Being a Caregiver of a Person With a Mental Illness

Photo Credit: UT Health

Caregivers of people with mental illness face a life of drama and journeys into new places they never thought they would experience. The stories are based on my own and other people’s experiences.

Life takes many expected turns for caregivers such as:

• Sitting at a kitchen table with police at 2:00 am and explaining to them that their daughter called 911 because she had a panic attack and not because she was being abused
• Going to court for the first time because their impulsive loved one was caught shoplifting
• Overhearing their son talking in the living room and realizing that no other people are there
• Being embarrassed at family gatherings or when out in public by their loved one’s bizarre dress and behavior
• Feeling hurt when their paranoid, delusional son accuses them of being enemies who want to harm him
• Constantly having to reassure their loved ones that their co-workers are not out to get them
• Be awakened at all hours by their loved one’s noisy psychotic episodes or crying jags
• Finding their loved one unconscious on the floor because he stopped taking his medication cold turkey and taking her to a hospital emergency department