No, Noreenb, simply no. I know what I now increasingly observe but I cannot go into details for reasons of confidentiality and I don't have to be a GP to notice what I notice.
Thank you everyone on this thread for replying, makes me feel less alone that I can share it with some people. Her family seem largely unwilling to tackle it, as if it were a minor matter like belching at dinner or some such trivia, but I see that she is losing greater and greater touch with reality in small but now more noticable steps and it is very frustrating to see that nothing is being done about it.
I will update the thread if there is any positive news. If you don't hear from me, will be safe to assume that matters continue gently but firmly downhill.
BritinPoland Listen, sometimes people just go in a sphere of illusion, because their brain needs it. If you want to help her, I would start think over your attitude. You are a couple, aren't you? I think she doesn't want Your help. If she will want, if she will need it, she will go to the doctor. I don't think she will do this after so long time. If her family and she trust a God will help her, the best option for you is to believe in it too. Good luck for her and for you. :)
No, we are not a couple, although what that has to do with it I don't know.
No, I do not agree in this trust in ye gods stuff, and no I do not agree with the what will be will be attitude. We are not living in the middle ages.
Yes, she does not want any help because she does not see that she needs any help from anyone. Indeed, she has stated clearly that anyone who believes her father to be deceased is mentally unwell and should seek help.
Frankly, it beggars belief in 2011 that some people think it is okay to just "live with" any, let alone this degree of, mental illness. The clue, NoreenB, is in the word "illness". If some people reading this thread actually think this person has an invisible sky fairy friend who is helping her cope with her father's death by telling her mind that he isn't really dead then I really have nothing polite to say in response to that so I will say nothing.
BritinPoland Fine. Emotional grief lasts around a year. During the time people are able to hear dead persons' voices. This is their reaction to a pain, loss and longing. If it will last longer that a year you can seek for a professional help for help. It just seven months. She is allowed to feel what she wants.
Till this time I think and hope your friend will be 100% healthy.
Emotional grief lasts around a year. It just seven months
Perhaps you don't have time to read whole threads, or perhaps I have not been clear - but the information I have gathered from her family is that she has been unwell in this way for approx 2.5 years. It is not seven months! I would not be happy, however, even if it was 7 days, if it was my daughter or sister unwell.
Also for the record, NoreenB, no she does not hear dead persons' voices nor see ghosts nor anything similar, not at all. In fact, before I realised she thought he was still alive, I thought I had seen a shadow/ghost where he lived and she dismissed that as nonsense (I thought she dismissed it because she didn't believe in such things, I later discovered the context was that it couldn't be his ghost because he was still alive according to her. Incidentally, what I saw turned out to be an optical illusion which I later was able to recreate at will, not a ghost!).
I think I know what she has, I was told I had the same thing when I had a nervous breakdown at 14. She probably has temporary mania (that would explain her competency and ability to carry on and not be depressed) and is experiencing symptoms of psychosis. In this kind of psychosis, she would not hear or see things, but imagine false realities like she is and make up delusions to comfort herself. She knows deep down inside that her father is dead, but she's just separating herself from reality with the delusions. This is common in people of certain personalities, its just the way they cope with extreme stress when they break down. DO NOT take her to a psychiatrist, they will just drug her with a chemical lobotomy and mask the problem. Her mother is absolutely right, TIME is the best healer. She'll probably get over it in a year or two completely, so there is no need to drug her and a psychologist probably wouldn't help if she's highly intelligent and stubborn. You may just find that you'll have to let her believe her delusions, but just watch her carefully she could do something mildly crazy at any moment.
I am so glad that my parents didn't let them drug me as an outpatient with temporary mental illness and I got over it quickly without the help of drugs. Psychiatrists can't really do anything to help someone like that, its all experimental and those pills can be very brain damaging and addictive. You shouldn't have her take those unless she becomes dangerous or totally out of control, let her have her delusions.
imagine false realities like she is and make up delusions to comfort herself. She knows deep down inside that her father is dead, but she's just separating herself from reality with the delusions. This is common in people of certain personalities, its just the way they cope with extreme stress when they break down.
