In a previous post I talked about my son’s behavior and his inability or refusal to take his meds. I finally got him to the doctor and they prescribed vraylar. He took it for five days and then stopped yesterday. I have a migraine since Sunday and got up this evening to check on him. He was passed out on the couch and I gathered up his medicine to take for the night and gently woke him up so that he could take it. He got a screening and yelling at me, Tearing pictures off the wall and blaming me for everything. He said all I do is try to shove medicine down his throat or threaten to have him committed to a mental institution. He was very agitated and aggravated towards me. I know he got some pot last night while I was in bed but I truly believe that he has smoked some meth again. When he smokes meth he does some really strange things one of which was putting a washrag and some water in a bowl along with the lid for some pimento and cheese and some taquitos and you put it in the freezer. I also noticed this morning that he was up early and was vacuuming the floor and cleaning the house and went outside to pick up sticks. This is so not like him when he is on his antipsychotic. When I went to check on him this evening he kept screaming at me asking why I was trying to get him to take his medicine when it was early morning. I explained to him that it was only 830 at night. I have put a call into his doctor and I want him to come in tomorrow. I am now locked in my bedroom hoping that my migraine eases soon and that we don’t have any more extensive tonight. I know I will be up and down all night just to make sure everything is OK here. I’m scared for myself and for him!! I did ask if he had smoked meth his voice changed and said that he was going to go out and find all he could and smoke it all and it would be my fault. I don’t receive that!! I’ve given up my entire life to help him and be here for him and he will not place the blame on me!!! I’m all alone here and don’t know what else to do!! However I did manage to get him to take his Vraylar tonight. Praying for a peaceful night. I hate this mental illness and the destruction it causes not only to the person that has it but to the entire family!!!
I’m so sorry you are going through this. We are all here and you are not alone. God bless and I am praying.
Thank you @Mom2 You would think I would be used to this by now after 10 years! But I’ve been doing it alone since November and it’s getting harder!! My migraines are worse and my depression is to!! I feel like I’m in Groundhog Day every day!! 
I’m only 50 and is this what I’ve got to look forward to the rest of my life? Alone with my son and scared? Sigh!!
I’m sorry you are having a bad time. My sz husband (now ex) once went on a two-day bender on opioids. That was fun–NOT. He also was doing really weitd things, like trying to "smoke " the tv remote. He had it in his mouth, and was trying to light it like a cigarette! I was working from home, and was able to keep an eye on him.
I don’t remember it all now, but it ended with me calling the police and his being taken to a hospital. That was a horrible hospital experience. He was restrained in bed , and was thrashing about violently all nite in the ER. They wouldn’t give him anything to calm him down. The doctor said they wanted whatever was in his system to be out first. Another doctor said he should be on Valium. “He’s not going to stop” (bless her) but the other Doctor overruled her,and he struggled al nite. He had huge welts on his wrists from the restraints in the morning.
There’s more to the story, but the point is that he is much better today. He works part time, and is social. For instance, he went to a concert w a friend last week, something he would have not done before.
I think they do improve with age. He’s 50 now, after being diagnosed in his late 20s. So take hope!
For your migraines, I have a couple of friends who suffer with those. One found relief w Botox injections. The other takes magnesium supplements, and has had great success with it. The magnesium cut down the number of migraines she had drastically. It’s a low-cost option you might try. I also found articles about it on the web.
Wishing you a peaceful evening!
So sorry you are experiencing this, hope all calmed down last night.
I have similar arguments with my son about the meds.
And, I try to never wake him up unless I have to. They always wake up soon enough anyway, and the sleep is so important.
You have to keep him away from those drugs. If you have any idea who he’s getting them from, go talk to them. It’s probably a friend who’s selling enough to pay for their own habit - and there’s always plenty of customers. If they understand the situation completely, maybe they won’t sell him anymore.
And, if they don’t understand, I would tell them that you’re desperate. So desperate that you’ll call the law on them if you even suspect they sold drugs to your son again. If that puts you in danger, take the other tactic and tell them if you even suspect they sold drugs to your son again, you’ll personally come over & make sure they never sell drugs to anyone again if you get my drift.
Sheyelo, Is today going any better?
Sorry for your situation. I seriously was just thinking " is mental illness contagious ?" I know it’s not… but the situations we parents are put in literally makes us unwell.
Prayers for at least some peaceful days for you
The stuff we have to deal with on a regular basis can make anyone begin to doubt their own sanity.
Yes he is better today. I’ve been in bed all day recovering from my migraine and he has cleaned the house. He is now sleeping. Hopefully when he wakes up and we can talk he will be himself again. I was able to get him to take his meds!! So that’s a plus!!
And now I keep hearing the sound a roller coaster makes when it pulling the cars up a big hill for the big drop when I think about a psychotic episode starting up.
Glad you both had a better day and he took his meds!
I love roller coasters, especially the big drops, so the analogy doesn’t work for me.
