The Impact of the illness will, at first, be overwhelming. It will take a keen awareness for family members or caregivers to accept they must play a roll in treating the illness. Identity can change but is easy to fix. You may introduce your family as the "biPolar family" rather than by your surname. The correct greeting is Hello, we are the Murphy family. Our family has a biPolar diagnosis.
There is a remedy for those having an identity problem. You are part of a team, a treatment team. While HIPAA laws ensure a patient's privacy, there are others who need to know your PHI, protected health information. These entities are called trading partners or business partners. The family treatment team is a partner to the one(s) who have been diagnosed. Your position is not a role of relationship, such as father, mother or brother. You are known as a partner. Being known as a partner lessens the stigma towards mental illness. A partner is comforting. There will be no loss of sleep in perceiving yourself as a partner. It is also empowering. You are empowered parents and caregivers, being protected by privacy rights, just as professional mental health providers. You have an important responsibility for being on the treatment team. Crucial information interchanged about a love one who is in an acute mental health crisis to protect their health, safety and well-being is a must for recovery.
I can personally testify that treatment teams work. Holding the position of peer worker in a community mental health center, I would be included in what we called family meetings. Family meetings consisted of the client, family members who were trying to help their loved one, professional mental health providers, case managers and a peer who has been assigned to the client. The client appeared to be stable when discharged from a state mental hospital. However, after a couple of weeks living in the community she became drastically worse. The entire team pondered on the cause. Being the peer worker on the case, the client told me repeated times she takes her pill, but actually takes two, but it was, infact, 1 pill. As the family meeting continued, her brother had noticed the name brand pill was being used in the hospital but when she was discharged she was given a generic prescription. As the days went by more of the generic medication was entering her system, which paralleled her change in mood. My question to the brother was the client's statement of taking 1 pill, but actually takes two, but it was, infact, 1 pill which, made no sense to me. He was able to describe the situation in detail. The generic pill was huge, to the family it was a horse pill and for the client, she could not swallow the pill. The brother would cut the tablet in to two pieces. She would take the 1st piece of the pill, followed by taking the 2nd piece. At times, the 2nd piece was not taken until hours later, but always before a set time of the day. It seemed reasonable to part of the professional treatment team but it raised a red flag for me. Knowing her diagnosis, I asked for the name of the generic. I asked which pharmacy they used. I was quite familiar with the medication and the pharmacy since I took the same medication and used the same pharmacy. I knew it was dispensed in the size of a horse pill, just like the brother described. It was easy to understand the actions of the brother and the problem with swallowing it whole. I asked if he read the "book" that was stapled to the bag that contained the pill bottle. The answer was no. That's it, I exclaimed. The entire team stared at me. There was a caution in bold letters within the stapled information sheets explaining the consequences of cutting the tablet as it had diverse effects on the delivery system of the medication. In layman's terms, it could really screw a person up, as it put this person in to crisis. The intervention happened during the crisis. Corrective measures were taken. Crisis resolved.
In the above meeting, the family member's input was the solution to the problem. Family Partners are a must. Family Partners are a critical resource. Family Partners solve problems that the professional mental health providers did not have training in. My story was about a situation that took place in the one-third of the people who are receiving treatment. But what about the two-thirds of the people who are not seeking treatment or have found where to be treated, but could not receive services? Can Family Partners decrease the numbers we see on the SAMHSA report? Most Certainly.
My next post will be the fix, the solution for the 2/3rds that go untreated.
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