My brother(23) has been having persistent delusions for more than a year now, almost 2 years. He claims that all of his friends(mostly from high school) are constantly monitoring him via social media and they are trying to take him down as a form of revenge, even going as far as to saying that they’re hacking his Apple ID, or they’re listening in on whatever he’s saying/doing at home. He even believes things like celebrities making posts online are somehow related to him, or dedicated specifically to mocking/hurting him. Because of this, he’s cut himself off from all of his friends and distrusts everyone, trapping himself inside his room every day and barely eating.
Based on what I’ve looked into, it seems that he has persecutory delusions, delusions of reference, and delusions of grandeur, with mostly delusions of reference. At first it was only his friends from high school that he thought were doing malicious things to him, but it’s gotten worse to the point where he thinks the entire family is plotting against him too. We are constantly getting accused of doing things on purpose to hurt him, and it hurts to hear when all we want is to help him get better.
A lot of his bad thoughts tend to stem from looking at his social media, so we tried to take that away from him, but unfortunately, his current job requires social media and the use of media in itself is very heavy (film/TV related). And when he’s cooped up in his room, there’s nothing else for him to do but look at his phone or watch videos online(It doesn’t even have to be from social media that triggers a negative reaction, he makes a connection with anything on a screen, and things in general). It’s his coping mechanism but it’s hurting him at the same time.
This has affected us terribly, and we are broken and helpless as to what to do. We’ve gone to 2 different psychiatrists, but they were unhelpful and lacked any compassion. He’s taken Abilify and Olanzapine, but he stopped because it was making him “zombie-like” than doing anything for him. The psychiatrists only commanded to increase dosage but did nothing to help him emotionally or mentally, and didn’t bother to explain the reasons for dosage increases (it is a sensitive subject because my parents are already wary of anti-psychotic medication). Because of this, my parents have grown a distrust towards mental health professionals, and my father is entirely anti-medicine, and believes he will eventually just “snap out of it”.
He is currently unmedicated and barely keeping it together enough to do his job, being miserable in his room while we do whatever we can to keep looking for help. We are afraid that it’s only going to get worse. Any advice or solution would be greatly greatly appreciated. And I would really like to know how to find a competent and compassionate mental health professional so I can change my father’s mind about medication. Thank you for reading this far.