Part I:  Teenage Schizophrenia (the same topic person as below)

Few days ago the father rang us. The patient is now in ICU in a general hospital. She attempted suicide taking over 200 tablets of medicine. As she usually wakes up late in the day, so the father wasn’t concerned that she’d been in her room all day. Till that evening when the father was thinking to bring her some food, and found out that she was covered in urine on her bed, and was unconscious.

Over the past few months, she had got so much better with medication, no longer spending all her time pacing in her house, talking to herself or swearing at her younger siblings. Her father was even able to get a tuition teacher for her, and later the patient even requested to go back to schooling. They were looking forward to seeing patient going back to lead some “normal life” just like any other teenagers. The only thing is probably that she’s spending a lot of time looking at her phone (don’t you think this is also a common feature of a “normal” teenager nowadays?!)

Then this happened. She tried to kill herself and is still unconscious. The father could only guess that as the new academic year is starting soon, patient couldn’t manage the stress and intended to avoid it by ending her life. She went to school to collect the text books the day before. The younger sister said the patient asked for a cut blade from her, but she didn’t give it to her.

Quite often we may think that the patient is ready for a normal life once the active symptoms of mental illness is not presented, yet it is very difficult to judge whether or not the patient is ready psychologically, to go back to the society, to face other so-called normal people and function normally just like others.

What can we do about this? What can we do for them? What can family do to get them prepared to go back to the society, if they can ever achieve it?