Instead, I feel like I’m falling off the edge into a massive pit I’m never going to be able to climb back out of.
someone once wrote that they felt they were suspended over a massive pit when it came to living with their adult child with scz. Might have been me on the confabulation - I really work to get that word out there, it explains so much. Your recent postings on it have been really good. More and more I am realizing how much confabulation has to do with the voices - its not so much how the voice present, its how they confabulate them. Confabulation is “the replacement of a gap in a person’s memory by a falsification they believe to be true”.
Our children with scz explain the things they hear and see with all these other thoughts.
I agree hope - the more I listen, the more logical my son’s delusions start to sound.
If you lived in a world where mental illness wasn’t a possible reason, and magical things can happen, it makes perfect sense.
It’s actually kind of nice to see the intelligence behind it.
My son, from time to time, asks if he’s just stupid - or why isn’t he smarter. I tell him all the time he’s plenty smart, not that he believes it.
However, sometimes, I think he’d be better off if he wasn’t quite so smart. I have a theory that people who aren’t so sharp are generally happy & don’t have as high a rate of mental illness. At least it seems to work that way for the people I know,
I know, right?
Their worlds are inane, of course their explanations are inane.
To spare anyone from a trip to the dictionary or from thinking I am misspelling “insane” Inane in this use means “lacking sense”.
I 100% agree with this.
I’ve posted this before, but when tested for learning disabilities, my son scored off the charts for being able to
"come up with unique solutions to unusual problems" or something to that effect.
I was always so proud that he was creative, and had a great imagination, because you can’t teach that.
He pays the price for it sometimes with the SZ, but I’m still glad his mind works like that.
I think an innovative thought process is so much more valuable than being able to memorize facts.
I understand what you are going through. My son who is 22 acts just like yours at times. I am scared of him when he yells at me saying how I put him in a mental hospital and locked him away for the rest of his life-I never have put him in a hospital-He puts holes in the walls by banging his fists against them while he declares that I am not his real mom but an impostor that the government has planted to gain control of him. On and on it goes sometimes for months on end and during this time I too lock myself in my room. His doctor tries very hard to get him to take his meds which he won’t take because again the government is poisoning him and he feels normal without them. Thankfully his monthly shot of Abilify does work somewhat but he is on 2 other anti-psychotics as well as anxiety medications. There are times where I feel that I just can’t bear it anymore but somehow I find the strength to go on for both of our sakes
I wanted to add my story here. My son is 17. The other night, he got really drunk out at the lake. Had a run-in with some of his older brother’s friends. Came home and we heard all about this. We went to bed and thought he was going to bed. A few hours later, my older son came in, waking us up, saying his little brother wouldn’t leave his room and was trying to fight everyone. My husband and I went in there and were trying to remove my son. He is 6’1", 230 lbs., strong as a bull. He is cursing at everyone and finally, the older son’s two friends jump up and punch him after continued verbal taunts on his part. I am practically in the middle of this. They pull a door off its hinges in the process. Older son and friends leave. My younger son is still agiated; grabs our cell phones because he knows the police will likely be called. For the next several hours, he terrorizes us. I finally get in one of our vehicles, trying to leave and go call for help, and he jumps in the bed of the truck and punches out the rear window of the truck! I get out of that car, jump into another car and start backing out of our driveway. He jumps on top of the roof of the car, so of course, I stop. He has a completely crazed look in his eyes. Goes in the house and starts breaking things…anything he can lay his hands on. Tells me he is going to microwave our cat. The sheriff shows up (our older son called them after not being able to reach us for hours). The sheriff cannot arrest him because the charges (property damage) are misdemeanors. When he sees the sheriff pull up, he takes off barefoot and shirtless, running through the forest behind our house. He returns to our house after the sheriff leaves, scratched from head to toe, bleeding. I am just wondering…does everyone else experience this level of violence? He complies with taking his meds. My husband and I feel like we have no life anymore. My older son, 19, has moved out of the house because he believes his little brother is dangerous. He has tried to commit suicide twice. Has been hospitalized twice. The hospitals here are terrible. Just drug them up till they can barely talk for about a week and send them home. Child/adolscent shrinks are very scarce and crazy expensive. Tried therapy; he felt like the therapist was “picking at his brain.” Honestly she did seem like he was a science experiment. If anyone has input, I would be most grateful and happy to hear it. I’m new here, by the way. Searching for others in the same boat, I guess. Also would like to add I don’t have much in the way of a support system. Not many family members close by; a very emotionally distant mother who doesn’t count and has no relationship with her grandsons.
It’s good that he’s compliant, but it doesn’t sound like the meds are working, or aren’t working as they should.
Does he take a mood stabilizer in addition to an anti-psychotic?
That made a huge difference when they added that to my son’s meds.
It didn’t stop the psychosis, but it did keep him from having very extreme emotional swings.
How close is he to 18? I had the same problem finding a doctor when my son was under 18. I was even willing to skip the insurance & just pay cash to get him in somewhere & either no one would see him or there was a very long waiting list. Finally, one of the pediatricians in the group he had went to for years heard what was happening & got him in with a friend of his. So, that’s one route to try.
My son is about to turn 28 and over this past year we’ve turned to the mental health department at our county & I’ve been surprised at how much they offer. I don’t agree with what they do all the time, but they are trying. You could look there too.