Advice on getting husband onboard with treatment

Family
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My husband and I have been married 8 yrs (in our 50’s, 2nd marriage for both of us). He told me he had schizophrenia when we met but was controlled on Seroquel. Very controlled. I NEVER even slightly noticed he had it. Until about a year ago. He started acting bizarre (like hearing voices, walking downtown {about a mile away, barefoot} and just his affect changed. But he was never angry. Until we moved from Ca to Wa when his dad died. We sold his home and decided we wanted to buy a house in Wa where we’d be closer to his son and our grandkids. So we’ve been living in our RV in sons driveway waiting for Ca house to sell and to buy a home here. OUr house sold and we’re now looking for a house. The last 4 months or so he’s become angry. He calls it “irritation”. He’s got 4 voices (Jerry, John, Annie and 1 other 1) and Jerry is the one that constantly tells him to use the F word about 100x a day and throw stuff (he’s broken so much stuff). He started talking back to them about 3 months ago. I got him a psych appt last month (basically he said it was to refill his Seroquel, which he says is to help him sleep, not to help his mental illness, which he says he doesn’t have. What he has is real and I don’t believe him). Whatever gets him there. He told the dr more than I actually thought he would. He brought up that he was living forever and that he was “chosen one” and that since I was married to him, I would also live forever. He failed to tell of his violence tho. She recommended he try another med. He refused, as I thought he would. He says no med would help him, as he’s not ill, all of the stuff happening to him is REAL. A computer rules his life. He will go thru days of being “irritated” and yell for hours at a time. Then he’ll go a week without yelling at all. WIth all of this, he manages to hold down a job without any symptoms at work.

LAst nite, after dinner, I was in the house talking to my daughter in law and I heard noises outside. I look out there and my husband was throwing a metal ladder against our RV. I asked what he was doing and he yelled “I’d FU****** irritated. Get the F*** out of here. Just leave” My 5 yr old grandson started going outside to see was grampa was doing. I had to hold him back. My son walked to the RV and asked what was going on and my husband yelled at him and my son told him to get himself in check, that he can do it himself. He doesn’t understand mental illness and actually doesn’t belive in mental illness and meds. Thinks anyone can just think themselves well. Then he went back into the house. I’m scared they’re going to ask us to leave, before we’ve found a house. We talked about it and I talked about hospitalization and he told me if I called anyone to say goodbye becuz he’d never see me again. He was talking so bizarrely. I can’t even explain all he was saying. Made no sense. And he thinks it’s real and no one but him would understand it. Becuz he’s the chosen one. He was NOT taking more meds. Luckily he has an appt with his psych today (almost didn’t, as he scheduled a job today, even as I reminded him 20x last week not to and he did anyway but was able to reschedule it) and I’m hoping he opens up today about whats been going on. I hope.

WHat do I do if he refuses meds? Has anyone tried the vitamin route? I did some research on some vitamins that help. He’s all about health and vitamins and I may be able to do that but unsure if they actually work. I’m so stressed right now. He literally JUST asked me why he was going to the psych today. I told him to talk to her. He said he didn’t fell like talking to her. Now I hafta try to get him to go. Great. Wish me luck!

Marci

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I’d strongly recommend at least a low dose of some antipsychotic, before the supplement route. It’s like a buffer against serious flareups.

For supplements, I am a strong advocate of Daily Essential Nutrients by Hardy Nutritionals. I’m on day 35 of taking it and my symptoms are well under control, I’m able to get clearheaded enough to clean up my room, my head pressure / chronic headache issues are just a bad memory now, and I’m feeling like I can control my life again. Miraculous to me.

It’s different from standard vitamins because it is the plant, organic form, which the body actually uses most of, as opposed to the inorganic, rock form of the other commonly available multivitamins, that the body maybe uses 15-20% of.

My voices at the start were maybe a 3/10, and head pressure was a 4-5 / 10. Now they are both a 0.5/10 at worst.

I also take Amyloban 3399, which is a patented extract of Lion’s Mane that some studies show can actually reduce psychotic symptoms.

Here’s a big thread about it in the other sz forum:

It has helped a half dozen other people in the thread reduce their positive symptoms substantially.

The two supplements are a great natural combo to reduce symptoms.

I have tapered my antipsychotic dose from 9 mg Paliperidone to 1 mg Haldol with this regimen. I take an extra 1 mg Haldol when I get diet-related flareups (high fat / sugar / protein foods, like junk foods, will give me a mild flareup.) Milk and dairy are two other triggers as well.

Good luck with the recovery!

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I really wish you luck and i pray he takes the meds .

