Are most people with schizophrenia not bothered by filth?

That is the most helpful message I have received so far. It is hard for me to understand that this could be a behavior that he cannot change. He is so smart in other areas, I find it hard to believe that he cannot have basic common sense in other areas like this.
Also just 2 years ago he was not this bad.At that time he was not on any medication!
That is why I wonder if this is all just manipulative. It is also hard for me to understand that he may not see his apartment the same way I do. But your comments are very meaningful because I have to try to understand that his world and how he views it is very different from mine. Thanks for the insight.

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I believe the thread was ‘Accepting Help From Others’…
Maybe.

Hi Wisdom,
I found the thread accepting help from others. Wow! Everything that people were writing is EXACTLY my brother. He used to have a SNAP card and all he would buy were one gallon bottles of juice. His apartment would be full of empty juice bottles. I also wondered how he could actually drink that much fluid. The mattress was disgusting. No sheets EVER. He refused to put sheets on the bed. Mattress very dirty.
Lots of times garbage on top of the mattress! Ashes from smoking all over the floor.
I took his SNAP card away, so that solved the bottle problem. But I am so happy ( in a strange kind of way) to know that there are so many of you that experience the same problem and that my brother is not the unusual exception to everything.
My toilet issue still has to be solved. I feel even with schizophrenia my brother can be manipulative. He just does not flush the toilet PERIOD. This is a new behavior. It happened before but a few times a year. NOT on a weekly basis! I am going to try an experiment and have the aide not go there and " shovel the SHIT out of his toilet"
I told her not to go there for a month. Maybe when he sees no one is going to take care of this, he will flush the toilet. he has been on 6mg of resperidone for about 3 months now. he has had some small improvements. But still hear voices.

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I have no suggestions on how to change bad behaviors outside of proper medication, and counseling, except using the LEAP method to address issues one at a time and very slowly. I am very lucky my daughters medication problem is solved, and that made changing her habits using LEAP conversations relatively “easy” compared to when she was unmedicated. But the Listen, empathize, agree (or agree to disagree) and partner steps of LEAP worked in my family to handle several things. I still use it. If you can somehow find out why he is afraid to flush the toilet, let him know you understand and forge a new agreement then help him keep the agreement, the behavior may change. Personally, I don’t know if the “tough love” approach of stopping the aide cleaning up after him will work. I hope so, but you just may end up with piles of poop all over the bathroom after a month… None of my “tough love” actions (mean actions) ever worked with my daughter, they just made her want to “get me back”.

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Hi,
I thank you for your insight. I feel I have to try not sending the aide there. I know that this could fail. My brother always gets mad at my mom, the aide or me if we tell him what to do OR even ask him to please flush the toilet.
I have many issues with having a "discussion with him about why he is afraid to flush the toilet. It is a very good idea, but there are barriers.

  1. My mom is incapable of expressing anything but anger about this situation and my brother generally responds negatively to her AND she has dementia.
  2. My moms aide speaks broken English because she is not from the U.S. and she would not be able to use LEAP with him. She is very good with him in general. Does not try to force anything. But her English is not good enough to be able to understand how to do LEAP.
  3. I am the best person to try to speak with my brother. BUT I live in CT. my mom and brother live in NY. I visit every 2 weeks but I find that when I see him, I cannot just jump into any serious conversations right away. I have to just be light. Often I play him music that he likes and we sing songs. He does not stay long enough at my moms house for me to attempt to start a conversation about his toilet.
    His visits are much more brief when I am visiting. Maybe he stays for half an hour.
    I ask him to stay longer but he makes up excuses about why he has to go.

Maybe he is uncomfortable around me or maybe he fears me asking him things he does not want to talk about. I do not know.
When I go to visit my mom I stay overnight, so there is plenty of time for us to talk if he would just agree to stay for more than a half hour.

It’s so good to hear that your daughter is doing so well. My son has gone for his injection twice now since the court order ended. Every time it’s time to get his injection I start to panic that he will not go. He only showers when he has to go somewhere and wears the same clothes day night. Is this part of the illness.

I see @j9sit that you seems to be doing the best you can as a distance caregiver. I agree that LEAP re the toilet is probably will not be too workable if you only see your brother every few weeks for 1/2 hour. Perhaps withholding the aide is the best solution in that matter. It might be workable to try and use LEAP to get him to stay longer than 1/2 hour when you visit. It was ONLY successful for me to use LEAP if I had weeks to try and change a behavior, and I could pick up the same conversation where we left off the next time I talked to my daughter.

@Margi I am glad to hear that your son is continuing his injections since the court order ended. I understand your panic when the time approaches, I felt it for 6 months or so and then started to relax, as she just would go when it was her appointment time. We barely talked about it, just “it’s time for your shot tomorrow”. Yes, I think the reluctance to shower and wearing the same clothing day and night is part of the illness. My daughter will shower when I ask her to, and tonight she actually let me go shopping with her to buy some new sweatpants and a sweatshirt. I hope they eventually come out of the bag and find their way onto her body. Her old sweatpants and sweatshirt are almost a year old now, and she wears them daily.