Coping with a mentally-ill relative

Many mental patients have to cope with difficult treatment regimes

A mental health charity says many carers of mentally ill people are tempted to help them kill themselves.

BBC News Online has spoken to one carer who, despite years of crises, including an attempted suicide, has managed to pull through.

Rosemary (not her real name) was on her way to give a lecture when the call came through from intensive care.

Her daughter had been taken into hospital. They couldn't give any more details over the phone.

She was so used to her daughter being in a crisis that the decision to rush to the hospital did not come as naturally as perhaps it would to other parents.

Of course, when it came to the crunch, the decision was the same.

At the hospital she found out that her daughter had thrown herself off a multi-storey car park in a bid to commit suicide after turning up at a day centre "not well" and being allowed to leave without her family being informed.

Terrible injuries

Luckily, she survived, but she had broken "nearly everything".

She had to learn how to walk again and still has to have check-ups on her jaw, which was smashed in the incident.

Sixteen years on, she still does not move normally.

Jane has schizophrenia. Rosemary says she "flipped out over her A-levels" when she was 17, but it took five years for her to be diagnosed.

I had felt other people treated her as if she could not answer for herself

Rosemary

At first, her odd behaviour was put down to "adolescent behaviour", although the family GP, who was very supportive, suspected there was something more.

Jane was sent to group therapy to draw her out as it was thought that she had led a too-sheltered life. She hated it.

Rosemary and her husband thought her behaviour might be hormonal since it changed with her menstrual cycle. Eventually she was diagnosed by an understanding doctor who treated her like an adult.

"I had felt other people treated her as if she could not answer for herself," said Rosemary.

The impact of Jane's illness on her family was awful.

She has a sister and two brothers.

They were embarrassed to bring friends home when she started doing "crazy things" like taking her clothes off.

One night she disappeared from the family's Leeds home - she had hitched a lift and got as far as Newcastle before turning herself over to the police.

She would also regularly cycle to the woods in the middle of the night because she thought it was peaceful.

Rosemary said: "There must have been so much going on in her head. She could probably feel the changes, but could not verbalise them."

After trying various drugs, Jane showed a positive reaction to clozeril, one of the new schizophrenia drugs which has caused deaths among some patients and has to be closely monitored.

There must have been so much going on in her head. She could probably feel the changes, but could not verbalise them

Rosemary

She had to go into hospital for three months to be drained of the other drugs she had been taking so she could start taking clozeril regularly.

At the end of the three months, she hit a nurse which meant she had to go to a special unit for six months.

"It was hell," said Rosemary. "She got worse and worse."

Eventually a doctor looked through her notes and decided to start her on clozeril, and she improved dramatically.

"She was like she was when she was 17," says her mother.

But again, bad luck intervened. She was attacked in the hospital and did not want anyone to touch her.

She got worse again and had to stay in the hospital another two years.

Living near home

She was discharged three years ago and is now living four miles away from home in a small flat and is in frequent phone contact.

Rosemary also goes shopping and to keep fit with her regularly.

She signed up as a member of the National Schizophrenia Fellowship when Jane was diagnosed and made a firm friend out of the local organiser.

She has also been on training courses for carers.

"They can help you to be a better carer and keep people out of hospital," says Rosemary.

She says her work has helped her through. "To have your own identity is really important to you and for the person who is sick."