Long Term Help -- Really Helps


Carborendum
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 -- This post is not about asking for help.  It is a message of hope that helping our loved ones really can help. --

I just had about the most amazing Christmas present ever.  I got my friend back.

I still keep in regular contact with two friends from College.  I just had a long call with one that has been in-and-out of mental institutions and various treatment programs since before we graduated.  The past 15 years or so he's been on disability because of this.

When I was there to see bits and pieces of him being eaten up by this, it was difficult to witness.  I would call from time to time.  And it seemed that I was losing my friend.  His mind, his, attitudes, his wit, his love... it was all dissolving.  I prayed for him quite often -- for many years.  Talking with him was an emotional drain on me because he really is that close of a friend to me.

Today, we had a long talk.  Christmas is a day to re-connect.  The thing was that I was always connected to the "shell".  Today, however, I got to talk to my old friend.  I could tell in the first 10 seconds that something had changed in him.  Through the course of the conversation, I gradually became aware that I was no longer talking to "the mental patient."  I was talking to my old friend.  I was talking to my brother-from-another-mother.

We really got to catch up on all these years that he missed... that I missed as well.

At the end, I told him that I was really happy to hear my old friend again.  He told me that it was good to be that person again.

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12 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

What a cool story!  Is this some sort of permanent recovery?  What did the trick?

It's too early to determine if it is a permanent recovery.  But I sure hope it is.

He, himself, didn't know what was the trick.  He guessed a few things.  But he had no way of knowing exactly what it was.  Maybe it was a combination of things.  He mentioned that he's been under a dozen or more different treatments.  None of them helped. But he allowed that the latest treatment might actually be working.  He also supposed that possibly after 25-30 years of trying, his brain finally re-wired.  He also had a bunch of personal life issues lifted off his shoulders recently.

So, the cause?  I don't know.  And at this point, I don't care.  I'm just glad to have my friend back.

Edited by Carborendum
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