Excessive care can cripple. Even in cases where, it would seem, you can’t do without constant guardianship.

This fifty -year -old woman has been sick since childhood. Psychiatrists diagnosed her schizophrenia. The disease was manifested by hallucinations, and a violation of thinking, and the lack of contacts with people. Many times she went to the hospital with exacerbations of a mental state. In the end, she was selected a set of drugs, the constant intake of which prevented exacerbations, so she could be at home.

Here she was under a constant care of a loving mother, for whom her daughter was the only meaning and content of her whole life. Mom was divorced for a long time. She was engaged in her daughter all day, but this was not a communication with her, but with care of life – about proper nutrition, timely medication, sleep regime. She even dressed her daughter herself, but she went out less and less for a walk with her – and because she was old, and because her daughter often did not want to leave not only from home, but also from her room. Mom did not dare to insist on anything, with the exception of the implementation of routine household procedures, which from the daughter herself required nothing, except for their passive adoption. Most of all my mother was afraid of the conflict with her and the deterioration of her condition.

I was familiar with them, and my mother invited me several times to talk with her daughter and make an impression of her condition. Real contact did not work out: the daughter did not understand the questions asked, but after the second visit she began to talk about the world of her ideas in which she lived. Of course, this story made a feeling of a complete Sumbur, but still it was some kind of contact with an outsider. It was a temporary exit from a completely closed space of its existence. She began to recognize me and sometimes even showed signs of friendliness and readiness to share her fantasies.

This inspired some hope, but she had no conditions for expanding contacts and the appearance of the initiative. Yes, she did not strive for this. Mom and her assistant did everything for her, almost put food in her mouth because of the feeling of her complete helplessness and thereby strengthened themselves, and, more importantly, her very sensation itself in this feeling. It was a vicious circle. When, on my advice, my mother made a timid attempt to give her daughter the opportunity to do something herself, she often came across misunderstanding and resistance. After all, it was the same mother, who still did everything for her, and while her mother was there, any attempts to engage in something daughter caused her protest. It was much easier for her daughter to live in her world on everything ready, and her mother was much easier to take this position than trying to change her.

When my mother died, her daughter was placed in a boarding house for patients with chronic mental illnesses. I thought that my daughter, so dependent, could not take root in this boarding house, where the patients had to do a lot and take care of themselves. And he was completely amazed when a miracle occurred. Her whole life has completely changed. She needed to share some responsibilities with her neighbors and build relationships with them – something to which she (as it seemed to everyone who knew her) was completely

unsuccessful. Now she had to wash herself, dress, follow the order in her room. She was gradually taught the elementary cooking. And after a while, she even began to perform a simple, but requiring some efforts and attention work, which was symbolically paid. To my amazement, she joined this with pleasure and enthusiasm. Her self -awareness improved, she began to enjoy life! Families, who visited her in the boarding house, could not recognize her – she came to life, she had contact with the world, lost since childhood.

Orphansion led to the second birth of her daughter … A terrible paradox. The sincere love of parents and their fear for sick and helpless children sometimes only increase this helplessness and make a hopeless situation that could change without their patronage.