My uncle had schizoaffective disorder. I remember him as an affectionate, creative person who was clearly batshit insane. Constant paranoid delusions and some hallucinations. He was always on the verge of homelessness because of his violent trades. He was constantly hospitalized. At one point he had to be court mandated to take injections because of violent actions he had taken against police.
According to my Mom he was a terror to grow up with and tried to kill her several times. I take anything she said with a grain of salt, because she makes up new traumas all the time, but what we know for sure is that he molested several neighborhood kids including my Aunt. He was himself abused as a child and I don’t think he really knew what to do with that.
I was affectionate toward him but kept my distance. I did have phone calls with him occasionally. One night when I was in college, he left 17 messages on my answering machine, and they were basically about how he had wanted to molest me as a child, but didn’t because he knew now that it was wrong.
It wasn’t very reassuring. I really kept my distance after that.
The final year of his life he was in the hospital eight times during the summer, then one day he tripped on the stairs and fell and died.
The vast majority of people with psychiatric disorders are neither violent nor abusive. They are more likely to be victims of abuse than abusers themselves. But some people are really sick, and my uncle was, and I don’t know to what extent I can hold him accountable for his actions given his very tenuous grip on reality. All I can tell you as a family it is really hard to know how to deal with someone like that. You want the best for them, you want them to be a productive member of society, and you also just wish you didn’t have to deal with them at all. (Actually, all of that applies to my mother as well.)
I don’t know how I would have handled it as a mother, but I know my grandmother was relieved to see him go. Because even if you leave aside all the harm he caused, he suffered through every bit of his life.
That’s almost exactly like my brother except for the affectionate part. He’s often homeless, basically he’s either homeless, in jail, or crashing with the latest woman he found to take him in and be taken advantage of.
He’s extremely creative. He has an amazing musical talent and I even included a song he created in my wedding playlist when I last got married. He’s also very smart and funny and can be charming when he’s in the right mood.
The last time I communicated with him was by email, I want to say a few years ago, it was before he went to jail again, I think for assaulting a police officer. In most of the emails he didn’t know who I was and was accusing me of weird stuff. He was talking about some woman and asking why I wouldn’t let him see her. It was heartbreaking. I later forwarded them to his lawyer to try to help him get mental health assistance while in jail.
When a family member is that messed up it’s really difficult because you try to be supportive but they’re dangerous. Most people with mental health problems are nonviolent and are more likely to be victims than victimizers but there are exceptions that fit with the “dangerous crazy person” stereotype that are portrayed in the media. My brother is one of those people. It sounds like your uncle was too.
Schizoaffective disorder is extremely rare. I’ve seen estimates that between 1 out of 200 or 1 out of 300 people will ever have symptoms. I’m sorry both of us had to be affected by it and I feel bad for both of our family members for the living Hell it must be like to live with it.
And I don’t know about you but there’s always that fear waiting for the other shoe to drop for me or for my kid. My uncle had his first psychotic break at age 19. Statistically my son isn’t that likely to inherit psychosis, but you worry about it, and my mother worried about it constantly with me, and eschewed any and all psychiatric help for herself because she was afraid of ending up like him. I’m not excusing her, but this stuff has ripple effects.
Not like my brother but still. She’s had to be in a facility a couple of times after mental health crises. She’s not violent or anything thank goodness. She’s closer to the typical situation where she’s more likely to be a victim. I worry about her all the time because she lives on the opposite corner of the country and I rarely see her.
Schizophrenia runs in my family from my mom’s side, I have multiple distant relatives with it. And my dad’s mom had bipolar disorder. It’s just one of those things you deal with.
I crawled out of bed today to try to do something with my kid. It’s Christmas weekend, after all.
We already had problems playing A Charlie Brown Christmas last weekend.
This time we watched the old Frosty the Snowman cartoon which was objectively terrible on every level.
What next? How about Elf on Hulu? Nope. Apparently streaming services failed to accommodate all the streaming of these favorites and everything is freezing so we haven’t been able to watch them.
