Post psychosis and driving license

[blackcandle]

Just wondered if someone who has a history of psychotic episode/s will s/he lose their driving license or their right to learn to drive indefinitely?

My dc still find academic learning challenging. He can very well recall a lot of things that he learned before his illness but now he seems to struggle with working memory during lessons at school. The teacher doesn’t think he can achieve GCSE standard though his GL assessment showed that he s on grade 6. He doesn’t accept his teacher’s judgment. I believe his brain hasn’t been fully recovered.
For the last few years I have done a lot to help him with his recovery, encourage and help him to join peer support group and cadets to meet other young people, swimming, music lessons etc. I often find that he only appreciates how much he s worked on himself but completely overlooked how much his family trying to help him with his recovery.

That sounds difficult, it's hard to see the invisible hands guiding you. For me not my parents but many other people in my life.

In my a levels I got As and Bs in my AS levels and in the second year I got Ds. In my ecology paper I got 10% as I was too unwell to do the course work and I couldn't get to grips with the subject.

I would have a chat with the school about what subjects are sensible for taking now and what would be better if dropping so that he's not overwhelmed. My sister had a long period of illness through her GCSEs and in hindsight she would have better off dropping an option subject which she failed as she couldn't do the practical and the teacher forgot to submit the mitigation form without those classes she might have had more energy for other subjects that were more important to the next steps. It's not held her back though she dropped out of school during her a levels but went on to do book keeping courses in distance learning courses and by 30 she was an accountant!

@Superscientist good to hear that both yourself and your sister re able to have a fulfilling life despite the setbacks and both your resilience and hard work paid off in the end.
I ve suggested that dc should only focus on Maths and English alongside with a small vocational course that meets his interest so he doesn’t have to worry about exams too much at the end of the year. I believe he needs another year or two to recover well enough to consider higher education or training. The problem is that he often compares himself with his old school peers who already got their GCSEs and about to finish their level 3 education and some about to go to uni or work or training etc while he is being held back with his mental health.

That is probably the thing my sister found the hardest. She was in and out of hospital with what we now know was gallstones. It started as 14 but she was 17 at diagnosis when she went into sepsis with acute pancreatitis and was on the at risk of needing an ICU bed and had 50% chance of surviving the night. School got too much and she had awful attendance due to fortnightly a and e trips for morphine as well as time off for the stomach attacks. All the friends she liked went to uni and the people that were left didn't have her interests in life. She found it hard to find her place in life. In recent years she has been doing volunteering with the st John's ambulance which is given her peers for the first time in a long time. Finding courses that are useful and interesting are a good way to go. For me being able to engage in a day when I don't want to engage with the world needs topics I'm interested in. In my a levels I got my best mark in maths but I could only manage 20-30minutes of the hour class so i Ieft to do the rest work elsewhere, i struggled to stay in biology lessons but I could manage near all of my chemistry lessons so that is what i decided to do for my degree

That sounds like a good plan. Severe episodes for me at not dissimilar to other brain disorders and it takes time and patience. Therapy might help too. There's one call behaviour activation therapy which can be helpful for rebuilding your life around mental illness. It follows the same logic of CBT where if you improve thoughts you improve behaviours and you improve wellbeing. Where CBT starts with the thoughts bat starts with actions. Mentoring might help too, it helped me during my PhD. I accessed it through disability services. I don't if colleges have a similar system.

Another thing to watch for is physical health. During covid they found that people with severe mental health fair worse when contracting covid and on the basis of this anyone on the severe mental illness register is eligible to a covid vaccine or at least up the winter just gone. It does reflect my reality too and find there is a bigger impact on me when I get sick compared to my partner and colleagues with the same bug. Illness also puts me at risk for mental health relapse so I make sure I get a flu jab every year. I take up my offer for the covid vaccine and try to make sure I stay fairly healthy.

Have you come across spoon theory? It started as someone who was trying to describe their energy levels whilst living with a chronic condition but it is also quite applicable for those with mental illnesses too. The idea is you have a set amount of spoons for the day and each activity takes a set number of spoons. For a completely well person if they run out of spoons they can pinch some from tomorrow of have some left over from the day before and everything is good. But for a person with a health condition if they pinch it from tomorrow they have to pay it back by resting. The number of spoons they can start the day with might vary. I find it a accessible way of describing why some days I can't always do what I want to. There was also an example I saw where you might be unwell so only have a few spoons and most of those were used on getting out of bed so when it came to making that appointment for help there weren't enough spoons. I think it was a really important example as it shows sometimes we don't have the capacity to help ourselves

@Superscientist thanks for sharing your experience and advice. Dc seems to recovered a lot better now than 3 years ago despite his recent relapse which resulted in hospitalisation for 5 months he had to take very high dose of olanzapine plus sometimes other drugs that made him very sleepy and restless all day and it really affected his learning in lessons and mental capacity in general. So the teacher in the hospital didn’t think he can cope with academic learning. However I m too kind of not sure if I can entirely trust her judgement as based on the fact that he was very unwell and on high drug dosage. He s home now for the last few weeks and just taking things easy and probably not starting school until September. We now pay a lot more attention to his diet and sleep also he continues to take multivitamins.

Does olanzapine comes as prolonged release?
I take quetiapine rather than olanzapine but they are every similar and are in the same class of drug. I take the prolonged release version and it's a lot less sedating and allows me to think clearly. It is modified so that it takes longer for the body to absorb the drugs so rather than it all being dumped into the blood during the first hour it slowly goes into the blood over 5-6h, you get less peaks and troughs over the day and the head fuzz can be less because of it.

I think having a break and starting again in September is a good plan. Plenty of time to prepare and get into the right place. Focusing on small activities to bring structure to the day and then build in structure within the week will help with mental stamina. It's really easy to let the hours and days drift and then despair and frustration kicks in. I do appreciate that trying to get any teen to give themselves structure is a big ask!

I hope your son continues on his path to recovery x

@Superscientist thanks.

wish you all the best.

“Does olanzapine comes as prolonged release?” Not sure I may check with his psychiatrist in the next appointment.