I suspect this is bang on but due to the amount of time she's nursed this delusion there may be more at play. This is a pretty severe case no matter how you look at it.
I can see that, and I know what its like to have had delusions like that in a much, much milder form than her. For example, I was saying I was pregnant when I was not (which was really a subconscious reaction to not wanting to be forced to take any drugs) and I actually was thinking in my mind that I believed it for a couple of weeks. I didn't really believe that I was, but I was thinking it to comfort myself and it just took a bunch of different people telling me I was not pregnant and showing me some proof for me to snap out of it. The fact that she is highly intelligent could be making it look like it is more severe than it really is, because highly intelligent people think in a more sophistocated way than most people and its easier for them to believe their own delusions.
She can get over her psychosis by people forcing her to accept the truth. You just have to monitor her carefully when you are doing this since it is severe, she could do something crazy or dangerous if she withdraws to quickly from the delusions and panicks. Have you thought of getting the whole family together and having a talk with her and bombarding her with proof of her father's death?
You should know that psychiatric drugs are much much more dangerous and damaging than they say and they don't really do much to help a person. It is very very sad what they do to misled and confused people who need help. You should use them as an absolute last resort! If they put her on an antipsychotic, then she could have a permanently altered state of mind that is somewhat negative and not herself and could also have other harmful side effects like light headedness, high blood sugar, or TD. So, if you really care about her, at all costs take action now to avoid having to go to the psychiatrist.
From what I understand, all that was tried a while back. More recently, her mother refused to get the paperwork out as just seeing her deceased husband's medical reports etc again is too upsetting for her and appears to only encourage the person denying her father's death to worry more about where he is rather than accept he passed away. When shown an email from herself to me discussing the funeral that she had attended (ie her father's) back at that time in 2008 she now says "it must have been the funeral of someone else". When I say "no, it was your dad's funeral, or at least that's what you told me at the time", she replies "Don't be stupid, you know you're getting sick, Satan is working on you."
I disagree that she "deep down" knows he has passed away, I had thought that for a short period, but other things now convince me otherwise, one of which is the total preservation of all his possessions that must not be moved from where he left them over 3 years ago now before he was admitted to hospital for the final time.
I also fear the psychiatric drugs, but don't know what else to do. Of course, I live in hope she will just snap out of it, if that happens I suspect she will have no memory of denying the death at all.
It is hard to happily wait more years for her to get well on her own, as there are signs of affecting her everyday life now. Of course, that is far preferable to her getting worse, adversely "changed", or harmed in any way in a medical/psychiatric environment, if that were to happen.
I just hope her family do not suddenly get her taken away, to put it crudely, with that sort of treatment. I don't want to find she's suddenly gone and they won't even tell me where she is. I would much prefer for her to voluntarily go and discuss it with a doctor or therapist, as cognitive therapy is far preferable to strong drugs or whatever severe treatments they can do. But as long as she refuses to even talk to a doctor, the worse she is becoming, the greater the chance a severe "remedy" will be used by her family who seem pretty cold to me. (I can assure you I would never push strong psychiatric drugs on her or that sort of treatment if it were my decision, but probably there are people who will say that is the only chance to help her and for all I know they may be correct.)
If I had a friend, who wanted to help me or to see a doctor, I would say to him/her: "Get away from my life." I don't feel I need it from you, because I am an adult person and I look after myself. She is too gentle to tell you what she thinks.
I am stubborn myself and I know what I feel when anybody suggests me what I should do. Sometimes I am even able to do what people want me to, but deep inside I have my own opinion.
Ask her: "What does it mean for you he lives?" Don't tell her: "He died." because she will probably answer to you: "No, he lives."