But the real kicker:
“Wee Weasel, I love you!”
“What’s the opposite of love?”
“Uh… Hate.”
“What’s hate?”
“It’s when you don’t like something very very much.”
“What’s the opposite of hate?”
“Love. I love you!”
“No! No love you! No thank you love.”
Proceeds to crawl into my husband’s lap, ripping my blanket away so he can have it.
Yep, this is the most miserable weather I can remember for Christmases here in MN. There was one other year in my lifetime that was this nasty gray wetness but not for four days in a row.
I’m hoping work will be quiet on Christmas Eve and the day itself but I know I’m hoping for too much. But I am making some Poor Man’s Cake to bring to the office so there will be some cheer. The kitchen smells heavenly with all the spices.
Same here in Ontario – the same unseasonably warm, foggy, bleak, wet weather. And it’s set to continue at least a few more days. This year Santa needs a boat with a foghorn, not a sleigh.
Thanks. Here’s my theory. Usually when I tell him I love him I smother him with physical affection, so this may have been his way of telling me he didn’t feel like a hug.
I tested for COVID again today and the result was ambiguous. I swear there was a very faint line, my husband saw it too, but you really had to look hard. So to be on the safe side I am acting “as if” and cancelling Christmas plans.
It doesn’t feel like Christmas Eve. It’s gray and foggy outside, I feel so little enthusiasm for anything because I am just exhausted. I feel too sick to really enjoy my kid. Just kind of a sad holiday.
My parents and I largely communicate via FB messenger (and phone).
I don’t think either knows, that I know, when they leave me on “read” (e.g. they saw my mssg and did not respond) and it’s kinda 50/50 hurtful, and also funny.
New neighbors. Somewhat deceitful, but new so… ho hum.
Asked me what I paid for my house in the '90s. Got all cagy and when I asked back, “Well, what did you pay? < quoted them the price of the last house sold >”
“Well, I guess we got a bargain,”
( Yeah, Yee-Haw jerk. Like it’s not on Zillo )
Found they were a couple with a newborn ( aww, how sweet ). Saw the husband yanking very angry (vicious?) English Setters down the street with muzzles for a walk a day later.
(They hated & tried to get at me like I was a slice of sirloin.)
Yesterday, I found a nice card and a small plate of tiny cookies from them on my porch. Merry Xmas.
So today we wrote them a thankyou card and gave them a batch of home baked Xmas cookies 10x the size. Left it on their porch because they had a “don’t ring the bell, new baby” sign up.
JFC… you let those vicious dogs loose near a newborn baby? ARE YOU CRAZY!?
Here’s hoping Xmas doesn’t end with the dogs eating the cookies as well as bloody baby entrails…
I just never see posts about vicious Irish Setters. Not that I don’t believe it or feel it isn’t possible, but it’s just such an out of style breed. And I believe usually pretty laid back. Of course any breed can be ruined by shitty breeding. It just seems like it should have been, pit, chow, bully of some sort, etc. etc. And I really hope the baby survives to adulthood.
It was more yellow than red so English setter? Golden retriever? I just know that he was walking them both with leather muzzles tying shut their snouts… and that one sniffed at me and growled and pulled at it’s leash like it wanted to rip meat off of me. I stepped way-the-fuck back and the guy just smiled like it happens all the time.
Beautiful coats, hairy floppy ears, personalities of a junkyard attack dogs.
My guess is golden retriever. This is an English Setter: English Setter Dog Breed Info | Petfinder
I tried to post just a picture, but alas, I can’t seem to find a link that will post, so I give.
Or… attack dog training? It’d be shameful, if true.
Saw them from across the street today; the wife had the carriage, the husband had both dogs ( pulling him like he was a chariot ). They thanked me for the cookies as I bagged the last 5 bags of leaves for the year. They’re from the hunting areas of The Carolinas… but hunting dogs aren’t vicious, right?
( Memories of ‘bear dogs’ from ‘The Yearling’. But yeah, Hollywood always lies. )
to you.