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Hi Marci,
If he acts out again (hitting the RV and cursing), I’d definitely call the police. Tell them what is going on, and insist they take him to the hospital psych ward. Don’t worry about his threats to cut you off if you hospitalize him: a lot of sz make such threats, and don’t follow thru once meds kick in and they become more rational.
Good luck!

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Sounding so familiar… if he’s at least willing to actually see the psych in my opinion you’re half way there.
Interesting, isn’t it, how they can seem to be so functional outside the home environment with only mild social awkwardness or whatnot but still function then at home it’s just outright insanity… I feel for you. Thank you for sharing and good luck! Let us know how things turn out…
Personally, for my MI partner and I, without him willing to talk to any kind of professional whatsoever so there are no meds, I try to keep a diet for us high in your regular ‘brain-foods’ like fish and omegas and whole grains… does it help? Who knows…

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I guess it’s over. My husband refuses to even discuss treatment, as this is all real and he’s not sick at all and it’s progressively getting worse. Much worse. We are currently visitng Or from Tx and we planned on driving up to Wa (rented a car) to drive from friends we’re staying with to visit with our grandkids for a couple of days today. He decided he didn’t want to go. He’s been hold up in friends spare room with no tv, no computer, no car, no nothing - he’s been receiving his “messages” and talking non stop since we got here 4 days ago. He’s going thru his bizarre cycle right now and it’s lasting longer than the usual 2 days (he goes on his normal 2 weeks cycle of 2 days non stop chatter about bizzare stuff of how numbers works, pulling apart words and what they mean, etc), then he moves onto the anger part which lasts about a week, then he’s “normal” for a few days, then back to the anger part for a few days b4 the cycle starts all over again. I think he’s holding in the anger, yelling and screaming cuz we’re at a friends home. We’ve been here for 4 days and I’ve already slept with: The guy we rented the car from (somehow I did it with hubs with me, right under his nose {I’m that good}, hubs nephew {he just got our of prison last week}, and the friend we’re staying with. I forced him to come to lunch with my girlfriend and myself the other day cuz I didn’t want to be accused of anything afterwards.

So, I decided to drive the 8 hrs by myself to visit my 2 grandsons. I was going to leave about 5 am so I could get there early. I get up and my husband hid the rental car keys. After going round and round, I find out that I attempted to kill him last nite. Don’t I remember when he fell out of bed and couldn’t walk? Nope. Don’t I remember trying to kill him? Nope. He can read my mind so even when I don’t say anything, he can read my mind and puts whatever he can think of onto me.

I’ve attempted to be there for him, to love him thru this, to try to get him the help he needs. I abide by my vows (in sickness and in health) and I love my husband more than anything. I can’t seem to help him thru this, non matter what i do. I wish he would threaten his own life so I could get him hospitalized against his will. We now live in Tx where I can go to court and show them that he’s very ill and POSSIBLY get a warrant but it’s also very possible that he can “snap out of it” that he can easily do in front of anyone. So, if the warrant doesn’t work, he will be soooo angry that I attempted it, it’ll make things even worse. So, this morning, I have to wait until the bank opens (9am) so we can go there today and he can get “his” money out (money he inherited from his dad last year) so I don’t steal it (it IS half mine but I’m not going to take it. I have an income and he doesn’t. I’m not into making him destitute) and I’m renting ANOTHER car cuz I’m GOING to see my grandsons. I luv him, I’m not our for vengeance. We’re in the middle of building a house and I guess we’re going to be out about $5,000 of the $20,000 that we’re put into the place so far. I KNOW he can’t make it on his own. I’m actually looking forward to the weekend away from him. I don’t have to listen to his riddles all day. And listen to what a slut I am. I’ve slept with his 92 yr old dad, with my stepson, with my uncle, with his best friend, the car rental guy, his nephew,and the friend we’re staying with. He has no proof but he “knows”.

I’m done

Marci

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Oh, Marci, I am so sorry you are going through this. I understand the cycle your husband goes through, it was similar for my daughter before she was forced on medication by the judge. I wish you could find a way to get him force hospitalized, and force medicated, as if that broke the psychosis, life for you could be different, but those are big “ifs”.

I do not have the understanding of being a spouse with someone who has sz. I only hope that things get easier for you to sort out a way for yourself to exist with less pain.

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Sorry Marci , sounds like you need to breath and get some space for yourself , im sure you will have a great time with your grandsons .Try to relax and enjoy your time with them .

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I’m so sorry, Marci.

I do think it’s a very good move to take some time away from your husband.

I’ll share my perspectives on schizophrenia and marriage, in case it is of any help or comfort for you.

