Jayne Houchin Sister’s schizophrenia is an issue for the entire family
“I don’t exactly remember why or how she got that bad. But one day Dad called me and my younger brother, and he asked us to come over — that he and Mom needed help dealing with my sister and her baby. So we got there, and that’s when my sister was barricaded in the back bedroom. She was hearing voices and usually when she hears voices, to her it’s the devil. And the devil tells her to do things she knows she shouldn’t do. So she’s fighting with the devil while at the same time trying to do what the devil tells her to do because that’s the only way she knows how to get rid of him. Dad wanted one of us to get in the room — our whole thinking process was, ‘We gotta get the baby out of there before she does something to the baby,’ because you don’t know what the devil is going to have her do. She turned her back for just a second and my brother scooped up the baby, and I was waiting on the other side of the door. She was madder than a hornet. She wouldn’t come out of the room. But we had to get through the night; there was nowhere to call for help. I think Dad tried, but we knew the answer — you have to wait until morning. We had to wait, and it was a long night.”
Tony Furst Parent of a child with bipolar disorder searches for answers
“My wife’s sister’s kids came to live with us. As the little one got older, we started seeing some issues, and the doctors said she’s got some ADHD issues. Then we started noticing other issues — some days she was a happy-go-lucky sixth-grader, and other days she was dark, depressed, and moody. One night she came to us and said, ‘I’m hearing voices. I don’t know what they’re saying, it sounds like they’re in Spanish.’ We started reaching out trying to find mental health professionals who could deal with kids. What we found was that even in Columbus, getting in to see mental health professionals for kids almost took an act of Congress. It took us four months. We finally figured out she suffers from depression. Then, as we were going down that pathway, she came to us, still having the voices in her head, and the problem now was she was starting to understand what the voices were saying, and they were telling her to hurt herself. The doctor has now told us that she is bipolar. We’ll keep trying.” MAY 2018 • OHIO COOPERATIVE LIVING
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