David’s medication made him restless but suggesting that he remain indoors and skip his walk until the thunderstorm had ended, was useless. We’d learned that no amount of persuasion helped.So, despite the bad weather, he went out with his dog, slamming the front door behind him.
A heavy torrent of rain and wind gusted. About an hour later, my son and his dog entered the house leaving a trail of water and mud all the way from the front door to the kitchen. Fortunately my husband dried the dog and David took a hot shower. He never said a word about the weather.
I was the mother of three, had handled tantrums efficiently, tended my children’s cuts and nursed then when they came down with chicken pox and measles. I’d read about children’s general health and how to care for various ailments but, I had never come across anything on schizophrenia or mental health in general. My son was suffering and I didn’t know where to how to help him. I thought of the expensive visits to psychiatrists and the pills that had been prescribed, believing that they would help him feel better. Instead, he plunged without any foreplay into this other world that was ruining his life. It was a world that we barely understood. He heard voices in his head that we did not hear; he saw things that we did not see and in general, was a tormented soul. it broke our hearts.
