Do you or have you ever looked after someone with a disability? How did you find it? Did you find there was enough support out there for you?
I have a mental disability as long as I take my meds I am ok, but if I skip a day or two things get really bad. My illness is so bad that I don't work. What sucks is most of my family looks down on me because of my Illness. I am married and my wife is very supporting and she is normal, she is a nurse.
No, i havent looked after someone with a disablity. Actually as far as i could remember no one has a disability in my family, lucky us! But if there was, i would not hesitate to help him/her. I like helping others.
Hi, I myself am disabled. I have Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia. As the name suggests its an hereditary disease. It comes from my fathers side. It effects me by giving me lack of balance and the tendons from the waste down progressively tighten causing a lot of stiffness and awkwardness to my walking. The biggest problem though is the way the signals travel from my brain to my legs, where on an abel body person the brain would send the message to the legs to move and the legs will do as instructed but with me its like a mining cart traveling along the railway tracks and by the time the cart reaches its destination half the coal has fallen out. So the signal is scrambled and causing severe walking/balance issues. Also the muscles in my legs are deteriating due to the above causing severe lack in exercise. I was originally diagnosed with this disease at 2 years of age. My 2 brothers and 2 of my sisters also have this disease. We all get by and our out look on life is that there are millions more people worse off that us and they all still get by. As for living with people disabled. I have 2 teenage boys both have A.D.H.D. 1 of them has very bad temper and is always miserable. He also suffers with dyspraxia and dyslexia. My other is very hyperactive. They are like chalk and cheese in terms of how their A.D.H.D effects them. Things are not easy in the home because of the above but, we get by. Its based more around routine and structure and it works. We are all happy but I do feel sorry for my wife. I think I am the biggest kid out of us all and she puts up with me. - PS
I have a son who is a disabled veteran and I do whatever I can to make sure he's okay. He doesn't live with me but we tried that...and...it was extremely difficult. One of the things I've learned about people with a mental health issue is that sometimes they're in denial about being mentally ill. When that happens it's difficult to help them because they aren't very receptive. I believe he is making progress and that someday everything will fall into place.
My in-laws take care of family with mental and physical disabilities, and from what I've observed, it's really trying to be a caregiver. I don't feel like there is enough support system, and what usually stinks the most is when the own family members don't care.
