Customer Reviews

I Am Not Sick I Don't Need Help: How to Help Someone with Mental Illness Accept Treatment

5 star:		(53)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Xavier Amador has performed a tremendous service for families and therapists by translating the research on insight into mental illness into a highly readable and very practical book. Family members and therapists who read this will find their frustration with a "non-compliant" consumer melting away to be replaced with empathy and compassion, qualities that will enable them to begin laying the groundwork for a cooperative relationship with their loved one/client. Step-by-step methods for developing that relationship are clearly laid out, making this one of the most helpful, hopeful books to come along in a long time for those who treat or live with a mentally ill person.

I Am Not Sick...adds to the number of excellent books written for families of the mentally ill, and, in my opinion, tops the list. I just wish it had been available 20 years ago when my sister became ill. I am convinced that she would be much better off today if we had had access to this information.

This book is helpful in many ways but I think it's especially helpful if you're having trouble communicating with a mentally ill person or find yourself fighting with them about issues related to (or resulting from) their illness. This book teaches you about a person's "insight" into their illness and now that I understand that concept, I communicate differently with and have a better relationship with my loved one. This was the first mental health book I read from cover to cover; it is easy to read without overcomplicating anything. I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for help communicating with or dealing with a mentally ill person.

The title says it all. As an advocate for people with mental illness, daily I get calls from family members asking, "Why won't my loved one accept--seek--help." Amador's book answers that question: Because the person is suffering from a brain disorder, they think, "I'm not sick; I don't need help."

Mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are brain disorders. As such, they may impact the person's ability to make viable judgement about treatment and, in many cases, even preclude the victim of the illness from recognizing they have a treatable medical condition. And, if you do not think you are ill, why would anyone accept treatment?

Amador's book explains in layman's terms the aspects of mental illness known as "lack of insight". At one time, lack of insight was considered to be the results of stigma, and indeed there is stigma surrounding mental illness. Today, science recognizes in some people lack of insight is the result of brain dysfunction itself. Simply put, the brain can recognize when the leg is broken, but the leg cannot take over for the computer of the body and recognize when the brain is not functioning correctly.

Amador does not stop with the explainations. Instead, he gives easy to follow advice on how to help someone you love with amental illness who does not recognize his/her own need for treatment. This book is a bible and a tutorial for people trying to help their very ill relative.

(I have just read through this again, and I apologize for it being so long. If you don't want to read the whole thing, the summary is this: this book helps family and friends, particularly those who are new to mental issues, figure out what they can actually do to help in what appear to be hopeless situations, and it helps you a little bit to quit blaming yourself.)

I read this book about the time that a close friend of mine fell completely to pieces -- again.

He's creative, brilliant (a true "high genius"), has studied biology, is unusually knowledgeable about mental illness -- and is violently offended by any suggestion that he might have the same disease that institutionalized his mother for years and which appears to affect about a third of his close relatives (to varying degrees).

There is apparently a book called the DSM that lists the exact requirements for psychological diagnoses. My friend can recite, word for word, all of the sections of this book that apply to his family's class of diseases.

But he can't see that these items have anything to do with his own life.

For example, he may tell you that he has all of the major signs of clinical depression, and that his mother was bipolar, and that there is a category of bipolar disease whose sole diagnostic requirements are (a) that the patient is clinically depressed and (b) that the patient has a close relative who is bipolar, and that FOR ANYONE ELSE, this definition means that they have a sub-class of bipolar disease, BUT NOT HIM.

Like many people with his disease, he has done hallucenogenic drugs because he thought that being freaked out on LSD (or dead) might be better than being depressed. He has also become addicted to caffeine, tobacco, and any number of other legal or semi-legal substances.

Like some people with his disease, he claims to have spoken with and fought with demons and other spirits, and he believes that certain specific geological features are as alive as any animal, but "in my case, this is just part of my spirituality, although in most people it would be a sign of mental illness."

While he has finished college and held a couple of jobs, he has never once left a job on good terms with the employer, or, in fact, any individual on the staff -- they've all "suddenly changed, and turned against me." (Several of them "have tried to kill me.")

He has been engaged to be married several times, but they've all "suddenly changed, and turned against me." He can point out the exact hour that each one "suddenly changed, and turned against me." That this moment corresponds to the sudden onset of clinical depression "is irrelevant."

With a few exceptions, he is on poor terms with his family -- while they probably used to love him, he says, at some point, they've all "suddenly changed, and turned against me." (According to my friend, only one of them has tried to kill him.)

He suffers from sudden, terrible depressions, which he never thinks of as an imbalance in his brain, but as a natural result of the whole world "suddenly changing, and turning against me." (You'd be depressed, too, if the whole world turned against you.)

(He did once agree to "conduct an experiment" with a relatively mild antidepressant, and reported that it worked: it cleared up his depression. But then he quit taking it because he didn't need it: he never had any mental problems to begin with.)

When he's on an "up" swing, he thinks that everyone is for him (and every woman in love with him), and on a "down" swing, they've all "suddenly changed, and turned against me."