After my husband’s initial break, I spent the next few years focusing most of my time and energy on his recovery and his needs. And as a result, I ended up feeling quite resentful after he relapsed and began to think I was part of the plot against him.

He’s back on medication and doing better now. And I’m trying to do things differently this time by trying to make sure I get my own needs met (both in my marriage and in other areas of life).

Part of this means I’ve had to let go of the illusion that I can somehow “save” him. He’s an adult human who has been dealt a pretty rough hand in many ways, but ultimately, it’s his life and he had the right to live it as he sees fit.

And the same goes for me.

I’m hoping he and I can continue to live life together and so far it seems to be working, but who knows what the future holds?

And I do think that things go better when I engage in reasonable limit setting and also when I insist on certain things for myself. Although he enjoys being “babied” and pampered quite a bit, he truly seems to feel better when he also has opportunities to be “husbandly” and to look after me at times.

This is where being married to someone with a severe mental disorder is different than being a parent, I think.

Marriage is really a two way street and I’m not sure a marriage can endure in any meaningful way without some sort of reciprocity or burden sharing, even if the way this manifests is different than it was before the onset of a partner’s illness.

Enjoy the time with your family. You need it. And it’s OK for you to have needs and to do what you can to get them met.

And thanks for letting us know what’s been happening in your life. As a fellow spouse, I think about you often and wonder how you are.

Vaya con Dios, hermana.

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Hi, I read your post after my live-in boyfriend began backsliding on his meds and is becoming increasingly difficult to live with.

I was wondering your time away from him helped, or if you two were able to move forward?

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Hey Marfar. I have to say you’ve crossed my mind in the last few weeks as I wondered how things were working out for you and buying/building the new house in TX, and I remembered thinking how your story with your husbands illness sounded so sudden and extreme and how it sounds like you’re able to just keep rolling with the punches and picking up at the next beat and I admire your tenacity and level headed-ness in the face of such extreme chaos, between you’re big life changes/moves AND his MI resurfacing with such intensity. My hat is off to you! I hope you made it up to see the grandkids safely and all’s well and the respite and time with family is good. You deserve it!
Seen as my 10+ yr partner has zero insight, is typical ‘not sick doesn’t need help’, has an EXTREMELY strong aversion to even the slightest suggest of a therapist never mind an actual psychiatrist, I don’t exactly have anything helpful to say here, but I at least feel I should tell you that I FULLY understand dealing with the false accusations thing. Yes, I too am the biggest slut, I sleep with bus driver, the sales clerk at the market, his brother, the mailman at the post office, my two best friends (once, I let the one friend’s small dog in on the action), the telemarketer that’s just called my phone that I didn’t answer, that guy over there walking his dog I just said hi to, HIS ex gay lover from his band days… oh yeah. It goes on… and on. It’s tiring and draining and isolating and again, hats off to you! I’ve personally never called in a crisis team or been in a position that I can get my loved one baker acted, but I should imagine that if your hubby has a history, an actual medical history, with a diagnosis and a previous prescription for meds, it shouldn’t be too difficult to talk to your own primary care doctor and get some options for getting your hubby back on meds. I know you recently moved states so maybe you haven’t found a primary care provider in your area yet. But of course, there IS the matter of getting him to actually be willing to take the meds, as always. My thoughts are with you. Again, hope the time with family is precious and beautiful. Keep us posted!

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Well, he kybosh put on the weekend alone with my grandkids and kids. At the last minute my husband decided to go with me cuz “I can’t trust u to go anywhere without me”. The 7 1’2 hr drive to Wa state from Or was awful. He literally argued with me without me saying a word. I looked at the clock and I literally didn’t say a word for like 45 minutes and he argued for that entire time, with me, yelling and putting words in for me. It was bizarre. We got there and spent about an hour with the kids and then he wanted to go to the hotel. Of course the cheapest he could find (expected to find a body under the bed). We can afford a nicer one but he’s a cheapskate. He proceeded to argue with me. I had to hide the car key and my wallet, in fear he would leave me there. Next day, we got to their house about noonish. Took the kids to Target to buy them a toy he rushed the process. He showed no desire to be there at all. He spent a little while with his son in the garage. Even my DIL said “Does’t look like he wants to be around the kids. I know when someone wants to spend time with them, and I totally understand, but he’s their grampa”. We ate dinner and dessert and we out of there by 6. Told them we’d stop by on our way out the next day. I knew we wouldn’t. And we didn’t. Next day we drove back to Or. That nite, he went to bed about 7ish and I went about 8. About 3 is, I got up to the bathroom and he thought I was just coming to bed and I was in the living room with our friend the whole nite (with whom he picked a fight with the nite before). So I had sex with him also the night before we left. In the airports (Medford, Or and Denver), he would wait outside the ladies room and call my name every minute or so and if I wasn’t out within 5 minutes or so, he would just walk into the ladies room. On our flight fro Denver to , we had seats away from each other which I was happy about. He sat down next to me anyway and wasn’t going to move. Not sure how the person knew where he was sitting becuz we were going to ask the person sitting in the seat next to me to switch but no one came and someone just sat in his spot. He wasn’t going to move either way. He said becuz he didn’t trust me. There was a guy on my right (I was in the middle seat) that I accidently bumped once) and Craig said “see. U flirt with everyone”. OMG.

