What are the chances that chronic depression leads to schizoprenia?
Someone close to me has been battling depression for 17 years now. She is doing a good job, has held on to a demanding job for 4 years now. Though her performance at work are highly erratic. Periods of poor apathetic performance interspersed with periods of high performance.
She shows sympotm of chronic depression, withdraws from social life, has low energy, can spend days in bed, is messy etc.She’s on medication too.
I fear that the next phase will be schizoprenia. She’s 32 now and has been suffering from depression since she was 15.
Though I said her performance at work is erratic, i dont think it is suggestive of bipolar. She has been fired once before for apathy at work. Since then she is scared to lose her job. When her poor performance at work gets noticable and she thinks her job is in danger,she bucks up and works harder.
And she cannot unfortunately retire from work. She lives in a country that dosen’t give benefits. And her aged parents cannot take care of her. She has to earn her living. She would very much like to reyire or atlease work part time, but is unable to do so.
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The symptoms of "Though her performance at work are highly erratic. Periods of poor apathetic performance interspersed with periods of high performance." suggest that she is bipolar.
Depressives don’t move on to schizophrenia. They move on to suicide.
The danger with medicines is that they give you the energy to do what you need to do. And anyone that says "suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem" has never battled depression for 17 years. They just don’t understand.
She probably needs assistance with affairs of daily living; if you are battling depression, you can’t keep the house clean, and if you live in a pig sty, it’s even harder to battle depression. If you could come in, straighten things up, do some laundry, cook a few meals, it would really do a long way towards making her life tolerable. Don’t just jump in and take over, though; she’s already suffering feelings of impotence, and if she feels like you’re treating her like an invalid, that will make things worst, so *talk* to her, and ask *permission* to help with those things. (She will feel undeserving, so feel free to plead with her, to be allowed to treat a deserving friend like the friend she is.)
It may be necessary for her to retire on disability. Social Security disability is getting harder and harder to get, but she probably qualifies, if the doctors fill out the forms correctly.
And never underestimate the value of hugs. She’s been through hell, and there doesn’t seem to be any end in sight.