And what will happen then? Nothing... She will stay by her opinion, you will be confused again. Sorry, but I guess you are making a mistake wanting to support her. I am sure she appreciates it thought. You expect her to come back to normality. Can't you see that she knows better than you? Who is right? You, she, her family... other people?
Discuss with her the issue...What will she tell you? OMG, I would answer if I were her: From a logical point of view I can prove you he is still alive, when I will be ready to realise he died, I will inform you.
I too think that the drugs can be bad and are over prescribed these days. But also they can and do help some people. For some the drugs are their only hope for a normal life. And the more extreme the case the more likely meds might be necessary, imo. A professinal should decide.
I would answer if I were her: From a logical point of view I can prove you he is still alive, when I will be ready to realise he died, I will inform you.
See, but you're looking at it from a normal person perspective as to what a normal person might think and do. This girl is clearly not normal at present.
Llamatic Oh, isn't she? She eats, works, sleeps, has friends who care for her. The only thing BritinPoland finds "sick" is her strange denial of her father's death. I agree with people who say times heals.
Having some experience of people with psychiatric problems, and others who work in the field, I find this a rather naive statement. I have known of people who claim all is ok, say they don't need help and then do rather unhealthy things to themselves. Likewise, there are a number of situations where people receiving treatment decide to stop their treatment because they feel they are healthy... however they are only 'healthy' because the treatment they are taking keeps them so. The results are often less than pretty. I've also encountered people who are told "pray to Jesus and everything will be OK" and it isn't. I've also known of people who self-harm (or harm the sufferer) in the belief that it's the will of some god.
Perhaps you feel such self-harm is simply a 'lifestyle choice'.
Perhaps you feel such self-harm is simply a 'lifestyle choice'.
No, I don't. I feel it's her way of seeking privacy, recovering and finding a solution without help. How do you know she harms herself? When people believe Jesus will help them it's OK for them. It's not OK for those who don't. In other words: when somebody is convinced that he/she is right rather won't take into consideration somebody else thinks he/she might not be. That's why I said he makes a mistake, because he sees their "wrong way" which is not giving her a proper treatment.
How often do you say to your friends "Stop smoking, drinking, whatever. It's bad for you." I mean, I can't really understand why the person should be taken to a doctor. Health is a very personal matter.
Well it hasn't so far in nearly 2.5 years or perhaps more. But you don't read threads fully, as case histories and the details are irrelevant when you dispense your advice, aren't they.
No, I don't. I feel it's her way of seeking privacy, recovering and finding a solution without help.
No it is not. She is most definitely 100% convinced he is alive, or she's a brilliant actress, one of the two. If the former, that is the result of a malfunction in her brain. If the latter, I don't know what her motive is, it certainly isn't obvious. Assuming it's the former, it is not any sort of privacy or other wild goose chase reason - it is plainly that either part-amnesia or her brain has gone into a self-defence mechanism to shield her from something that is too anxiety-causing for her to consciously acknowledge; they could both be the same thing, of course.
The additional blow in all this is that I am learning day by day that her immediate family are quite lousy and not going to be helping me to help her and just going to continue to fob me off with excuses when I ask what they plan to do. If that continues beyond the many months of fobbing off so far, there will be nothing I can do at all and I will have to give up and go home as I just simply cannot afford to be pointlessly out here spending and not earning a bean for much longer when her family are not playing their part in resolving this. Time is not healing her, nothing is so far and I'm pretty sure no sky fairies will help either. So she'll either snap out of it one day or she'll suddenly self-harm when she realises he's not coming back. I have warned her family of this several times and they either ignore my emails or shrug to my face. And yes as perhaps some of you have guessed they actually just seem to pretty much resent me. So I will probably have to give up and go before too long. Thank you all who posted here, anyway.
of course, I don't know but there are different ideas of what constitutes self harm If, as he says, she is losing weight, it may be that she is starving herself or has a serious loss of appetite.
Health is a very personal matter.