SO, I told the Psychiatrist this that I’ve been conversing with for a few weeks about him.The police showed up at our door today. Of course Craig thought I called them. Nope. Not me this time. The dr called them. Said I was being held hostage. Becuz he waited outside the bathroom doors? OMG. I will never talk to another dr outside of an office again. I guess I cant trust anyone again outside an office.

And of course my uncle (with whom we’re staying in his guest house until our house is build in Dec) wants us to move into our RV to an RV park if I have to call the police again. And I was working on an involuntary warrant for hospililizatilazation (they do that in Tx, if they are declining) and they can be out here the same day I get the paperwork in). But now my uncle doesn’t want the “neighbors looking at him again”. So not sure what I’m supposed to do. Craig will be confused and angry if I tell him we have to move back into the RV into and RV park instead of continuing in the comfortable guest home of my uncles.

Great. Guess I have to continue on the way its been. With him angry at things I’m not doing, unable to work or even repair my car, threatening to leave (I wish he just would), then be all loving and apologizing. Then arguing with me without me saying 1 word, hitting and breaking mirrors because “they” r making him look old and “they” are irritating him and making him angry. He yells at “them” (this past vacation was the 1st time that he’s argued with me and I wasn’t saying a word, he usually does it with “them”).

I lost 4 lbs on our vacay and I’m chewing Gavascon like candy.,My stomach is in knots and I think I may have an ulcer coming on. I need to make an appt with the VA with a therapist. In person (they’ve only been seeing non emergency cases on the phone but he’s with me all the ) but I need to do it alone so I need an in person appt.

Thanks for listening everyone! Appreciate everyone and I read all of ur posts also. And everyone going thru this same shit - I’m so sorry. Mental illness is not for the weak for sure. God gave this special walk for the strong for sure.

Marci

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Hang in there Marci , one day at a time !

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So sorry you didn’t get your vacation:-(

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I’m sorry u haven’t gotten any replies. Wow. 10 yrs? My husband was diagnosed 20 yrs ago but never showed even an inkling of anything until about 18 months ago and it’s progressively gotten worse, pretty quickly. Congrats on ur 1 yr of sobriety, thats quite an achievement. Unsure why those with mental illness feel that they can take street drugs and it’ll make them better but not medical drugs - makes no sense to me. If it were me, I would do ANYTHING to not be miserable anymore. My husband is miserable - said he would do anything - except see a dr and take meds. The only thing that might actually help.

I have no words of wisdom, as I’m flailing myself right now and have no clue what to do. Yesterday he said he was leaving (after wiping out our rather hefty savings acct. It was from an inhertence he got 2 yrs ago from his dad and we were using it to build a house, which will be done in Dec. So legally, I have no say in it) today and he woke up in a decent mood and said he was going to pay some bills and find another bank to deposit the check into. Said he wasn’t happy with the bank it was it (this was the 4th bank in a year. He trusts no one). I’m ready for him to leave. I know he’ll be back, I don’t think he can make it on his own (I mean, physically I think he can, he’s not standing on a corner yelling or anything but he changes his mind like he changes his underwear) so he will eventually be back. But then threaten me with leaving again next week. I was married to my 1st husband (passed in 2007 after 19 yrs of marriage) and neither one of us EVER threatened to leave the other. We rarely fought or even raised our voice. Oh, and I’ll throw this in just for shits and giggles: Craig now says I killed Kevin (my 1st husband) and he’s afraid I’ll kill him too. Kevin died from a ruptured colon. I’m pretty good!

Anyway, if u need to talk, I’m here. Not sure about how this board feels about putting emails in here but I will if its allowed. Anyone know if it is? Take care of urself? Look who’s talking. I think I have an ulcer (seriously, I really think I do - I chew Gavascon like candy). Let me know how ur doing!

Marci

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Just message her directly with email or phone, I have openly posted my cell number, no big deal…

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Did you end up leaving your husband ?