Chapter 1: What was it like growing up as a twin with a sibling who has mental illness?
So my name is Kelly. I am here to talk about my twin brother's diagnosis with schizoaffective disorder, but I also want to talk about how that affected my family and I. So I'll also be talking about my own mental health, but mainly I want to center on my brother's illness. So I'm going to, I'm going to refer to my iPad too, just cause
Chapter 2: How do family dynamics influence mental health outcomes?
It's a lot.
Yes.
So I'll start with childhood.
Chapter 3: What are the early signs of anxiety and how are they often overlooked?
So I have four brothers. I am the only girl. I'm the baby. Except I do have my twin that I'll be talking about who's 15 minutes older than me. And then I have a brother that's two years older than us and then I have two older brothers that are half brothers and they're about 10 to 15 years older than us. And so we'll talk about our living situation as children. So my parents and I are divorced.
They have been divorced since we were babies. And we primarily lived with my mom, so it was me, my twin, and our older brother that's two years older than us. And I think it was... Like I would say that it was normal, a pretty normal childhood. I would say that it was happy too. Living with my mom, you know, she tried to do everything she can to give us the best life.
So we lived in a mobile home and I feel like it was a pretty happy existence there. And then we saw my dad two times during the week.
Chapter 4: What triggers panic attacks and how do they manifest?
and he had lived with his parents in a retirement community so we would whenever we would go there we would be in the living room that's that's where our bed was that's where we would sleep so it was me and my brothers all sleeping in one family room when when we would go to visit him but my twin and I were inseparable everywhere we'd go people would be like We're the twins.
So you wouldn't really get me without him. So we did like everything together too. And we played sports together. Yeah, I would say that it was pretty happy growing up. Then because of my twin and I being so close and everyone giving us attention, I think that did leave out my older brother. So we saw behavioral challenges with him.
That would be like, that would look like a lot of aggression and being physical. So he was physical toward my mom and... then he would just attack my twin and I. Like, if my mom were working, then he would be in charge of us. And that was, like, terrifying because he just wanted to be the boss of everything.
Chapter 5: How does grief affect relationships within a family?
And if we didn't do what he wanted, then he'd be, like, chasing us around the house, trying to pinch us. Yeah. Terrorize you guys a bit.
Yeah. And he is your full brother, right? Yes. Okay, got it.
yes so yeah he was a crazy one and then i'll talk about us being in school as well too so yeah oh also when we would go see my dad his relationship with us was good i i really enjoyed going to see him i think brian and i we were always so close to my dad he treated us like we were
his pride and joy because he would always say that we were pretty easygoing kids and then my other brother was just like not so easy so he would take us to places like amusement parks basically anything that we wanted to do when we were with him for the two days so we just saw him as being fun and like we could just we could do what we wanted over there but when i look back on
Seeing my dad, I do realize we didn't get to know him fully. He never really talked about himself. Every time I asked questions about him, he would start to answer them, but then he would...
ask me like why am I why are you asking so many questions and it would deter me from wanting to asking anything else so he never really wanted to talk about himself and like his childhood and even things that he liked and didn't like he really just wanted to talk about what was going on in the world or if I had a problem or anything I wanted to talk about I could talk to him so at least
he did that for us he he was always someone we can go to with problems he just didn't want to talk about himself but for brian my dad and him had a great relationship they they did so much together they enjoyed sports so they were really big on sports they would always watch like
games on tv they went to games anything that really involves sports so you would see brian hanging out with my dad a bunch so that was really my childhood then we get up to like middle school in high school years where i would see myself having mental health i don't i wouldn't want to say issues but i would just see my anxiety starting to come out so i'll talk about how
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Chapter 6: What are the challenges of recognizing early signs of psychosis?
how I was during that time and then how Brian appeared to be. Because I obviously don't know exactly what was going in his head throughout his childhood or throughout his high school age. But for me, I was definitely realizing my own anxieties. So like I was very self-conscious and so I had a lot of social anxiety. I didn't know like there were names for all of this back then.
Right.
Chapter 7: How does addiction impact mental health in families?
But I just knew that I didn't want to talk to people. I would just hide away. I would just avoid people. So I was kind of like a loner in high school. I didn't... But I kind of liked it like that too. I didn't really want to like socialize. I just wanted to keep myself private. So... no one would really know who I was, but everyone knew who Brian was because Brian was a class clown.
He was always the comedian. He's always trying to get people to laugh. And that's that's always been the case through childhood, too. He's just always trying to make people laugh. So in in classes, He would he would just joke around and sometimes I would get him in trouble too. But yeah, everyone knew who he was. He was on the sports teams too. So he had a lot of friends.
And I even remember like walking through the halls and I would like see Brian and I would wait to him and
he would just give me a head nod like that because like he didn't really want to know he didn't want people to associate me with him yeah because i was like a nerd and he was mr cool right so of course that's like classic brother and sister yeah so quick question what age would you say that you were when you started feeling the anxiety coming on I actually can't remember a time without anxiety.
I just started noticing it when I was about 13. But if I look back on it, there was like never a time without anxiety.
Do you have any idea of what you think kind of triggered it to come on? Or do you think it was kind of just like with age maybe and...
yeah that is such a good question because i think of that all the time i'm not 100 sure but i think it's genetics too i think that my family is full of mental health issues illnesses some that are just not spoken about some that haven't come to light but i know from even my dad he's an introvert and i think seeing him
being an introvert, I think that also played a part in why I didn't really want to talk to people too. But I've never really known a time without like feeling I was on the edge, feeling I was like suffocating. So I remember things like even breathing, like I can actually feel that now because I'm, the anxiety doesn't go away. Like I still have a hard time breathing.
I just know how to better handle it now.
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Chapter 8: What are the emotional costs of loving someone with a severe mental disorder?
The older generation, I think it's harder for them to understand mental illness to a degree as well. Right. I feel like you just mentioned, it is so much more talked about now and understood in different ways than it was before. Right.
Yes, exactly. I don't think people were really aware of the signs of anxiety or any mental illness as much as we are today. So I don't blame my parents at all for not recognizing these signs but I could just I'm just like oh wow if they were recognized back then I could have been helped a little bit sooner but yeah so that's how I felt most of the time I'm not sure about Brian he
If anything was going on with him, like, we would not have known. He wouldn't have talked about it. But he always looked like he was fine and just thriving. Right. He had more of that outgoing personality. So, yeah, so he was definitely Mr. Cool in high school. So if anything was going on with him, we just would not have known back then.
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