within the every day lifetime of caregivers of psychiatric sufferers | EUROtoday

On Mar 30, 2025

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” LTo the mother of my children ended up seeing that there was a problem. I was not yet diagnosed but she saw moments of collapse. You have to be honest, for loved ones, it’s hell. »In a long interview, granted to Point This Wednesday, March 26, journalist Nicolas Demorand confides in his bipolarity. He recounts his years of suffering, the late pose of the diagnosis, the weight of silence, and opens on everyday life, marked by the disease, with the woman who shares her life. “If I do not sleep in my mattress however on a settee, it is as a result of the mattress worries me. You want actual listening work with the affected person, but additionally subtlety. »»

They work within the shadows and are, nonetheless, 4.5 million caregivers to accompany sufferers with psychiatric issues in France (bipolarity, schizophrenia, generalized nervousness issues, extreme despair, and so forth.). In a silent dedication, they come up in valuable allies of the affected person. Faced with the double problem to construct a extra serene every day life and keep a precarious stability, between unreserved funding and crucial preservation of themselves. A troublesome, intense, usually complicated position.

In a bit of greater than half of the circumstances, they stay with their sick individual (Unafam). They are initially mother and father – 75 % of psychiatric illnesses showing between 15 and 20 years previous – then spouses, extra not often youngsters. Among them, Benoît, 52, journalist by career. As a pair with Amandine, 44, affected by restricted state dysfunction (or borderline persona dysfunction) and bipolarity, he recounts a life punctuated by the unpredictability of the illness, oscillating between hypomania (an attenuated type of manic section), euthymia (a steady and “normal” temper) and despair.

“Our daily life depends on the phase in which Amandine is,” he begins. In depressive state, the latter can “present dangerous behaviors for itself”. The couple then test that she has “not too much” of medication accessible, that no bottle of alcohol nonetheless hangs out within the cabinets. And Benoît limits his actions as a lot as attainable. “When I leave, I always have in mind that a drama can happen …” “difficult” conditions, he admits modestly, refusing to really feel like it’s. “It’s Amandine, who is sick, and she didn’t choose her. »»

“The caregiver is not a superhero”

What his partner suffers, however, determines a large part of their life as a couple, recognizes the fifties. “Amandine often says that we are three: her, me and the disease. “A balance to negotiate:” We cannot pretend that it does not exist, but we cannot let it take up all the space, in it, in me and between us. To get around this pitfall, they follow together a couple therapy. Benoît is also followed by a psychiatrist.

Very present, and informed on the subject (“I read a bunch of books on the disease, and watch a bunch of videos of psychiatrists”), he also knows the limits of his role: “The caregiver is not a doctor, he is not a superhero either, he is not overpowered and cannot settle everything. So he must “learn to find his place”, without trying to “do too much”, he knows. “The risk is to” burn “”. A learning in the interest of the two parties, completes Emmanuelle Rémond, president of the National Union of families and friends of sick people and/or mental disabled (UNAFAM).

“Scientific literature shows us today that caregivers training, and the creation of an environment favorable to the patient, is the second most effective intervention after drug treatments,” she develops. Josette Bochaton Dutruel, a retired accountant, herself turned to the structure, her mutual aid community and her training, to know how to “approach” her daughter’s disease. Noémie, 42, is suffering from schizophrenia and anxiety disorders. After a late diagnosis, made at the age of 27, she is today stabilized, lives as a couple and is a musician in an orchestra.

“A relief,” blows his mother. Marked by the years of medical wandering, the “tumble” in the disease, and a first decompensation, “violent”, which leads the young woman to the hospital. “During all these years I did not know, I did not know the psychiatric disorders well …”, regrets the sixties of sobs in the voice. She then remembers her concern in the face of this teenage girl withdrawn from herself, the meetings (“unsuitable”) taken from the psychologist, and this nagging question: “Will my daughter get away?” »»

“I started to work part -time, I could no longer invest myself in my work as I did before, I was too concerned,” said this mother of two. A common situation with a number of caregivers: for almost half of them (47 %), the psychic disease of their loved one affected their professional life, forcing them, in some cases, to develop, reduce or cease their work (unafam).

A stigma that extends to relatives

“It’s also difficult to share, not everyone understands. So little by little we no longer go to the others, we feel alone in our problems and insidiously we isolate ourselves … “, says Josette Bochaton Dutruel. Like her, 63 % of caregivers of mental diseases testify to repercussions on their social life, to have less time, energy, and sometimes desire, to maintain their professional, friendly and family relationships (UNAFAM).

“Isolation is one of the main pitfalls of caregivers of mental patients, and the burden is heavy,” says Emmanuelle Rémond. Because the stigma associated with mental illnesses that affects patients “also extends to loved ones”: “We are silent, we are ashamed. Especially since, for a long time, the general suspicion has weighed on families, which we thought could carry, [pour être dysfonctionnelles]responsibility in psychiatric disease. »»

“When you see your friends, the first question they ask you is:” How are your children? ” However, you don’t want to answer that they are at the psychiatric hospital. So you see less, and less often… ”, testifies Dominique, retired from agriculture. Her son Gabriel, 40, suffers from schizophrenia. “He began to go unhealthy at 17,” recalls the sixty -something.

His parents then believed, like many, in a teenage crisis. But it lasts: he abandons high school, does not seek a job, relations with his loved ones are reaching out, the couple of Dominique does not resist it. “Years of fall. The analysis is made, ten years later. “The sky falls on your head …”, says the retiree, who says he was adopted for response despair.Read too Caregivers, important hyperlink between the psychological affected person and the caregivers

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Answer

He “repatriated” then Gabriel de Tours in Annecy, the place he resides. Father and son have been seen there, since then, a number of instances every week. “And whenever necessary,” says Dominique, who has change into his curator. “I do her shopping,” provides her disabled grownup allowance a bit of, and if there’s a leak in his house, I work. I work for all of the hassles of every day life, which may degenerate. “Because Dominique knows it,” they’re stressors and stress is a disaster set off “.

He learned it, a few years ago, from a psychoeducation program (“degamille”) intended for relatives of patients with schizophrenia. “We are not ready to face these difficulties, we do not know these diseases. And it is important to train in it if you want to know how to go about it with the patients, ”insists the retiree. “As it is very important speak about it,” says the one who has lengthy been forbidden to take action.

https://www.lepoint.fr/sante/on-se-sent-seul-et-insidieusement-on-s-isole-dans-le-quotidien-des-aidants-de-malades-psychiatriques-29-03-2025-2585974_40.php