled as "schizophrenic" and that could have been their child. He did not consider that he was in a community of "schizophrenics" and those rare acts, did not speak to the ongoing relentlessness of their kindness, their bravery, their courage, their struggle on a day by day basis.

Meantime, that's all it ever is with Jaffe -- sensationalistic stories of schizophrenics who kill. But where is Jaffe when schizophrenics die from the very treatment he insists should be forced upon them? I already invested some time in trying to understand the man because I know there are millions of people and millions of families out there who cannot get the help they so desperately need and nearly everything the man said was a gross distortion. There are some entirely valid presentations that could be made and argued for in terms of compassionate, accessible and affordable care/treatment that do not require Jaffe to paint his pictures of violence and mayham. But Jaffe doesn't take that angle. I noted elsewhere, I know of no other individual who has done more to further the distorted myth of the schizophrenic as someone to be feared than Jaffe. And he does all this while insisting there is no such thing as stigma.

All this hype about medication and you know what, that's not the issue. What is the issue is that we don't listen to people. When people tell me their medication helps them, I believe them. And when they tell me it doesn't, I believe them. They would know far better than you or I.

Meantime, if it's wrong to kill then it's wrong to kill a schizophrenic too -- a simple truism that Jaffe seems to have overlooked and does not want to acknowledge. If a schizophrenic kills someone, it's because they weren't on medication (according to Jaffe). But if he inadvertantly kills someone by insisting they must take medication that has the potential to kill them, he wants us to think he's some kind of hero. More distortion, compliments of Jaffe.

You're welcome to get in behind whoever you want but there are a lot of people who will not be joining you in your kudos and admiration.

[Shoe]

I am just curious AppinIsobel; where does your personal interest in schizophrenia come from ?
I have taken anti-psychotic medication in the past for short periods of time. A couple of times I felt like I needed to take it. I also had it forced upon me once back in the late 70's, and all on the whim of one Christian fundamentalist psychologist. All he had to do was sign a paper. I still don't feel like I was a danger to myself or anyone else at the time.
My episodes came to an end when I reach 30, and it wasn't because of any anti-psychotic medication. I realize that people vary in their experience with psychosis and medication, but I would hate to see a law passed where one size fits all.
Sincerely, Shoe

Originally Posted by AppinIsobel

Bravo Jaffe

I'm just an AuroraMax fan.
http://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/astrono...ax/default.asp

[spiritual_emergency]

Shoe: I would hate to see a law passed where one size fits all.

Yes. I am as opposed to forced non-medication as I am to forced medication and this is because it does not allow an individual to determine what works best for them.

You know what I would appreciate is an honest discourse on medication because the truth is that some people identify it as helpful, some people identify it as harmful, many identify it as a bit of both.

- The truth is that there are many tools, most people find they need to draw on a variety of them and what they actually are will vary by individual.

- The truth is that no one should have to apologize for finding a tool that helps them.

- The distortion of that truth is to say that people who don't find medication to be helpful are suffering from a different form of mental illness called anosognosia.

- The distortion of that truth is to say that it's wrong to kill but it's not wrong to kill a schizophrenic.

- The distortion of that truth is to say that schizophrenia or psychosis is purely a biological affliction.

- The distortion of that truth is to say that people never recover without medication, that everyone must make use of it and that those who don't must have it forced upon them for their own good.

Even statements like this one are a distortion...

My brother, Harry, was afflicted with schizophrenia in 1969 at 27, during his last year at the University of Saskatchewan. A natural leader and elite athlete, Harry was a winner. Harry did not take medication because it made him ill (groggy).

Groggy? We're talking 1969 which means we're talking first generation atypicals like Haloperidol and Thorazine with a well-established history of severe neurological side effects including the popularized notion of the Thorazine Shuffle. When these drugs were marketed, they were actually done so under the idiom that they were the equivalent of a chemical lobotomy. Could we ever talk about the possibility that maybe Harry's pills made him more than groggy? That maybe they made things worse for Harry than what he was already dealing with?

We're now up to second generation and even, third-generation anti-psychotics and initially, these were promoted as being so much better than the first generation with their history of neurological damage and dysfunction. But that was a distortion of truth too because we now know that they cause diabetes and strokes and sudden cardiac arrest and a host of other tagalong detriments. In spite of which, some people find them to be beneficial and some people find the risks to be acceptable. But who should be making that risk/benefit assessment? I say, the individual should. And if the individual isn't allowed to make that choice and instead, society makes it for them, and those people die or are damaged as a result of their forced treatment... we can no longer call it compassionate care and instead must acknowledge that it is capital punishment for a crime they did not commit.

