Originally Posted by
Hemiram
The weird thing about her was she had the nanobot thing going in her head when she was 11 or so, it's in a journal she kept. Her parents never read it closely until years after she was diagnosed and had been arrested several times. On a trip to Disney World, she saw tiny cars and things on the ground moving, and wrote about tiny robots attacking her mind. But she kept herself together until she went to college and fell apart. When their 3 kids were growing up, she was "perfect", the youngest daughter was the problem kid. Now, that youngest daughter and her husband have a business they own, a huge house, a little daughter and 4 dogs and life is great for her, but until she was out of high school, she was in trouble constantly. About the only thing she didn't do was get pregnant. Shoplifting, stealing from neighbors, out of cars, fighting, drinking at 14, she did it all. By the time college came along, she was doing fine. The middle kid, the son, was kind of ignored, as he was generally happy and stayed under the radar and never got into trouble much at all.
The schizoprenic daughter has stayed on her meds, this time, longer than any previous period, and she's doing well, but as always when someone takes those drugs, she's kind of "flat". And it seems like the better the meds work, and the more normal(for lack of a better term) she seems to be, the smoking impulse increases. They changed her meds about 2 years ago, and while she seems to have regained some of her old spark, she wants to smoke even more. At one point when she was off her meds and self medicating with booze and pot, etc, between arrests, she said she was smoking 5 packs a day! She's currently down to 2+ a day, which leaves her complaining she "Needs more cigarettes!". When she is off meds totally, she doesn't want to smoke much, but is totally paranoid, and has a hair trigger thinking she "is going to be murdered" by her parents, sister, and brother. Her last arrest was when she attacked an off duty cop who was eating with his wife in a restaurant, sitting in uniform. That incident cost my friend and his wife a LOT of money to get her out of. She's been on her meds continually since then, and her main complaint is feeling "dead inside", but right now, she makes jokes and seems to be able to enjoy life, and smoking.
I would guess that the smoking as many packs a day as she can will be what kills her eventually. I just get near her and start clearing my throat, coughing, etc. Her daughter, who was adopted by her grandparents won't go into a room with her as she can't stand the smell, so they talk outside. At least they are talking again and generally getting along after a long estrangement. That kid had a rough 4 years with mom after she was born. Dad is nowhere to be found most of the time, he's just a plain old drunk, and the fact she was actually in decent shape physically when Child Protection grabbed her up is kind of impressive in itself.
Thanks for the reply. Didn't mean to drone on above..