>snit snat wrote:
>My partner and I just learned that a much older sister (she's 57) is
>mentally ill.
>
>At first, it seemed like it might be just L. She's very liberal, lives in
>Santa Fe, and is quite outspoken about her political views. She told my
>partner that she was being followed and that someone had been taking her
>journals, rifling through papers, and planting a mic in her computer. He
>was prepared to believe that the Feds are following her.
>
>Uh. I have lots of friends from the 60s who worry about the feds, but I
>feel pretty confident that the Feds don't look like Men In Black, which is
>how she described the people following her. My job also requires that I now
>a little bit about technical surveillance and counter measures, so this
>didn't have any of the earmarks of gov or private surveillance. Family
>members have clung to that possibility, for obvious reasons.
>
>I immediately told my partner that L is having paranoid delusions and she
>needs help. An ex-beau's father was schizophrenic and I've taken care of a
>grandfather with Alzheimer's and a MIL with multi-infarct dementia.
>
>L is only 56. I'm having a hard time believing that this is alzheimer's
>related dementia. Admittedly, I don't want to believe it. Can anything get
>more bizarre? L's _78 year old mother_ is going to Santa Fe to help her
>daughter who may have alzheimer's but her mother and father are still sassy
>as whips!
>
>I guess the reason why I'm having a hard time coming to terms with the
>possibility of an Alzheimer's diagnosis is that with my grandfather and
>MIL, it didn't manifest as _paranoid_ delusions. However, I also know that
>it may just manifest differently since what's happening is that the brain
>is being perforated slowly but surely. So, it depends on where the
>perforations are destroying the brain. I may just have dealt with people
>where the pattern was different. Or, maybe some folks are more prone to
>paranoia than others and it manifests in them as opposed to those who aren't.
>
>Anyway, I guess it could be Alzheimer's but I'm wondering if anyone else
>knows of other possibilities. I guess I'm casting about, hoping to learn of
>possibilities that are treatable. It is heartbreaking. I just loved L so
>much. I know, I know, I can't do anything about it. But, gathering
>knowledge is how I deal with crises.
>
>
>Thanks.
>
>Kelley
Kelley --
My wife is a (Jungian) psychologist and a Buddhist. She offered the following thoughts off the top of her head:
- there are such things as _brief_ psychoses: might not be chronic. - was the onset sudden? prognosis for recovery is better if so. - of course it could be schizophrenia. - is memory ok? if so, maybe no Alzheimer's - L should see a psychiatrist -- at this point medications could help enormously.
Take care,
Larry Shute