I'm opposed to killing anybody, including schizophrenics.

[SakuraLi]

Spirtitual Emergency, you make some exellent points and Jaffe sounds like a real douche bag! But as a woman who loves her schizophrenic bf, Im hearing the negative and positive of all the info Im gathering. Im still fearing what the illness and meds could do to my sweet guys. I appreciate the strong, courageous people with this illness and their caregivers, they are a great comfort to me. I`ve learned a lot from all of you. Im still mixed up trying to cut through my own problems and feelings while trying to orient myself with what positve resources are out there. its tough too because my bf doesnt want to identify with being schizophrenic and doesnt want any part of support groups. he believes that when his Doc plans to take him off the meds next year in March things will be fine and business as usual. I have my doubts but I pray my sweetie will be fine. My bf said the Doc tells him he can live a normal life but what is considered a normal life for a schizophrenic. I personally have no clue but that doesnt ease my fear and I cant help having despare mix with what little hope I have.

[spiritual_emergency]

SakuraLi:: Jaffe sounds like a real douche bag!

Jaffe presents himself as an advocate for the most seriously "mentally ill" Sakura. I wrote more on my encounters and explorations here: DJ Jaffe and the Treatment Advocacy Center and here: I'm supporting TAC's lobby to retain "anosognosia" in the DSM5 revision I'm not sure "douchebag" is a term I would consider for him but I do consider that he deliberately presents "distortion" and "fear mongering" as a means of furthering his own agenda, often to the detriment of the millions of afflicted who are not what he portrays them to be.

what is considered a normal life for a schizophrenic.

Truthfully Sakura, the answer varies and it's a complicated answer. Overall, the odds are very good for your boyfriend and this is because he:

a.) Is working
b.) Is going to school
c.) Is involved in a long-term intimate relationship

All of the above may not be without their trouble points but the mere fact he can do them points to good daily function and that's how recovery is best measured -- not by medication status but by an individual's ability to re-engage with the demands of life.

However, there is a very great deal we can do as caregivers/support people and larger society that can increase the odds that an individual will recovery. Those three links I posted above in regard to successful treatment programs help provide us with insight into what some of those things might be.

One thing we should be doing is to stop talking about schizophrenia as if there is no recovery because that strips people of hope and hope is essential to recovery. I would encourage you to read through that link on Schizophrenia and Hope and also to read through those links at the Voices of Recovery blog -- a number of which are the personal stories of individuals diagnosed as schizophrenic who then went on to become professional caregivers -- psychologists and psychiatrists.

Also consider that there is an entire demograph of people who never show up in the studies and these are the people who have gotten well and dropped out of the programs. Bear in mind, merely dropping out of the program isn't enough to determine wellness -- always, we have to look to function to determine that.

There is more I could say but my time is limited this morning. I would encourage you to keep on learning and keep on learning about yourself as well and what you can do to be your own healthy best.

~ Namaste

[Shoe]

I have found that mindfulness can be very useful in dealing with stress, depression, and worrying. Here are some links that you might want to check out. Best wishes, Shoe
http://counsellingresource.com/books...gh-depression/
http://www.mindfulselfcompassion.org/
http://www.mindfulness-solution.com/
http://www.rickhanson.net/writings/buddhas-brain
http://www.wisebrain.org/

Originally Posted by SakuraLi

Spirtitual Emergency, you make some exellent points and Jaffe sounds like a real douche bag! But as a woman who loves her schizophrenic bf, Im hearing the negative and positive of all the info Im gathering. Im still fearing what the illness and meds could do to my sweet guys. I appreciate the strong, courageous people with this illness and their caregivers, they are a great comfort to me. I`ve learned a lot from all of you. Im still mixed up trying to cut through my own problems and feelings while trying to orient myself with what positve resources are out there. its tough too because my bf doesnt want to identify with being schizophrenic and doesnt want any part of support groups. he believes that when his Doc plans to take him off the meds next year in March things will be fine and business as usual. I have my doubts but I pray my sweetie will be fine. My bf said the Doc tells him he can live a normal life but what is considered a normal life for a schizophrenic. I personally have no clue but that doesnt ease my fear and I cant help having despare mix with what little hope I have.