I would love to know if my sister is showing signs of schizophrenia or drug related long term psychosis
she believes in black magic. past lives. gets ‘schizophrenically paranoid’ (she has heard all about this before) and has done for 6 yrs
my mum I don’t know - they have lived together for 6 yrs and recently told me that she is not seeking hospital for my sister because when she could not cope with our middle sister she was in hospital 2 yrs and was failed by the system and was hit by a car and killed
What would indicate schizophrenia ? what would indicate alcoholism?
any idea who could help – she has not had a friend, peer, professional, etc not one person other than me and mum for 6 yrs she out and out refuses
In dual diagnosis situations it’s difficult to sort this out. My brother has bipolar disorder that is seemingly untreated, I can’t be sure what he does. I’ve watched him drink and there seems to be a fairly low threshold he can pass where he gets increasingly incoherent and seemingly psychotic and he’ll sober up and seem okay-ish for a while.
Psychosis when you have Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective disorder are more of a constant or long-lived state. Alcohol or other drug related psychosis is shorter lived and waxes and wanes with levels of intoxication. But with access to enough alcohol and maintaining a fairly constant level of intoxication it can be harder to tell the difference. My experience is drug-related psychosis is more chaotic and unpredictable and belligerent than ‘organic’ psychosis. Organic psychosis has more consistent themes, ‘coherence’ and ‘logic’, if that makes sense. Both are irrational, but one is more ‘structured’ than the other.
Three, so hard for you and your mom. I would just keep giving your mom the suggestion that your sister needs more help than she can provide. Suggest she call a local “mobile crisis team” to come and help her help your sister the next time she is intoxicated and abusive. Maybe call this organization below to get the number for the crisis team in your area.
I have seen this i think in myself and my 2 sisters.
she talks very randomly about spiritual things, without a real meaning or logic it is about being surrounded 3 sides by water, just as the gypsy said
whereas i would be convinced quite long term that i needed to lower my body temperature to stay alive
or our middle sister more like being paranoid people were talking about her tits… but both with schizophrenia we would recognise a language in movements
the enduring paranoia does seem to be there though she definitely has had a long term problem with a guy who has bullied her. to the obsessive point that he needed to take out injunction and got my sister to be on probation herself for 18 months
This has been complex and has lasted 6 yrs
i think there was spiking with drugs and rape but not everything she interpreted was fact on facebook