But it can also affect others, especially mental health. having been on the receiving end of a few cases of people suffering from mental disorders I know from painful experience. Likewise, i have known of people who both needed and wanted help but had the religious views of others forced onto them (them not being in a state to protest) and rob them of a chance of recovery.
Is telling someone to pray to a god any different from advising them to go to a doctor?
I can't really understand why the person should be taken to a doctor.
because some people don't realise they need help and others don't know how to ask for it.
OK, there is a point here that too much insistence could be making her keep her guard up. The further someone gets into a fantsy the harder it can be to get out (and it can be a very scary thing to have to admit it isn't real).
True, some people do recover because of religious faith, but for you to say it is the best option "to believe in it too" is not necessarily the best idea based on what we have been told.
Quite possibly but it can be a bit like sticking the tiger in a box and sitting on it. The longer you sit there the more frightening it can be to face the idea of getting off and having to face the tiger when it gets out.
I have met her, I am telling you she shows every sign of someone who is completely convinced he is alive. So much so that I have at times wondered if her mother is indeed crackers (that is an English term for insane) and erected the grave memorial prematurely as suggested by her. She is so convincing that I have even wondered whether the truth was that her father recovered, couldn't stand the mother (not hard to believe if you meet her) and b*ggered off round the world on a cruise with a new partner while for spite or closure the mother got the grave done in his name. THAT'S how convincing the woman is, REALLY. To make me think that even momentarily, to make me chew over what really could be the truth, when the truth is so obviously he died as a result of his illness, that is how convincing this woman is because she really believes he is alive. As I said before - brilliant actress (but why?) or 100% loss of memory/mental health issue. Nothing else, no deep downs, no nonsense, I know of this deep-down they know syndrome that you mention and that's a walk in the park. This ain't it. Period.
No it is not. She is most definitely 100% convinced he is alive, or she's a brilliant actress, one of the two.
This is positively, most definitely mania. The fact that she is not bipolar, doesn't have mood swings etc. means that it is something or many things psychologically wrong. I had the exact same thing as a 14 year old (believed I was the best actress in all of Hollywood lol it cracks me up now) and when they put me on the meds for a few months, it didn't make me stop believing my delusions. The meds only made me more agitated, unhappy, and delusional than I had ever been before. I recovered completely on my own when I went off those toxins as I got more intelligent and matured over time, set goals, and worked out my own issues. I totally snapped out of it after about 10 months I went off the medication, but it doesn't sound like she will snap out of it too soon so medication may be your only hope because these delusions of hers have dug her into a very deep hole.
Before urging her to go to the psychiatrist, she should go the regular doctor and make sure all of her hormone levels are normal. Sometimes an overproduction of a certain hormone combined with psychological issues can make the nervous system go haywire. This is probably why I started to get it at age 14; I was having my first meunstral cycle. If her hormone levels are normal, and there is absolutely nothing going on with her physically that could contribute to her condition, I would probably have her check into the hospital if she won't get help. They can't do much of anything to her if she is acting the way you said she does. Just keep in mind that psychiatrists usually prescribe much more than a person absolutely needs, and she doesn't have to take everything they give her to come to the realization that she's delusional.
I believed I was the best actress in all of Hollywood
Well, I heard you were actually sensational!
Joking aside - no, she won't go to a doctor for anything psychiatric, nor a hospital. I will look into the hormones thing if it's something anyone will discuss with me, thanks for that.
Word reaches me that she showed up at one of her father's old offices and went to his desk or old room with some flowers for his name day - she then followed it up later to ask if he'd phoned there or been in to see the flowers.
Oh boy. That's pretty bad. Think of all the thought, planning and effort it took to execute this little exercise. That's a whole lot more than just some denial. And certainly her condition is not an act if she's going to this extent.
