The suggestion to consider a residential treatment facility is a good one. You have had 2 acute hospital stays, medication compliance and still no results. It may warrant a longer term placement. You would likely need to appeal to the county mental health programs for the funding or assistance. Stays are often 60-90 days and since he’s a minor for another year, this would be a good time to do it. I have seen kids improve significantly after intensive treatment. I am a social worker who is also the mom of a son with sz.
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Can you dilute it in a soda or something? My son yells at me also. He says " thanks for reminding me i need to kill myself mom, it will be your fault when i do" in the beginning this devistated me but now i don’t take it to heart. I love him. It hurts me, it rips my heart out. But he is not who he used to be. And i have to remind myself of that. Peace and hugs.
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Lisa: From what I understand sometimes even with meds the voices never stop. However, there are support groups to help people experiencing voices to find some measure of acceptance and relief. If you don’t already know about it look up Hearing Voices Network. Meeting and talking to others with the same experience might help him. They also explore and share tactics to use that can help the voices to quiet down or become less frequent. Peace to you and your family
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Thank you! I did not know about this network. I will look this up and pass it on to him. He has always turned down my attempts to get him to go online and join other groups, but you never know. He may change his mind one day. Wishing you good health and a good day!
This is the most difficult part. He has to stop believing the voices are real before much improvement will occur. I had so many arguments with my cousins about this. It took me quite awhile to fully accept it. I think it helped that people my own age who I loved and trusted were telling me that the voices were not real, that they were just being created by my own brain.
And yes, sometimes (really for me, most of the time) the voices can be quite amusing and entertaining. I was witty, sarcastic, and snarky before my first psychotic break, and the voices reflect that because they are being created by me. It is easy to get sucked in by them and begin to like them when they say outrageously funny things, and sometimes they say things that are so absurd given the situation that you almost can’t help but laugh at them. And then it just feeds the delusional thoughts and makes them grow more believable and more powerful. I have learned to not give into laughing at them out in public, or around anyone else, but sometimes when I’m alone in my room I do laugh. Which is one of the reasons it’s not good for me to spend much time in my bedroom.
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Wes, at the very end you said “which is one of the reasons its not good for me to spend much time in my bedroom”. Do you say that because a person could get too into the voices fulfilling the desire for friends?
Like you, my son was witty before his illness.
I have a question, since my son turned to the empty chair to talk - does this mean he actually sees a person?
Thanks so much for sharing. Like another person said somewhere on the board, I do think the people who share on this board tend to have relatives who suffer from pretty severe schizophrenia. I hope that my son’s work with CBT is helping him.
Exactly!
Some schizophrenics do see people who are not there, and their illness tends to be more severe. I rarely have any visual hallucinations (and when I do it is very brief, such as briefly seeing people looking in my window out of the corner of my eye, and then turning my head to look at them, and there’s no one there, that kind of thing). I mostly have auditory hallucinations-- voices, the sound of footsteps, the sound of scratching and clawing on the walls, the sound of something bumping up against a door, the sound of doors creaking open in the pitch black darkness of night, that sort of thing. But mostly voices, and they were reduced in intensity with meds, but never fully eliminated.
That probably has a lot to do with why he laughs at the voices. He was witty, they’re witty.
I hope so, too. It helped me a lot.
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Lisa, your story is truly heartbreaking. Please remember what all of us share are opinions and you can sort through what works for you and what does not. With that said, I will share a thought based on my experience with an adult paranoid sz whose father was an alcoholic with untreated mental illness.
In AA they will not let you get away with the denial of responsibility for your action. Period. Yes your son has a MI but drinking is always a choice…not a very good one as alcohol essentially interacts with meds rendering them useless. And for some folks alcohol simply enrages them. To be very frank I was much more afraid of my enraged drunk husband than I have ever been with my son at the height of his delusions.
Boundaries with the mentally ill are somewhat different than non ill people, but it should always be clear violence is inexcusable no matter what the reason. And if that boundary is crossed there are consequences for which they are responsible. As a mom, I do know letting your child feel the pain of some of those consequences is very hard. You want to protect your son, but please not at the expense of your life!
Find a group or therapist to work those boundaries/consequences out and share them with your entire family. Hoping for the best for you and your family.
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I appreciate your input! I probably have been too lax in the area of boundaries with him because of his multiple mental illnesses and now it is coming back to bite me. I have difficulty with confrontational situations, probably because of the way I was raised. My dad was very volatile and I grew up feeling like I was walking on egg shells all the time, never knowing what would set him off. I wanted a peaceful life for myself after he died (from pancreatic cancer) when I was 16. So therein lies my problem. I am laid back and good natured and my son has taken full advantage of this.
He is presently in a juvenile (jail) facility for attacking his dad in the middle of July. This was his second offense so now the juvenile justice system is dealing with him. He is begging for us to bail him out but we have been sticking to our guns and not doing it.
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Hi Jan, I looked it up:
“The overall percentage of participants (Schizophrenia Patients) who committed acts of violence was 19 percent. Those with a history of childhood conduct problems reported violence twice as frequently (28 percent) as those without conduct problems (14 percent). In both groups, violence was more likely among those who were unemployed or underemployed, living with family or in restrictive settings (such as a halfway house or hospital), been recently arrested, or involved with the police.” July 2, 2007.
Source: US National Institute for Mental Health https://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2007/violence-in-schizophrenia-patients-more-likely-among-those-with-childhood-conduct-problems.shtml
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My son is also a meth abuser. He’s been ill since he was about 17 with schizophrenia. He’s 26 now. My life has drastically changed and my health started declining. The situation with my son has only gotten worse since onset. I hate this illness too. I see so many parents on here that say their son or daughter are behaving the same exact way as my son does. So I know I’m not alone. I keep trying to educate my family about his illness but his behavor is awful and nobody can tolerate him. He’s in the hospital right now bc he was out was out wandering around town and was hit by car which fractured his hip bone…long story…but we can all try to just hang in there and support each other. I wish you the best and lets pray some day we can all get back to good …
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I have 2 sons too. My oldest is 29. Your post caught my eye bc so much matched …my oldest sons friends was friends with my younger son too, until they realized he really was crazy and swung at a few of them. Now they don’t really have much to do with him. His older brother only tolerates him to a degree. Last time we visited my oldest son at his house he asked us to leave bc his neighbors was going to see his brother acting weird in the driveway. So we sadly left.
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You can refuse to take him home and then work on guardianship to force him on his meds. It sounds like he has qualified for you to obtain guardianship.
Thank you so much!! I haven’t been on here for for quite awhile so please forgive the delayed response.