My stepson is 32 sz and hasnt taken meds for 4 or more years. He has progressively gotten worse. He argues, steals, calls police on people, stands in the middle of street yelling and cant follow any rules.
Recently he got kicked out of his living situation because he wasnt allowed to smoke inside and he did. In his mind he doesn’t care he then yelled at landlady packed a bag and stole a bunch of DVD ran out the house. Then he called police on her. He ended up in jail for a night. I dont think he has sense about right or wrong. Is this part of the sz too?
My son, age 36 is unmedicated and alway has been. In my opinion, your question is a tricky one.
If my son is in an episode, and by this I mean if he is suffering a total break from reality, he can feel quite justified in his behaviors. Whatever delusion he is caught up in, he totally believes the delusion and his behavior makes sense to him. My son calls the police on people because he actually believes he is being mistreated. When he is yelling at no one, he believes he is yelling at someone with good reason.
While his psychosis is a constant part of his life, when he isn’t overwhelmed by it, he can follow rules - unless there is a delusion involved. The older he gets, the more problems he has with his delusions.
My son has a sense of right and wrong, he just usually sees himself as the one being wronged. His delusions have a great deal of control over his behaviors.
I have noticed that if its something my son really wants, it does seem like he is more careful about adhering to rules.
As Nick, the Peer to Peer instructor (with scz) said whenever he tried to explain something about scz that was difficult to explain, “its tricky”.
I don’t think you can ever confidently count on an unmedicated individual with sz to understand, interpret correctly, or follow basic rules of law and conduct consistently. Sometimes they may “hit it just right” just like the phrase “even a broken clock is right twice a day” as long as their general way of thinking and interpreting their environment is being affected by an unchecked serious mental illness you have to assume for safety’s sake that he or she will not usually behave as he or she should or as society would hope for.
Depends on where they are at the moment. In full blown psychosis there simply are no rules, just a fight for sanity. If the delusion is life threatening, then too there are no rules. Survival can move anyone, mentally ill or sane, to disregard others rules.
That said, mentally ill people can just be jerks like the rest of us. Some can and do use their diagnosis as a tool to get their way. Some are just ticked off at the world and don’t care. Then too some are deeply disturbed when they perceive the absence of right and wrong.
What we sometimes forget is personality and mental illness are separate. My son is unmedicated and does follow the rules. Sure he has days where he has a lapse, but of all my children he is the most sensitive about hurting others and even stresses out when his behavior causes others grief.
What we have found however is the biggest problem is not when he is unmedicated, but when he is self medicating with alcohol. A mentally ill drunk is beyond reason and a general jack ass. At least in our experience.
My daughter, unmedicated, will argue, call police on people, stand in the middle of the street yelling, and ignore rules. Although it isn’t funny, I smiled when I read your post, as so much is similar in my house. She called the police probably 40 times last year, mostly on my husband (her step-dad), she argues with me about things I think (she reads minds) and does that with total strangers when in Wal-Mart for instance, goes downtown and yells at buildings for hours (was arrested Dec 2 for doing that), and usually doesn’t do what I ask until it’s come up for days in a row (knock, knock, here’s breakfast, would you open the door?.. it took over two weeks of daily knocking till she regularly took breakfast from me and now she still does).
It isn’t that she can’t sense right or wrong, but the information (delusions) she is using to decide what’s right or wrong is faulty… usually because she can read minds and decides what a person is thinking without talking to them, so her judgement is faulty.
I always found that somewhat ironic when my son claimed he could read others thoughts, but was incapable of reading body language or other social cues. And yes the judgement was faulty even with “superpower” of mind reading.
Hello everyone;
I am 36 and for most of my life I have been fighting modern medicine! I was aware that I was different at a fairly young age yet it was a great challenge to me to go into the world with no one knowing I had mental conditions of any kind! Well let me be more clear, this was after I was put in a state hospital for the first time! After that short visit I began figuring out how to fix or re-wire my brain. Well that is how I describe it, I think it is really more like a very hard and difficult training proses that is not perfect, but I think it can work at least it has for me. Example of what I’m referring to is, I used to have episodes and fully be engaged in conversation and debates with Clearly my self but to me that was absolutely not the case. I remember feeling my condition litterly getting worse as people explained that there was no one there, I mean you your self feel normal yet everyone is telling you your crazy. That in its self would cause me to slip deeper into my head and that was never good. So while not in that state I went and got sacurity cameras that could record and had motion detection. This was the begging of teaching my self how to not believe my self. I realized that visuall interaction is very powerful and persuasive, For me I was talking to real people because I could hear them see them and in some cases feel them. Then with the click of the power button I could litterly prove to my self that those presences did not exists. So I clearly still face this issue but now I have visuall items like my phone or IPads or Tv that are linked so I can very quickly choose to engage or not. If the person isn’t real then I usually start playing music and after a little while the presence fades. Well any way I just wanted to share that, I have had to do many things like this to regain control of my head! The one thing I want to add also is about following rules, I don’t know if this could help but for me the real problem was if the rule had been broke and then there was a punishment, see that very thaught scared me so bad that I would then break every rule if I had to just to avoid the punishment, it’s tuff that one it’s a very terrible and real anxiety that takes over and that would leave me trying to protect my self at whatever cost!
