My brother has a number of diagnoses. He’s Bipolar, has borderline personality disorder (?) and I suspect schizophrenic, as there is a family history. His typical debate with me when I try to encourage him to seek medications to help him is as AHunter3 states. He doesn’t believe that his view of the world is less beneficial to him than is possible.
I see him tortured by paranoia and caught in cyclical arguments and behaviors. Unfortunately he’s lost his business, his first and second wife and the children he’s created with each. He is incredibly difficult to socialize with and he withdraws further into his own world every day.
I try to keep him in the fold, but he frankly exhausts me. It breaks my heart for him and I wish I could help him.
Thing is, I kind of feel partly responsible for what happened to this guy. I was putting together a business deal with 5 or 6 different players and originally he was considered one of the building blocks for the final phase. But due to his own pig-headedness, (which, looking back was probably the early-warning signs of his instability) he had to be cut out of the picture. Like most deals, there were weeks and weeks of planning and talking and then when things reached critical mass the blocks fell into place very rapidly and the deal was done, without him.
That’s when he really got bad and started blogging that I was part of a global conspiracy (“the shadows”) that are fighting against him and his secret benefactors (linked to the CIA), involving murder (someone did, in fact, die during the deal but it was an accident). I don’t mind the blogging because (1) no one could take it seriously and (2) it makes me look like some kind of badass Bond villain, but I still feel somehow responsible, in a small way. I should try and contact his family back in the States.
Does the guy not take his meds because he doesn’t think he needs them, or because he hates the side effects? If it’s the latter, maybe his psychiatrist could tinker with them till the side effects aren’t as troublesome.
I hope the person you’re asking will weigh in on this particular situation, but IME it’s not uncommon for people to reject psychiatric drugs just on the general principle. If you’re paranoid and believe that people are out to get you, drugs that will make you compliant are probably the last thing you want to take. I got a very brief taste of this once when I tried to taper off some antidepressants, started going a bit nuts, and found myself thinking that I ‘didn’t want to be drugged back into normality’, because I was seeing and understanding things that ‘normal’ people can’t. Conveniently, none of these things I was getting insight into were things that could be explained in words… I took the hint and restarted the antidepressants the next day!
I also know a young man who refuses to take antidepressants on the grounds that he ‘doesn’t want to put anything unnatural in his body’. The kicker is that he also has thyroid problems, which are very easy to control with medication and hell to live with, but he refuses medication for that too on the same grounds. Never mind that his current thyroid imbalance is probably more unnatural than having it balanced due to medication! Again, it’s one of those things where you can’t reason someone out of a position that they didn’t reason themselves into.
Minor aside… what you’re talking about is a big part of why cognitive behavioral therapy tends to work; if you do it right, you learn to identify when you’re depressed, and to some extent what negative thoughts and assumptions are making you depressed. Finally, there are some methods for rethinking what’s making you depressed and snapping out of it. Much better than just sort of marinating in the depression without really being able to do anything about it.
Sounds like Inigo’s rules are kind of similar in practice- for example, he realizes that his family and friends are NOT plotting against him, and short-circuits that line of thinking before it can really set him off. I’m no psychologist, but you(Inigo) may want to look into CBT if you haven’t already.
I knew he had issues when i married him 13 years ago however it is bad now and i am sitting here with my head in my hands. I just dont know what to do. He has been diagnosed with sever schizophrenia, bi polar ocd. he wont get meds and his delusions and outburts are killing me. he wont listen to reason, wont be calm. Everyone is out to get him, he sees bugs and rats everywhere, I have ruined his life (among very other vile names) no one loves him and never did, we all using him and he distorts everything that happens to make him look like the victim, talks of issues in the past wheter 10 years or 5 years ago as if it happens in the present, only his feelings are important no one elses. I dont know what to do. His episodes are out of control yet i cant call the police for a medical issue because he would know i called. He talks of hurting people, killing himself yet he had said that for ten years and doesnt so i think maybe cry for help I just dont know. I need advice from someone who knows how to handle men like this. Please someone help me figure out how to deal with him
I’m so sorry. I’m not a medical professional, nor have I ever dealt with a partner who is having these issues. But I wanted to reach out and let you know I hear you and am sympathetic.
I think you ought to call the police. If there’s any doubt in your mind that he might hurt someone or yourself, you have to. I know you say that he’ll know. Well, he will. Maybe he’ll divorce you. Maybe he’ll hate you. Maybe he’ll thank you and be grateful. Who knows? But you shouldn’t have to live like this in despair. I would say that you need a break, which you’ll undoubtedly get if they decide to lock him up for a couple of days.
Sweetheart, I know this is a horrible time, but you need to call the police.
People who are a danger to themselves (suicide) or to others (he might hurt you) can be forcibly committed for 24 hours while psychiatrists figure out how best to help them stabilize. It sucks, you feel like a horrible person, but just think - how will you feel if he DOES kill himself (or hurts someone else) and you didn’t do anything because you didn’t want to hurt his feelings?
Please - don’t worry if he knows you called him in. The disease already has you tagged as a bad guy. Your calling help for him will not make this worse. Doing nothing might.
Please call. That is honestly the best way to help your husband right now. I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with this.
Welcome to the SDMB, Mitch, however there are rules here you must follow. For one, you’re posting in a pretty old thread, that you bumped up only to make a political jab. This way of posting and type of behavior is very discouraged here…so, in fact, I’m going to tell you not to do it again.
