How to Love Your Family Through the Challenges Mental Illness

How do you love someone who could hurt you? How do you protect yourself without turning your back on them?

My brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia when he was just 10 years old. At first, it was subtle. He’d zone out, talk to himself sometimes, but he still seemed like a regular kid. He went to school, played, and did the things that children his age did. But over time, things started to change. He became more distant, less aware, and struggled to care for himself.

As the illness progressed, he could no longer attend school. The violence started slowly, and soon, he was living on medication and constantly seeing doctors. It’s been a long journey, one filled with love, pain, and the constant struggle to figure out how to protect both him and the people around us. You can read his story [here].

I was watching something on YouTube one evening and stumbled upon a story that hit me hard. It was about a young girl caring for her grandparent, who had dementia and would sometimes get violent with the family.

She spoke about the guilt and struggle of trying to love him while knowing the person he once was wasn’t there anymore, and how to protect herself without turning her back on him. I could feel every ounce of her pain because I had lived that same struggle with my brother.

I couldn’t believe that others out there were navigating the same thing. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it still hit me how much I related to her story. It made me want to share my own experience, not just to get it off my chest but in the hope that it might help someone else who’s going through something similar.

The Brother I Knew Before Schizophrenia Took Over

My brother and I are two years apart, and we’re the last born for my mother. We were very close, as you can imagine. He was the perfect big brother, protective, playful, and always there. We’d pull pranks on each other, fight like every other siblings, and then run to mom to tell on each other. But no matter what, we always had each other’s back.

I was always the responsible one, making sure I kept our taxi fare after school, while my brother spent his on games with his friends. Back in the early 2000s, we didn’t have internet or social media. We’d tell each other stories to fall asleep at night, and my brother was the best storyteller.

His imagination was like no other. When the electricity went out and the heat was unbearable, we’d take turns using a book cover to fan each other. I remember one time, it was my brother’s turn to fan me, and even though I fell asleep and didn’t return the favor, he never got upset. He was just so caring.

I could share so many stories of this time before his illness set in. As the years passed, his illness took over, and everything went downhill from there as he started to become a showed of the person he once was.

The Silent Battles of Mental Illness

When he was home, he would mostly zone out. He’d eat, use the restroom, and then sit, talking to himself or staring off into space. He walked around the house a lot. We used to joke that he must have walked across the entire island of Jamaica (where we lived) every day. His medication would increase his appetite, and our family struggled to keep up.

But I began to see his constant eating as a blessing. There were times when he wouldn’t eat or drink anything for days, nor would he sleep. He would stay up all day and all night. So, when he was constantly eating, I took it as a sign that he was okay.

But there were other frightening moments, too. He would hold his breath for long periods of time, and we’d have to shake him, screaming for him to breathe. It felt like the list of challenges never ended. Other times, when we left the veranda grill open, he’d take off, and the whole family would panic, scrambling to find him. The fear that gripped us was constant.

Not only because we didn’t know where he was, but because he wasn’t in his right mind. People who encountered him might not understand, and they could harm him out of fear. They might think he was homeless or that no one cared for him. It was a fear that never eased, and it’s something that’s still with me to this day.

Unseen Strength the Unimaginable Realties of Mental Illness

Everything changed for the worse when I was 14, and my brother was 16. By this time, he hadn’t been in school for six years. He started becoming violent, and his strength became unnatural, almost inhuman. When it was time to bathe him, my mom had to call several men from the community to hold him down. It wasn’t just that he resisted, he fought with a force that didn’t seem possible.

Whenever my mom took him to the hospital, he had to be tied down, not out of cruelty, but out of necessity. If he wasn’t restrained, he would lash out, hurting himself and anyone who came near. When he was admitted, the hospital had to tie him to the bed to prevent him from attacking other patients or the staff. Even simple tasks, like taking a shower, required security to intervene.

I remember watching him struggle, his body thrashing, his screams filling the hospital ward. It was heartbreaking. I felt so helpless. As a child, I didn’t know how to help him, and that feeling of powerlessness still lingers in me to this day.

There were times when, without warning, he would burst into a violent rage, hurting anything or anyone, in his path, including himself. It was as if he couldn’t feel pain. My mother had to lock him out on the veranda to protect the family, but even then, he would try to bend the steel bars of the grill, shaking it with such force that it seemed like he could rip it straight from the wall. I still can’t believe it, but I’ve seen him display strength beyond what should be humanly possible.

Anticipating and Managing Violent Episodes

Thankfully, my older brother lived with us, and he was the only one who could physically restrain him when things got out of control. But their fights were brutal, two brothers locked in a battle neither of them wanted, but had no choice but to endure. Over time, we started to recognize the signs of an impending outburst. His fists would clench and his breathing would change.

Sometimes he would come up to one of us and start punching the air as if he were already fighting an invisible enemy. Whenever we saw these signs, we knew it was time to act, hide sharp objects, guide him onto the veranda, and lock the grill to create a barrier between him and the rest of the house.

For those who don’t know, in the Caribbean, a veranda is like a front porch, but it’s enclosed with metal grills for security. So if someone walked up to your house they wouldn’t be able to enter the veranda/porch if the grill was locked. Also at the doorway between the veranda and the inside of the house you have a door with a sturdy lock and sometimes with another grill.

If we couldn’t get him onto the veranda in time, our only option was to lock ourselves in a room and wait for the storm to pass. But sometimes, we weren’t fast enough. Sometimes, we had no choice but to stand our ground and fight.

Loving Through the Pain: Finding Strength in Struggle

For some reason, he always seemed to target our mom the most. She has endured so many beatings, so many busted head and bruises at his hands. I still wonder why, why her? I remember one time, he was running through the house in a rage, and I was hurrying to get my grandmother to safety. In that moment, I saw him raise a knife behind her back. Time slowed. My heart pounded. Without thinking, I stepped between them, my back turned to him bracing myself for the stab.

But for some reason, he didn’t do it. To this day, I don’t know why he stopped. When I look back, I realize that, despite everything, he never hurt me. Everyone else has felt his wrath, our mother, our older brother, even our grandmother, but never me. I used to think it was just luck, but now I know better. God’s hand was over me.

It’s hard to explain the emotions I felt living through this, anger, fear, resentment. I feared for my grandmother, who was fragile and couldn’t move as quickly as us. I resented my brother for what he was putting us through, even though deep down, I knew it wasn’t his fault. And then there was guilt, the guilt of feeling like I was losing my love for him, the guilt of wanting to protect myself even if it meant turning away from him.

Trusting God

But I couldn’t turn away. It’s a constant struggle, loving someone who could hurt you, but still needing to be there for them. I had to remind myself of who he was before the illness. My protector, my storyteller, my big brother who used to fan me to sleep when the heat was unbearable. That’s what keeps me going. That’s how I choose to love him through it all.

If you’re going through something similar, I want you to know, you are not alone. The Lord will never give you more than you can bear. He sees your pain and hears your cries. He has a plan for you, even in the midst of your suffering. I never imagined I’d have a platform to share my story, to encourage others who feel lost in their struggles, but here I am. And it’s all part of His grand design.