Eduardo is 62 years old, at the age of 12 he found out he had schizophrenia and in 2005 he was admitted to the San Gabriel private mental health clinic in Adrogué. Gladis is 61, she experienced different schizophrenic episodesHe received all kinds of treatments, went through the Warnes residence, the Estéves Hospital and finally arrived at San Gabriel. There they met and began a love relationship. In 2018 the possibility of living together would arrive.
“Mine was very strong, there was a small window and a void below and I don’t know what grabbed me in the head and I took off my rings, my bracelet, I went to the bathroom, I went out the window, I climbed onto the terrace and I hear from afar my brother shouting ‘Gladiiiiiiiiis’ and I go jumping through the terraces, I go down by the house of a neighbor and I knock and a lady takes care of me and she lets me in, she dresses me, because I was naked, she offers me some tea and I tell her ‘my brothers want to kill me’”, that is the memory that Gladis shares with PROFILE regarding one of the first episodes that alerted his brothers.
At that time, her family called the police, following which she was referred to a hospital, where she was injected and prescribed medication. “Little by little I was improving, what happens is that I did not follow the treatment, I did not follow it and that made me feel bad,” she reflects.
In 2009 the father of Gladis’s son died and in 2010 her mother-in-law took her to the San Gabriel Sanatorium, the place from which she escaped and was re-admitted with a court order on May 13, 2011. She previously lived with her 12-year-old son.
“And now she’s fine because when she was in Avellaneda she was really bad, I saw her fall asleep standing up, fall and now she’s taking a new medication that doesn’t hurt her,” Eduardo intervenes. When he refers to Avellaneda, it is not regarding the city, he refers to a sector of the clinic where there are only women with more complex problems.
“I’ll tell you in a moment, schizophrenia is awful The doctor told me not to stay in the sun too much because it would hurt me, because of the medication, I can get dizzy, I take five pills a day”, Eduardo details.
Both went through the different types of hospitalizations offered by the institution according to the advances in their health and, above all, taking into account that they do not represent a danger to themselves or to others. Now they enjoy their life in a residence where only 12 people live, with separate bedrooms and bathroomswhich is located within the San Gabriel property, but from which they can come and go whenever they want.
Eduardo gets up every day at seven, she stays in bed a little longer and they start their day around eight. They wash clothes, clean their rooms, wash the dishes, cook, go for a walk, go to the doctor to have some study done, Gladis goes to Church. “We go out when we wantin the followingnoon I’m going to look for two churrasquitos to make at night”, says Eduardo.
In that place, known as the Community Integration Module (MIC), they continue to receive food and cleaning services, but so that they can manage their own money. They have a kiosk that they manage and it works inside the clinic. where they buy interns, visitors and local workers. In addition, Eduardo collects his retirement.
Moving to this new mixed life, in which they are free to make their decisions, but the institution protects them if they need it, allowed them to find themselves as a couple in a different way, but also improved their ties with their family. “I met my little brother once morethat my older brother had told me that he did not love me and that nobody wanted to know anything regarding me and it was a lie, I saw him, my nephews, I saw my sister, we spoke on the phone every day”, Eduardo says.
“Laura saved our lives”, both assure. And they refer to Laura Pérez, the Occupational Therapy graduate who accompanies them in this process and who dedicates a large part of her life to thinking regarding how to enhance the quality of life of each of the patients who pass through the institution.
Eduardo’s story: “And I’m alive! I don’t know how I’m alive!”
“For many years I have been carrying this disease, I was 12 years old when I got sick. My mother took me to the Lucio Menéndez hospital, which is nearby, and my mother asked if it might have affected me that I was born late, because she had me following a while and I was born without oxygen to my brain, and that’s where schizophrenia caught me and that’s where they started me. to medicate, at 12 years old and now I am 61”, narrates Eduardo.
“And I’m alive! I don’t know how I’m alive!” she exclaims. His strength to live surprises him, but not those around him, Eduardo continues to bet on his well-being, six months ago he quit smoking. “The first moment was difficult, but it’s over, forty-one years smoking and I quit,” he congratulates himself.
How the San Gabriel Sanatorium works
At the San Gabriel clinic there are more than 300 people undergoing treatment, there they deal with all mental health problems and the place is divided into areas that need extreme control, slightly more lax areas, an area for day hospitalizations and another specifically called gerontopsychiatric, which is for older adults.
When crossing with Laura Pérez the doors that lead to the area where the people admitted with an intermediate control are, they all come up to greet her, to ask her when it is their turn to leave or when they are discharged. Everyone wants to go out, but not everyone is ready to do it.
How is schizophrenia detected?
Schizophrenia can cause hallucinations, delusions, and disturbances in thought and behavior. The psychiatrist Pedro Gargoloff specialized in this subject and member of the Association for the Help of Relatives of People who suffer from Schizophrenia of La Plata told PROFILE that “there are no tests or studies available to be able to diagnose with certainty that a person has schizophrenia.” “Although there are many advances in the study of the brain and its manifestations, even today they are partial and inconclusive, so their routine use is not used or recommended in clinical practice.”
Dr. Pedro Gargoloff: “There are no studies to diagnose schizophrenia with certainty”
Faced with this reality, work with interviews with the patient and their relatives is prioritized, evaluating the manifestations or symptoms and their evolution over time. “It is important to recognize the subjective and objective manifestations of schizophrenia, in order to seek help when they first begin to appear, taking into account that the onset of this disease is usually slow and takes months to become clearly evident”, he stressed. The first signs of schizophrenia usually appear between the ages of 16 and 30, generally older in women than in men.
Arrive at the residence
Eduardo and Gladis had started a relationship before arriving at the residence, but when they found out that they were both going to live together, a new challenge began. They found themselves in that brand new space that gave them the freedom to leave whenever they wanted. They looked at each other, kissed and began to build their bond with patience and the peculiarities of the case. “First we didn’t go out, but little by little we started going out together, following a year we went to her brother’s house, then we went to my house, we always go there to eat a barbecue, when my brother can because he works all day , he is a taxi driver,” Eduardo says.
“The Church helps me a lot; science and the spiritual have to go together in order to get ahead,” says Gladis. She goes to mass, to pray the Rosary, she goes on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. “And that lifts me up, leaves me as good as new.”
Eduardo respects Gladis’ devotion, but he doesn’t go to church. “I believe in God, but not in manI don’t believe anything in the priest.” “It doesn’t seem to me that you have to pray all the time, be on top of God so that things don’t go wrong for you and things are going well for me so far, it seems that he hears me the same way from here.”
Eduardo says that he is in love with Gladis because “she is good, she is kind” and she says that she likes that he “trusts me a lot”. They have known each other for 12 years and are happy. “I ask God every day that nothing stands in our way, in our love,” concludes Gladis.
RB / ED
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