Hi @Barckingfrog . Welcome to the forum. Thank you for posting here, you explained yourself very well and gave me better insight into what might be happening with my daughter. She is very certain of her ability to read minds and communicate with higher beings. I can tell she is talking to herself, however, she can’t, even if I tell her all the voices are coming from her own mouth she doesn’t believe me.
It was quite some decision for you to go and get security cameras so that you could watch yourself. And to play music which helped the person fade. And to conquer the anxiety. Good job. I don’t know if I could do that myself if my own head went out of control.
Hello,
Really appreciate you sharing how it is for you. We are all on this forum to gain some understanding on what it may be like for our loved ones.
I think alot of what life might be like for my son. He is currently committed to a state hospital.
Welcome to the forum, hope you post more of your thoughts, it truly can help us all. AnnieNorCal
Well see that was a good example by me of this condition, lol! I wanted to reply about the part of reading minds I thaught that also until I faced the fact that my head telling me what you were thinking wasn’t reading minds! For me sleeping and down time is my own worst enamy, I personally found that sleeping to much was a huge problem, if I could describe it it would be like small children in a china closet the longer there left in there with no supervision the more I teams they break, so that’s how it felt in my head if I slept for eight hours my brain was scrambled and it was hard to put it back in order yet if I didn’t sleep enough it also would scramble and I would start moving towards strieght paranoia, so there was a sweet spot of also if someone is dealing with presence’ or seeing people or something there is two things that can make it worse that’s Tempature the colder the worse the vision and isolation, the isolation will help make it more real!
You know, I think this happens with my daughter too: when the weather is cold, she isolates in her room, under the covers. When it is warm, she is out and about. I never really noticed that but perhaps it will help her if I can coax her out of her room on cold days to help beat her isolation.
Yes it’s very interesting to me how temps actually effect all of us, believe it or not. The feeling you get walking by a dark alley way and it’s cold at night, you don’t see anyone there but you get that chill and you get moving faster because you just have that feeling! Well inpart this is due to temps there is a part of are brain that can sense the unseen and are brain takes the stance of better safe than sorry approach to this feeling, I believe that those of us with this condition feel this feeling much more often and we are very sensitive to are surroundings! So we can find are selfs taking the better safe than sorry thing way to much, and if you consider what adrenaline can do to you and how it can effect your decisions! What I am trying to show you folks is that a lot of the symptoms we are dealing with are often actually very relatable by per say the normal person if you understand what feeling to think about and how it makes you feel! See I truly think that many mental conditions are not as scary or odd, really it may just be a young lets say like caveman part that is actually working too much ! See we have these feelings for a reasons at one point it saved are lives , and maybe some of us just have it way to much! Then I today’s world that part may just look crazy to the masses!
PS , I thank all of you for the questions and comments !
Great insight- if it’s something he really wants— I need to remember that although sometimes it’s hard to either provide that or to find out what the current thing is at the moment.
When our son told us he really wanted to be a driver, our first response was “absolutely not”. What he wanted more than anything was to have some kind of job. He thought he could handle driving occasionally. When he lived with us he never drove when he was having an episode, that was the one thing we could see as hopeful. We use the driving apps ourselves when we travel and we have had drivers who were like our son.
He can’t work very often, but having a job makes him feel so much better about himself.
I did the Listen and Empathize parts of Amador LEAP for months which turned into years. He had lived here about 3 years before we Partnered with him for his driving idea. Just recently I realized we did Partner with him - it just wasn’t about taking meds.
My son wants to get a job but I don’t think he’s ready. I’m keeping my thoughts to myself. I hope this is a passing phase. He just started meds and is still very delusional.
I cant imagine my stepson driving. He’s 33 and was hoping we would get him a car, he doesnt even realize its more than a car there is gas, insurance etc. And taking the drivers test oh my. I’ve rode a bike with him and he would cross streets right in front if cars.
But, it also depends on how bad his sz symptoms are and your the best at knowing. Its hard as parents we love them and want them to become independent and have a full life. My stepson refused to get help or take meds. I think the longer they go without meds then its harder for them to do things.