I've been thinking about this in regards to this poor girl... Lets assume for the moment that indeed people have inside of them some mechanism of denial which is automatically switched on in order to preserve us from severe psychological harm; we go into denial so as to prevent ourselves further damage of complete breakdown. Ok? Now, for this girl's mind to trigger such a reaction and go into that -what we'll call "brain safety mode"- over the death of an old and ill father, this would seem to me to indicate that she likely had some sort of serious issues even before her father died and these recent events. I mean, sure, a loved one's death can be traumatic -devastating even- but for her to go off the deep end over it certainly seems extreme in the extreme, an overreaction to the expected event. I think this shows that the death of her father may be immaterial here and in reality may have had little to do with her present condition; if not his death then something else was likely going to set her off anyway. (Much as NoNonsense didn't need any particular traumatic event to set her off into loopy mode.) Does this make sense? There was nothing else in this girl's prior life that would indicate that she was, um, a little 'off'? No other instances when you thought she was maybe not normal or completely balanced?
This is as intriguing as a movie case. If I were you I'd consider contacting a psychiatrist on your own and buying an hour with them and telling them this girl's story. Maybe you could introduce this person to the girl as a friend and just get them talking?...
BritinPoland I think she has paranoia, which is very difficult to recognize. Try to find some infos about healing the disorder. Things people write about it are pretty interesting.
NoreenB, if it is paranoia then it says here that treatment should have started immediately (although how immediate can anyone start a treatment? it takes time to notice what's going on as it can creep into existence)
depression-guide.com/paranoia.htm
If that immediacy is so important, then there's no hope of helping her, as her family just took the view "time will heal" - over 2 years ago, or possibly nearer to 3.
The thing you should do first is to focus on a word "delusion", not "paranoia" or "mental illness". You're on a good way. Somebody must convince her about her "false view" at that fact. Try to do it. Also keep on saying: "He died". She must believe in it at least. Her immediate family should do the same.
As for medicals, therapies, doctors, I don't know what to advice you. :)
Yes, she apparently had a hormone check done a few years ago, for some reason. All normal.
She has spent the weekend reading and looking into various cancer cures in readiness for when she "finds" her father. I have ceased reminding her he has died, I say nothing now.
Well, if there's a breakthrough I will post again. Thanks all.
This is not a breakthrough or progress as such, but I will post what has happened here anyway, in case it leads to a breakthrough.
The person decided she would go to the hospitals that last treated her father, to see if they know where he is (in reality, he is dead, of course).
At the records office, the clerks told him that she would need authorisation from the patient before they can release any information. However, they did do a search on their system and apparently his details came up. The screen was some distance from the person, but she said there were 4 lines and she called those entries "suspicious".
Immediately afterwards, I asked her what she meant by suspicious. She said she meant that it was odd that they called up the information on the system but then wouldn't let her know what it said. About half an hour later, when I asked her if she could read what it said on the 4 lines, she said it was the names of doctors familiar to her, plus some Latin terminology and the word in Polish for "deceased".
I expected to have to comfort her at this point, but she said that the hospital had obviously made a mistake and the search would go on.
Later on, I asked her what she would do if someone she knew had started to say that their father had not died when everyone else including her knew he had. She said "You mean, forgot?" I said "Whatever the reason, they just suddenly start talking as if he never died and was just missing. What would you do?" She replied "Get them proof." I said "Such as go to a hospital and show them a record which indicates their father as 'deceased'?" She replied "Yes." I asked, "What if they said that the hospital was wrong?" She replied, "Well, that would be ridiculous!" I then paused and said, "But that's exactly what you're saying to me when the screen there showed him as deceased..." To which she replied, "Oh my situation's not the same, he didn't die!"
As she did not accept the grave memorial to be the truth, it is perhaps no surprise that she doesn't find the hospital record to be believable, even if it was just glanced at. She did add that she'd believe it if she saw a Death Certificate but added "Don't even talk like that, he's not dead."
The only bit of progress made is that she is starting to accept he's been absent for years and not just months, and she has started to recall that he gave her instructions regarding what to do with his things if anything happened to him. Whether she remembers the rest as we visit various hospitals he was in, will remain to be seen.
Archives - 2010-2019 / Life / Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland.
