- Hi everyone.
Today's video is going to be another one
in our advice segment,
where I'm going to be giving advice
about a certain situation that was submitted by a viewer
around navigating relationships.
(lighthearted music)
Hi everyone, and welcome back
to the Living Well with Schizophrenia channel.
If you're new here, my name is Lauren,
and I make videos about what it's like
to live with schizoaffective disorder or schizophrenia.
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We could not be doing this without you,
so thank you so much.
All right, so I'm going to read
what was submitted to us for advice.
So it says,
"My husband has been living with schizoaffective disorder
"for about six years.
"For the first few years,
"he had trouble coming to terms with his diagnosis,
"which resulted in issues with adherence to medication
"and several hospitalizations.
"In more recent years,
"he is doing much better with taking his meds,
"but we still seem to have communication issues
"when it comes to the subject of his mental health.
"During the past year,
"he had a long period of really good health,
"and it was nice because it seemed like normal
"and I didn't feel like I had to bring up the topic
"of his mental health regularly.
"However, a few months ago,
"I started to notice changes in his behavior
"and I became concerned
"that he might be heading towards another psychotic episode.
"When I tried to talk to him about it,
"I thought I was being as gentle as I could
"when I told him what I was noticing
"and asked if he was still taking his medication.
"He became defensive
"and thought I was accusing of something,
"and this started a conflict between us.
"I kept trying to explain what I was noticing,
"but he kept giving excuses for that behavior
"and saying that it had nothing to do
"with his mental health.
"So I left the subject alone, but within a few weeks,
"he was experiencing another acute psychotic episode
"which ended with police intervention
"and another hospitalization.
"I feel defeated because I knew this was coming
"and I tried to offer my support early,
"but I still couldn't lessen the impact of the episode.
"I would appreciate any advice you have
"for talking to someone
"who doesn't want to talk about their mental health."
So thank you so much to the viewer
who submitted that question.
It felt like they were kind of describing my own situation
in my own life with my partner, Rob.
I think, when things are starting to slip
and you're starting to become unwell again,
and you're falling into psychosis,
your insight kind of goes out the way, too.
And so, when Rob was noticing
that I was slipping back into psychosis,
he would bring that up with me
and he would voice concern in various ways.
And I would always be like, "No, no, it's fine,
"I'm fine.
"Nothing's wrong.
"Stop bugging me about this," you know?
It would build up to this agitation with him
for asking me if I was okay and for, you know,
I felt like butting into my business,
which, really, it's his business too,
he lives with me.
And that kind of instigated this confrontational dynamic
around my mental health and around how I was doing
and him checking in and trying to support me,
because at the time,
I didn't understand it as him trying to support me,
I understood it as him trying to control me, in a way.
And so, this built up conflict,
and it became even harder
to effectively communicate about what was going on.
And so I totally understand, you know,
this description of things
where concern evolved into conflict,
which devolved into further deterioration
of her partner's mental health
and then ended up in needing police intervention
and hospitalization.
That's pretty much exactly what happened with me
about two years ago or so.
And so, what Rob and I have tried to do coming out of that
is try to get on the same page
about what our intentions are
and what Rob's intentions are within these instances
where I am having a harder time with my mental health
and he's trying to offer support and check in.
And, you know, making sure that I understood
that he was coming from a good place
and coming from a place of wanting to support me.
Another thing is just making sure that we agree
as to what should be done in these instances
when I'm struggling with my mental health
so that when he takes those steps, he can remind me,
"Hey, you agreed on this, and this is what you wanted, too,"
and I can kinda be like, "Oh yeah, okay.
"He's doing X, Y, Z to support me, and we agreed on that,
"and that's the protocol, basically, that we're following."
Another thing that tends to happen is, you know,
when this issue with your mental health
devolves into conflict with your partner,
because it generally does,
this is a lot to ask,
but, you know, Rob typically
takes this confrontational dynamic personally,
and his own emotions get wrapped into what's going on,
and he gets hurt or upset or angry with me,
and that feeds into the devolving conflict
and things just progressively getting worse
and mistrust building within the partner
is when it's supposed to be a time
when the person needs more support,
and so that's really hard to navigate.
And so, if you're not able to
separate your own emotions when supporting someone
who is entering a crisis period,
then it can be helpful to suggest
bringing in an outside person
who might be better able to keep that distance
in terms of being able to adequately support
the person who's experiencing crisis.
So, for us,
and again, this is something to agree on beforehand,
because when Rob just tried to do this
without me agreeing beforehand,
it felt like he was ambushing me
and trying to expose
what I found embarrassing and didn't want people to know
to other people in our life
by wanting to bring them in
or, you know, by wanting extra support.
So if you agree on this before things get to a crisis,
it can be helpful.
But basically, just bringing in either a therapist,
that can be really helpful.
It was really helpful to go to therapy
when things are rough with my mental health,
to go to therapy with my partner, Rob as well.
It could also just be bringing in a trusted loved one.
So, we have agreed to bring in my best friend
if things are going poorly
and communication is being broken down between me and Rob.
It's just kind of a third party to come in
and offer me the support I need
without all the entangled emotions that are wrapped up
in the conflict that I'm experiencing with partner
in that instance.
Another thing to just quickly kinda mention
that, you know, Rob tended take personally when I did
was that I tend to withdraw
when I am going through more difficult periods
with my mental health,
and I think that he really took that as
me kind of abandoning him
and me rejecting his support.
That wasn't it at all.
I still very much valued and appreciated
the support he was giving me.
I just was in a place when I needed to recede within myself
and withdraw from stressful circumstances
outside of myself,
and you know, I couldn't deal
with everything that was going on
in these more difficult periods
and so, I really receded and withdrew from people,
including my partner, Rob.
And so, I think if you are supporting someone
with schizophrenia or some sort of illness
that is causing them to withdraw,
understanding that they are not rejecting your support.
There's a good chance
that they really value the support you're giving them
and appreciate you continuing to give them that support,
even though they are withdrawing within themself
because it's just kind of a coping mechanism
that I, we, resort to sometimes,
and it's not, you know,
a reflection of how we feel
about the support that you're giving.
All right, so I hope that these insights or responses
were somewhat helpful to addressing
the situation that was presented today.
If you have any other tips for navigating
crisis leading to partner conflict
leading to further crisis,
definitely leave that in the comments below.
We would love to hear from you.
Also, just a reminder
that if you want to see more content from us,
make to sure to subscribe.
And if you want to help support
the creation of this content,
please check out the link to our Patreon page.
Thank you so much again for watching
and as always, wishing you and your loved ones good health.
We'll see you in the next video.
Bye.