He honestly believes that he is the only steady, stable person in the world. He honestly believes that everyone else "suddenly changes, and turns against me."

And it was in this context, with the police officer telling me that I really ought to file for a restraining order because of his latest telephoned threats, that I heard about this book on the radio.

What I learned from this book is this: my friend is probably not ever going to really believe that he has a significant brain chemistry problem. And since it's not going to happen, I don't really need to invest my energy in that issue.

I learned that his internal feeling of what happens is NOT that he cycles into angry depression or mania, which is what it looks like to the rest of the world; his internal feeling is that he stayed the same, and everyone else suddenly changed.

(And what good could it do for YOU take drugs, go to therapy, or do anything else, if the real problem is that the entire rest of the world has "suddenly changed, and turned against me"?)

I learned that battles need to be selected with care: so many people fight to get the patient to "believe" that he has a disease, and this is much less important than trying to get them to take medication (if anything is appropriate and seems to work for them), to show up for therapy, and to take care of themselves.

I realized that I was trying to get him to say the words "I have a disease," when what is necessary is "You need to eat every day. You need to sleep every day. You need to take a shower. You need to save that money so you can pay your rent. You need to talk to your therapist."

This is hard, especially now that I, too, am on the long list of people who have "suddenly changed and turned against me," but I am glad to have a task before me that has some hope for success, and to know that his continued belief that he's the only sane person in the world is not any fault of mine.

I am the vice president of the local NAMI (National Alliance of the Mentally Ill) chapter and am only half way thru reading this book but am recommending it to everyone who who has a loved one with a mental illness. Xavier has been there and done that as evidenced by his methods that are working! My relationship with my 23 year old paranoid scizophrenic son has already greatly improved. I am now working with him instead of against him. I know that sounds strange, but it is true. I was doing more harm than good until I read this.

11/03 This book should have been given to us the moment our son was diagnosed. It is compassionate, instructive, understandable and extremely practical. We feel better equipped to handle this very difficult disease having read this book.
8/04 Our son has been taking his medication since February 04. I credit Dr. Amador with helping me keep my cool and giving me practical tools to help my son. His explanation of the illness is helpful all by itself.
8/06 Our son continues to improve. He finished high school,has a job, takes his medicine--even refills it on his own. There is no over night fix for this terrible illness. But I don't think we'd be anywhere near where we are now if we hadn't read this book. I keep buying this book and giving it away. I don't want anyone who is struggling to understand and help a loved one with mental illness to be without it.
5/08 Our son thanks us for our persistence in pusuing him. He now recommends this book to others.
5/09 Our son is living on the other side of the country, taking his meds and has better insight into what he needs, and when.
If you liked this book, recommend it to your health care providers and encourage anyone you know in the psychiatric community to provide it for families.

As a nurse practitioner, treating consumers with severe and persistent mental illness, I have found Dr. Amador's book most valuable as a resource in helping family members learn how to communicate in a non-controlling manner. Effective communication within the families of these consumers helps to open windows of opportunity for recovery. I found Dr. Amador's writing style to be straightforward and easy for lay people to understand. I look forward to more from Dr. Amador in the future.

Dr. Amador has written a valuable resource for the families of the serious mentally ill. (to be honest, it is of some help to the actually mentally ill, or at least those of us who have a grasp on our illness) He speaks from both a clinical experience, from working with the mentally ill for years, as well as from personal experience, his brother is a schizophrenic. The book is loaded with valuable information, and written in such a way that any layman can understand what he is saying. I'm glad to see that someone has tackled this subject, and in such a way that we all can benefit and understand what he is saying. This book can really help many members of the mentally ill community. I only hope that more professionals learn about it and can recommend it to the family members of their patients.

--a reader with bipolar disorder

Would you suggest that it is better for family members to ignore the very real threat that having a schizophrenic in the family poses? Amador's book has helped me understand why my schizophrenic relative will not get any help despite the fact that her condition is making the lives of those around her nearly impossible and dangerous. It has also helped me with new ideas on how to help her. Schizophrenia does not just affect the patient, it has powerful repercussions on the lives of all those around them.

Allow me to preface this by making it known that I have met Dr. Amador and had the honor of writing a blurb about his book, which is in it. So I am, admittedly, somewhat partisan.

In light of that, I will let my actions speak for me rather than make any attempt at flowing prose. I am an advocate for people with severe mental illness and their families. Many times each week I field a call from someone with a loved one overcome by mental illness but who refuses treatment because the symptoms of the sickness.

Without exception, I recommend Dr. Amador's book to anyone I talk to who has a loved one in this confounding state.

More particularly, this is the first book that should be read by someone unfamiliar with mental illness, but who has a family member going through that painful (for everyone) first "break."

More generally, this book should be read by anyone who lives with or loves a person who is not fully recovered from the symptoms of mental illness.

For family members, this is the most valuable book to be published in this field in many years. It has important information for consumers (like me) as well.