I know you wrote this a long time ago, but if you happen to get back on here and read this, just wondering what ever happened?
My best friend and roommate of 14 years has been having paranoid thoughts for 2 years. Thinks he is being filmed on a reality show and that certain people and communicating with him through the tv and radio. Now he thinks I am involved in it. He wakes me up at 5am with these manic rants about how I’m an actress and doing this all for the fame. It’s kind of scary and I sleep with the door locked. But then other times he seems perfectly normal. He has been ignoring me all of 2014 since he has thought I’m involved. We can’t move apart for certain reasons but I too feel I can’t call the police or his family cause he will know. Honestly I"m not sure his family would even know anything was wrong with him cause he seems so normal most days. But anything I say or do will seem like I"m just doing it for a reality show. I even needed to go to the hospital once and he wouldn’t even help me or drive me there. I wondered if it was cause he thought it was all part of a reality show.
But that’s only because they don’t use the word ‘schizophrenic’ to describe people who have insight.
All… EACH of the symptoms of schizophrenia are symptoms that some ordinary person might have. But you have to make decisions about drugs, funding, and calling people names. And there is just no point calling somebody schizophrenic if they are living in the community, with a wife, children, work mates, employer and friends who don’t think they are crazy. But it’s not like there was any great clarity on what schizophrenia really is.
Yes, and I found that depressing, and I knew I was depressed.
Not for me. I was really glad I was happy, and I would really have liked to stay happy, but I knew that the external and internal triggers to my depression still existed, and that it wasn’t likely I’d escape them.
I went from Happy to Depressed, so I was aware that Depressed was not the only normal state of being. Even given that life sucks, I would rather have gone back to the state of happy ignorance.
One of my friends, who I’ve mentioned before, had first, insight that he was having auditory hallucinations, then a suspicion that the voices were actually real (God talking to him), then an acceptance that the voices were real, followed by hospitalization.
One my acquantances, used to ask people who were picked up and brought into the mental hospital if they were having auditory hallucinations. They would say “yes” - even when they had lost the ability to differentiate, they remembered the alternate explanation.
One of my friends, who I’ve mentioned before, had the terrifying experience of hearing voices come out of no-where (unexpectedly, from the speaker on his desk). Because his past experience included schizophrenia with auditory hallucinations, he lacked clear insight that sometimes voices out of no-where are not auditory hallucinations.
The diagnostic criteria for Schizophrenia are pretty fuzzy around the edges, so any generalization is not very straightforward.
When someone is told, directly or indirectly, “You do not fit in very well” with society, it is not unusual for the person to have learned to be fairly comfortable in his own skin, and and regard the socialization around him to be defective.
We all think psychiatrists are nuts, because they fail to recognize the self-perceived “normalcy” of us whom they diagnose.
“The grace that saves us from psychiatric diagnosis is nothing more than the sheer good fortune that millions of others happen to share our delusion.”
– Cordelia Fine
This is an International Network that support people and their families and friends with the abilities of Hearing Voices and Seeing Visions.
The Hearing Voices Network is out of the UK and has a website in America with meetings you may attend to share your experiences. This is not a 12 Step Program.
When paranoid schizophrenics are in the prodromal stage of their illness, they are not aware they are developing a psychosis (schizophrenia). When they become psychotic, whether gradually or relatively suddenly, they do not realise they have developed a mental illness. They do realise they have thoughts that have to be analysed, with the hope the abnormal thoughts will go away. But it never comes into their mind that they should see a doctor. They are not aware of their deterioration in hygene, their social withdrawal, their apathy and other negative symptoms of schizophrenia that cause a deterioration in human functioning. They lack insight that they have developed a mental illness. Once they are on antipsychotic medication, many become well again to a degree, but some of the bad side effects of antipsychotic medication give them reason to stop taking it once they are relatively well again. They don’t realise the antipsychotic medication is correcting the dopamine neurotransmitter imbalance in the brain, and once they stop taking the medication, they quickly become unwell again. Gaining insight helps to understand the meds have to be taken continually, and also reading about how schizophrenia happens in the brain and how the meds correct the problem. Most schizophrenics will never bother to educate themselves on such matters though. The sedation affect of the antipsychotic medication plus other side effects such as sexual dysfunction and weight gain discourage schizophrenics when it comes to medication compliance. By not taking anti psychotic medication the schizophrenic will not be able to function in society, they won’t be able to work or live independantly or have a reasonable quality life. To discourage a schizophrenic from stopping their medication, you can tell them that after each relapse, they will not recover to the same level of functioning they were previously at. This could mean higher doses of antipsychotic medication and suffering more pronounced negative symptoms of schizophrenia. 50% of schizophrenics have a drop in IQ before they develop their illness with a further drop in IQ after they have recovered. Paranoid schizophrenics are the most likely subtype of schizophrenics to have a good long term prognosis and many can live relatively independantly. I am a Paranoid schizophrenic who is a property investor/landlord. I swim 2,000 metres freestyle every week, the aerobic effect of the exercise improves my IQ as it does with anybody who does aerobic exercise. The aerobic exercise also promotes neuron growth, possibly in the area of the brain schizophrenics have less neurons and it also is supposed to suppress schizophrenia symptoms. I have been swimming for 31 years virtually every week for 28 of those years.
My neighbor spent four decades retaliating against me for things he sees me doing. I gave up trying to talk with him. He is convinced I have magical powers and can walk through walls. He finally had a stroke and was put into a home somewhere. Peace at last!