Canadian Mutt Yowls With Pain of Not Being Heard.

What it is like to live with a family member who has a mental illness.

Many of you can well imagine what life is like to live with someone as sick as my daughter, but I doubt you can full understand the strain it places on a family. Below is a letter I wrote to the victims representative for RCMP May 12. My daughter left her predator boyfriend at the end of April, and has been living back home under our protection. Sadly there are no laws to protect my daughter.

Dear Tina,

Our Daughter, isn't doing great, she is having fits of laughter, crying and doesn't know why, she paces floor all day, can't focus on school stuff, and can't processes the simplest conversation. Her mind is totally occupied. Her eating has declined, we have to give her 2 clausipam to get her to settle down enough to sleep by 10. We now have her sleeping, but deterioration is getting worse by the day. My mother intutiation, has me shadowing her every moment, why I don't know, I just have this feeling I need to check her all the time.I can't get her to shower or change clothes, sit down and watch her favourite decorating shows, the only thing we can do to get her out of house is drive up in mountains.

She no longer can keep track of time, she can't even remember which events happened yesterday, she seems to think it is today. She even gets distracted while we are eating, she will take a few bits, then zone out. Her Father and I are like reminding her with clues she is to eat now because supper time. It is so weird to see this.

In my opinion she needs to be in hospital, We have Doctor appointment early next week, so if you can keep THUG away until then very cool and will help a lot. IFY....he called last night at around 7 from pay-phone....ask to talk to Her, I said no. Then I disconnected the phone. Because I need NO contact from Thug, when She is so incoherent. If the police see our Daughter they need to contact us immediately, as she is an endangerment to herself out side of the house.

Carrie-Ann

Now to clarify some generalized statement I make in the email.

Confusion..... When I say confusion, I mean everything is foggy, like looking through a pain of broken window glass. Little bits of information here, missing pieces lost and the whole world of information is servilely fragmented. That is her state of mind. Yes she does have clear moments of the day, but they are very short lived. In this clear moments she is mad at us, because we replete statements, ask her to voice back what we just said, but it is the only way to evaluate her comprehension.

Walking on eggshells of motional eww.... This is never knowing how she will react to any given statement or situation. This is overall negative symptoms and unstableness. She is totally agitated ,think of an addict without a fix, that is her level of anxiety. She doesn't understand why she is feeling so keyed up, so she paces, rambles, jumping from task to task to find comfort. I don't know about you but I can't imagine a day like this.My daughter will have to suffer 6 mons like this. Now emotions, sudden burst of emotion usually the wrong emotion for the situation. Aggression is the other emotion, many people see this and just say Bad KID, but that isn't the case. Imagine if you couldn't communicate, no one understood what you saw in your head, or everyone tell you NO that happen yesterday. You want to believe them but then that would be admitting very sick, and in your mind your 100% your right and they are wrong. How long before frustration gave way to aggression, then add strain of anxiety and agitation. Aggression of some form seems like normal response.

Now our seniors have these days, we call it dementia. We place them in care, and a family member as guardian. But do we do this with mentally ill no!

We have to start from beginning with medication. When I wrote this letter she was on 1/12 the amount of medication as before summer 2009, we increase by 50 ml a week. So in about 6-9 mons she will be stabilized -we hope. Can you imagine living everyday with this kind of drama? Well it is my life and I don't begrudge it, but I would like some changes.

I want to place mentally in care while unstable with state of confusion, until they are stabilized

I want laws to protect mentally ill from all predators, if a persons action are endangering mentally ill health , then charge and arrest immediately.

I want all mentally ill to have a legalized agreement that is like living will, can grow and be changed as see fit, and human rights are only taken away if serious deterioration occurs.

I want the legislation mental act law....the clarify endangerment to themselves and others.