MARIJUANA AND DELUSIONS

Andrew always had the voices to some degree.  We did not know it at the time, but he was a regular marijuana user, which intensified his delusions Andrew had never been more than an occasional beer drinker so I should not have worried about the beer; it was the marijuana that would so aggravate his delusions. It took me a couple of years to realize that when he would call me terrorized and anxious he would most likely have just smoked a joint. It is interesting that we did not know  Andrew was a regular pot user even though we later discovered that he smoked at home. I do not have a great sense of smell and I just did not get it. I guess we only see what we allow ourselves to see.

TAKING MEDICATION FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE

Marnie and Eileen came home to go with us to West Chester to help him move into his dorm. They wanted to do this because he had helped both of them move into college. Marnie had arranged to buy beer for him but not to let John and I know she was doing it. When I found out I became so upset because I did not know how the beer would react with the medication he was on. 

 I somehow expected Marn and Lou to understand just how at risk he was; they wanted him to be as he always was.  Moreover, he most often seemed like his normal self as long as he took his meds regularly. His sisters did not want him to be sick and he himself hated the idea that he was sick. Hence, his difficulty with accepting that he must take medication for the rest of his life. 

Re-starting College

In the meantime, John and I had been encouraging Andrew to apply to our local community college. In January of 2000, Andrew registered for two courses at Delaware County Community College, one in computer science and one in English composition. He did well in English but failed to complete the computer course. He simply stop going to class. Looking back, I imagine it was just too hard for him to do the work and he might have been too embarrassed to tell us so we could have helped him withdraw.

We found out when he applied to West Chester University the fall of 2000 and was required to get a transcript from the community college. Andrew was definitely getting better and I think that at least part of him was looking forward to starting college again. He would live at school and this seemed wonderful to me. Somehow having him home made his illness so much harder for me to deal with. He seemed healthier and I think he was healthier. The only sign of his illness was his own admission of always having the voices. Other than that, he seemed and acted fine much of the time. 

Taking the Bus to Work

He also hated taking the bus to work. He was still not allowed to drive and his hours at the GAP often conflicted with John and my work schedule. I think Andrew was embarrassed to stand on the corner waiting for a bus. In our community, most people drove everywhere; if you did not drive it was often because you were not able to drive or could not afford to. It was definitely a step down to take the bus. 

This would be one of many bruises to Andrew’s ego that he would have to suffer.   Maybe harder and more emotionally painful than anything else would be his inability meet his own expectations, to keep up with his peers.

WORKING AT THE GAP

Andrew’s first year at home, he worked part-time at the GAP over the Christmas Holiday but struggled to learn the cash register because his cognitive functioning was still diminished.  While this would improve some, it was a precursor to what would become a continuing degradation of his ability to learn new skills, even read with comprehension. 

The GAP kept him on until after the holiday, because he was reliable, big, and strong and they needed someone to act as a stock boy.  He hated that he could not learn and was constantly embarrassed because he could not remember the simple process of handling a sale at the cash register. He was relieved when they laid him off. 

LYNN’S GIFT OF THE CHAIR

Actually, the mirror we talked about on the last blog, stayed over his bed until just before Marnie’s wedding in 2006 when we re-did his room. Andrew did not want any change in his environment. He always said, “I like things the way they are”. Lynn, our next-door neighbor, had found a big chair and hassock left by the curb in our neighborhood and brought it home. She said maybe someday she would get it redone. 

It was a very nice chair but had some worn spots on it. I asked her if I could put it in Andrews’s room until she was ready to put into use at her house. She agreed and I brought it home.  Andrew loved that chair and used it often. It was when he needed rearrange his room to accommodate the chair agreed that we moved the mirror from over his bed to over the dresser.

Even then, I had to really plead with him to get a new bed spread. He would always say to me “everything’s fine, Mom why are you always wanting to change things, please just leave things the way they are. “

The Mirror over His Bed

Andrew did improve remarkably, after we got his medications straightened out. That took about a year. During that time when he was first home, I was helping him get his room organized; we had gone to the store to get a few things and he wanted a new mirror. He said he did not like the one he had. He picked out one that was about three feet by four feet. It had an iron frame that had been treated to show some rust. When we got back to the house, we took it up to his room. I thought he would put it over his dresser but he wanted to put it at the head of his bead, almost like a headboard. I questioned its usefulness in that position and he said, “No that is where I want it”.

 Looking back, I wonder if he needed to see his reflection over the bed for some type of reality check. One of the doctors who took care of Andrew over the course of his illness told us that schizophrenics have very week ego structure and are at risk for being bombarded with stimulation that most of us would be able to filter out; schizophrenics have a limited ability to distinguish between actual and delusional. This affects their judgment and executive function. 

We put the mirror over the bed where it stayed for the next several years.