Creating Hope in the Face of Schizophrenia

If you have a loved one with mental illness who has not yet recovered or if you are experiencing mental illness yourself, life can often look dismal and discouraging.

Sometimes the path to recovery is long and circuitous when you are searching for the most helpful treatment or medication. Relapses or setbacks can occur that may not take you back to the beginning of your journey, but they can be frustrating and feel overwhelming. Often life does not seem fair and the concept of joyfulness or happiness can seem unobtainable.

During the early years of my son's recovery process feelings of fearfulness, depression, and confusion often surfaced. Although he was able to attend college within six months of his diagnosis, he faced challenges academically that were new to him. It was hard for him to write coherent essays in literature classes; sometimes it was hard to understand feedback from instructors; and the stress of school could create more interference from auditory hallucinations. Usually these difficulties were beyond what a parent could help with or change for him. Both of us experienced formidable difficulties that we would never have expected prior to the onset of his schizophrenia.

It would have been easy to give up and relinquish hope for a better future but somehow we developed the persistence and stamina to keep trying to make things better. Perhaps we are both innately stubborn so that most likely helped. As he was growing up, Jacob liked to challenge me as a parent and I have no doubt that I caused consternation for my own parents from time to time as well. The resilience that we developed as a result of his mental illness though, was probably due to a lot more than we could have received from genetics or family role-modeling. During these early years we had to learn new survival techniques that I believe that everyone can learn with practice.

One of the most helpful ways to build resilience was to find a way to step back and see the bigger picture – like taking a panoramic photo of a large garden rather than a close up of a particular detail like a caterpillar eating a leaf. While both pictures can be interesting and useful, the larger perspective changes the size of the hole that the caterpillar ate. That does not mean that stepping back belittled the importance or significance of my son's schizophrenia. Instead, it provided a way to see a broader view.

The larger viewpoint included the knowledge that over 24 million people in the world have schizophrenia (WHO, 2022) meaning that we were not alone in our struggles. Also, the vast majority of people diagnosed with schizophrenia reach some level of recovery. Reading about the recovery that others have made or making connections with others going through similar situations was immensely helpful. Knowing that we were not alone and that many experience similar difficulties helped to keep the bigger picture in focus. We became aware that the majority of those who recovered have slogged through some of the same issues that we were facing and eventually made it to a more functional level.

Stepping back can also help to see a pattern of symptoms and changes in those symptoms. For periods of time the symptoms could fluctuate wildly, especially if medications lost effectiveness or were stopped for some reason. More often the patterns revealed the large and the small changes that occurred since the onset of his illness. Being reminded of progress was helpful whether it was a major game-changer or a small glimmer of hope and both were worth celebrating. Celebrating regular hygiene habits like brushing his teeth were just as important to recognize as finding a new medication that controlled auditory hallucinations. Those small changes were still indicative of progress that was important to Jacob's health and recovery. Acknowledging the small changes gave us more opportunities to see hope and the possibility of more progress in the future.

Both the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu in The Book of JOY (2016) emphasize the importance of re-framing our darkest times with thoughts of gratitude. This is not trying to describe a serious illness like schizophrenia with rose-colored glasses. Recognizing the difficulties in our lives can be essential and facing reality is the path to finding recovery interventions. What they and cognitive behavioral psychologists have found, however, is that our thoughts can be very powerful. By focusing on all that is going wrong, we can create more stress and hopelessness. In contrast, looking for positive changes, patterns, and new possibilities, builds the resilience to move forward and to persist. And resilience and persistence are major components of recovery.

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Advice to Care-Givers