If someone you love has just been diagnosed with schizophrenia, or you are afraid that is what's happening, we are sorry. We know that feeling in the stomach. This page is the one we wish someone had handed us in the hospital hallway in November of 1984.

Please remember that we are parents, not professionals. Everything here is general. Your own family member's doctors know his or her situation, and you should ask them.

First steps (Myron's list, in the order we'd do them again)

1. Get a complete medical workup. Other things can look like schizophrenia: some medical illnesses, reactions to medicines, and street drugs among them. A good doctor will check for these first. Don't be offended if they ask about drugs. They have to.
2. Find a psychiatrist who treats schizophrenia, and treats a lot of it. Ask other families who they see. NAMI members always know.
3. Ask your family member to sign a release. If your son or daughter is an adult, the doctors may not be allowed to talk to you without written permission. Ask early, on a good day, and explain that it's so you can help.
4. Start a notebook. Dates, symptoms, every medicine and dose, side effects, the names of every doctor, nurse and social worker, and what each one said. Myron's notebook from 1984 to 1991 fills four spiral binders. More than once it told a new doctor something nobody else remembered.
5. Call NAMI. The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill has affiliates in most cities and many counties. The national office can tell you the nearest one. Go to a meeting. Sign up for the Family-to-Family class.
6. Read. Start with Surviving Schizophrenia by E. Fuller Torrey. Your library will have it, or can get it.
7. Keep the house calm. We learned this slowly. A quiet, predictable household, simple routines, short clear sentences, and not too many people talking at once all help. Big emotional scenes, even loving ones, can make things harder.
8. Don't argue with a delusion. You won't win, and he'll stop telling you things. You can say, "I don't hear that, but I know it's real to you and it sounds frightening." Then talk about what you can do together.
9. Learn the early warning signs. For Richard it was always sleep first: up all night, then not eating, then pulling away. Every person has their own pattern. Once you know it, you can call the doctor sooner.
10. Have a crisis plan before you need it: the doctor's after-hours number, the county crisis line, which hospital, who will stay with your other children. Write it down and put it on the refrigerator.
11. Look into help with money and housing. Ask a hospital social worker about Social Security disability, your county mental health board, and housing programs. The waiting lists can be long, so get on them early.
12. Take care of the rest of the family. Brothers and sisters are frightened too, and often ignored. Talk to them. Keep their birthdays. Go to their recitals.
13. Take care of yourselves. Eat. Sleep. Keep one thing that is just yours. A parent who has worn down to nothing cannot help anybody.
14. Hold on to hope. We mean that as practically as anything else on this list. Many people with schizophrenia get better over time, sometimes much better. New medicines are coming along every few years. Fifteen years ago, we were told not to expect much. Richard has a job, an apartment, and a painting hanging in his sister's front hall.

Questions to ask the psychiatrist (take this page with you, and take notes)

A word from Mary

You will be told a great many things in the first weeks, some of them wrong and some of them unkind. You will blame yourself. Please try not to. You did not cause this, any more than you would have caused diabetes or a heart murmur.

You will also, eventually, find that there is still joy to be had. I didn't believe that in 1984. I believe it now. Last month Richard and I took the bus to the art museum together. He stood in front of one painting for twenty minutes and then turned to me and explained, very kindly, everything the painter had done wrong. I could have hugged him in the middle of the gallery. I did, actually.

If you are in a crisis right now: call 911 or go to the nearest emergency room, and tell them it is a psychiatric emergency. If your family member talks about suicide, take it seriously and get help that same day.