99 Rules for Dealing with a Schizophrenia Patient

To the patient family, and to the heart that tears apart seeing their son or spouse change before their eyes into a stranger...

I know the magnitude of the pain you live with. I know the feeling when your son accuses you of plotting against him, or when you see him talking to walls and laughing for no reason, or retreating to his room for days without showering. I know you have knocked on the doors of doctors and Sheikhs, and heard hurtful words like "bewitched," "crazy," or "it's your parenting."

Schizophrenia is the "cancer of psychiatry" in terms of its weight, but it is not a "death sentence." It is a disorder in brain chemistry and neural circuits that makes the patient interpret reality incorrectly. The patient does not do this out of stubbornness, nor to hurt you; he is a "victim" of a terrifying reality his brain imposes on him.

In this book, we will move away from complex medical theorizing, and I will give you 99 very practical behavioral rules. I will teach you how to respond when he says "There are cameras watching me," how to convince him to take medication without a fight, and how to keep your own mind from collapsing amidst this chaos. This book is the "Operating Manual" for dealing with the hardest mental disorder, to steer your family boat to safety with the least possible losses.