The Silver Ribbon Coalition

Photo credit: clarita from morguefile.com
As a breast cancer survivor, the whole pink ribbon thing makes me feel kind of guilty. I know there are other diseases that are also in dire need of research funding but they don’t get the same publicity. One that has been even more devastating than breast cancer for my immediate family is paranoid schizophrenia. My brother was senior class president and voted most likely to succeed in high school. He went on to have a successful career as an attorney for the state of Kentucky and a few years ago he decided to take a very generous early retirement package. That’s when the real trouble began.

Kent is 5½ years older than me so growing up we weren’t as close but once I entered my teen years he became one of my best friends and we talked on the phone several times a week. He had always been somewhat paranoid but as his retirement date got closer, the conspiracies he was imagining became more and more bizarre. He was sure that his phone was being tapped and people were following him home from work. I tried reasoning with him but usually he was drunk when he would tell me these things so it didn’t do much good. Even after he started telling the rest of the family about his government conspiracy theories, I still wanted to blame the alcohol.

But a few months after he retired, he stopped drinking all together and things went from bad to worse. That’s when I got really scared. He decided that everyone he encountered, including our entire family, were clones that were out to get him. There was nothing we could do other than check up on him and bring him food because unless you can prove someone is a threat to themselves or others, you can’t force them into treatment. Eventually he broke into a neighbor’s house and demanded to know why they were spying on him. Naturally they called the police and after being tasered and taken to jail, we were finally able to get him into a psychiatric hospital.

That’s when the whole legal nightmare of things like getting guardianship and court-ordered medications began. He barely got started on the drugs before his insurance ran out and they released him. He immediately stopped taking his meds and it was another year of hell until the voices got so bad that he was banging his head against the wall and my parents had to call the police. He’s stayed on the medication that stopped the voices since his second hospitalization but refuses to try the drug that might help the delusions because he would have to consent to regular blood work.

In order to move on, I had to accept the fact that the brother I knew was dead and he wasn’t coming back. I did let myself feel a little hope during the last month or so because I thought he had found a doctor that he would actually talk to. It turned out to be a big misunderstanding and he is holding onto his delusional beliefs as firmly as ever. My parents have had to shoulder the brunt of the burden but I know eventually my sister and I will have to take over his care and that scares the shit out of me. Even though I know Kent's probably not coming back, I still can't get rid of that little glimmer of hope that I might be able to hear him really laugh one more time. If anyone wants to help fight schizophrenia and other brain disorders you can visit the silver ribbon foundation at www.silverribbon.org.