Eventually we end up with stress exhaustion, and this can lead to depression, anxiety, burnout, and psychosomatic illnesses. Families and health care professionals caution that the strain of having a relative with schizophrenia can begin in the very early days, when that person first behaves unusually. It is natural to be disturbed by such behaviour, and we tend to withdraw from them. In the early days, family members may be bewildered and resentful, and often blame and criticize the ill individual. Members may blame other members of the family as their fear and frustration grow.
Families caution that one of the most important things to watch for is resentment in siblings.
When you are spending all of your time and energy supporting and seeking help for your ill child, it is very easy to neglect other children. Families warn that you may also have to accept that a sibling may never have any feeling of affection for the ill relative. I never had a relationship with him when he wasn't ill. When he first got sick, I was very young, and his behaviour scared me. Then, as I got older, the things he did embarrassed me.