Schizophrenia Research Institute
The following is from a letter sent to Dr Moyes from the Schizophrenia Research Institute in May 2009:
Watching your own flesh and blood retreat from reality to a world that seems unbearable is a pressure that no human being should have to bear. Pamela Burfield-Mills is a mother who had to do just that. She has agreed to share her story.
“A Mother’s Story. Kristian was always a very lovable, charming, creative, sensitive and intelligent young man. When he left school he worked in advertising, freelanced, and was continually writing music and lyrics in his spare time. He lived independently, was always into health and fitness, had a steady girlfriend and a normal life.
He moved away from the city to a more relaxed lifestyle in a smaller town when he was 27. Over the next eight years Kristian seemed to withdraw into himself, phone calls became less and less, conversation would be strained with me generating most of it. I did worry that he did not seem to be going out on the town and having fun like the rest of his friends and he seemed to be retreating from the real world. I noticed a spiraling decline, not setting goals, not establishing relationships, and he was not in full time employment.
When he was 31 I called to talk with Kristian only to find he had been admitted to hospital. They told me nothing but I found out later that this was when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia and put on medication. I didn’t know he was hearing voices – how could I have helped him when I didn’t even know what was wrong?
Over the next two years Kristian became very ill. His whole life had changed with hearing voices, and seeing visions – it made him feel very confused and angry. We believed medication helped and we all believed he was on the road to recovery. His friends were a wonderful support but Kristian wouldn’t allow me to tell them that he had schizophrenia – he was embarrassed and totally humiliated by it. I think as a society we should be more accepting of people’s mental illnesses – he was sick and he couldn’t share it – it was so cruel and I felt my hands were tied.
One Monday last November when Kristian was 34, he was due to come home for a family dinner but he called to say he had a migraine and was going to sleep. He promised to call tomorrow. That call never came. The last words he spoke to me were ‘love you lots, Mumma’.
I am not angry with my Kristian. I think what he did was very courageous – the voices he continually heard, the visions he saw would have been so horrific to live with, and the high dose medication did not give him relief.
His final words written to me were self explanatory – ‘So finally my soul which has been tormented will find peace.’ He is now at peace, lost from our sight, but not from our hearts. He was so very special and his friends said he gave more in three decades than most people do in a lifetime.
I hope by sharing my story it opens your heart and understanding towards mental illness and the stigma may be eradicated – my son had a brain disease, he had been living a normal life, then everything changed. We shouldn’t give up on people to easily.
The work of the Schizophrenia Research Institute should not go unnoticed. I hope you will feel the need to support their wonderful work so that other parents and siblings will not suffer the same pain.” Pamela Burfield-Mills.
For more information about the excellent work of the Schizophrenia Research Institute and how you can help, please visit: http://www.schizophreniaresearch.org.au/
