Few observations about my son then and now

My son as a child was a generous happy child and would always offer you a sweet, anything he had actually.
Then as he became ill, he became so selfish, one night he had a huge family bag of doritos and he wouldnt even give me a single one lol.

Now on meds for a year , he has totally changed, he offers, If I ask he always gives me a little, shares, I don’t ask him all the time, for instance I made him some pancakes for his breakfast (lunch time) they looked so nice so I asked him for a tiny piece of one, he willingly cut me a piece off without a word. Rewind two years and he would have flat refused or kicked up such a fuss.

I just thought there it was something I noticed, did the illness make him angry and greedy and only think of himself, yes I think so.

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The same for my son. Sweetest boy and young man ever, until the illness kicked in. It is a result of the chaos going on in their heads I think. They cannot seem to see anything outside of themselves. After being stabilized though, and then some time for his brain to heal a bit from all of the psychotic episodes, I am seeing him slowly returning to that sweet thoughtful person I missed so much. Long way to go but it gives someone hope.

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That’s great Leiann, before I knew he was getting ill I couldn’t fathom out why at times he was so cruel , name calling accusations and the greedy unaffected person I thought he had become, if course I thought “people don’t change this much” not knowing what was going on in him. I treasure everything, every hug I ask for and get :grin:

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@Jane57 Isn’t that the truth! The small miracles that we rejoice over now, would have gone almost un-noticed before! But now they mean “everything”!!! I have to ask for hugs now too and will always get them. Certainly not the full body hug he used to give, I can still tell that it’s difficult for him, but I get one. For the longest time he could not stand to be touched and truthfully, seemed to hate me. It was heart breaking as I’m sure you know. So, just that little bit of contact means so much. Reminds us that this illness can’t take everything, that there is hope, and that they are still in there, fighting with everything they have, to get out!

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My son never cared too much for food growing up. Some times, I’d literally have to follow him around as he played when he was pre-school age & get him to take a bite now & then.

He still never got greedy about food or anything else as he got ill, but a few hospitalizations ago, they gave him some dinner during intake. It looked pretty good - it was a SouthWestern meal with tacos, beans & rice, some salsa and a few other things (he loves this particular hospital because the food is really good). He was nibbling on it here & there, but not really digging in. The lady doing intake went to took it and he snatched it back - and she let him keep it. After she was gone, I asked him why he did that - he said he didn’t know when he’d get food again.

In this hospital, they feed you. Three good meals a day, three snacks a day where they bring a cart around & let you have your pick, plus, if you ask, they usually have something else you can have. He’d been there twice before, so he knew that.

I think this goes back to their paranoia & their primitive mind taking over. They’re just in self-preservation mode. I don’t think it’s so much a loss of manners or greed as we would think of greed.

Just my theory based on what I’ve seen in my son - and overthinking things.

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We quickly learn to become over thinkers through this process, don’t we? That’s our survival instinct kicking in :slight_smile: I think it’s a part of what makes us such good care takers.

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Yes a really good point slw.
Oh my that food you speak of sounds mouth watering. You guys would find food here really boring compared to USAfood , you have so much varied choices. haha.

@slw the food at the hospital here in Canada is horrible compared to what that particular hospital sounds like it has! Ours as I understand it are put together in Ottawa, then frozen and shipped to hospitals that are hours away. Then microwaved before sent to the patients. Looked like slop to me and my son complained whenever he was in the hospital. Funny thing is that recently he asked me if I knew how to make meatloaf like they had at the hospital. What I was thinking was, sure, I will open a can of wet dog food, throw it on a plate with some ketchup on top…what I said was “sure honey, I will figure it out” :slight_smile:

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I have friends in the UK - they’re near Bristol in Weston Super-Mare.
They sound like they do OK.

But this hospital was great for food since it was a stand-alone psychiatric facility & they didn’t have people there with a lot of dietary restrictions.

They’d have fried chicken, country fried steak with gravy, Philly cheese steaks, all kinds of good stuff.
Of course, every meal wasn’t a winner and they did have salads and other healthier things mixed in, but it was more like what we eat at home.

The other hospital is part of a regular hospital, so most of them got the “regular” meals that didn’t have a dietary restriction, but it was bland food for the most part with little seasoning, and my son likes his food with lots of seasoning on it - especially spicy seasonings.

It’s not unusual for him to use Frank’s Red Hot (that’s hot sauce) as salad dressing. In the other hospital, as long as he could go to the cafeteria, they had little packs of Texas Pete (another hot sauce) he could put on anything he wanted.

By coincidence, we were just talking about it & he said he’d rather go to the stand-alone facility no matter what just because the food is good & he’d get to go outside & smoke 3X a day.

Haha us in the uk probably have similar.

Ahh Weston super mare is a nice place, much further south than where I live .
Food is ok really here, just we go to USA regularly on holiday and I love the choices.

The food in the bigger hospital is made there fresh. They’ve brought me a meal during intake. There’s nothing wrong with the quality of the food - it’s just blander than we’re used to at home.

I don’t know how many of you are from the south (sounds like not many on this thread), but it’s good, comfort food - lots of what many would prefer to as soul food. The stand-alone hospital is in the neighboring city, but it only takes me about 30 minutes to get there. It’s smaller, and closer to rural areas. So, I’m betting their kitchen staff is more rural and eats more like what we eat, so they cook more like we cook if that makes sense. Again, my theory.

Where are you living slw?

We live in central Virginia.

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Coincidentally, I spent a few years of my childhood in Richmond and then, Petersburg, lovely memories of the state. Would like to get back to Virginia if only to visit the beach again. :slight_smile:

I work next to the river in Richmond, but I live in Chesterfield.

The closer hospital with the not-so-good food is right on the border of Richmond & Chesterfield, and the one with the good food is in Petersburg, again, right on the county/city line.

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Agreed, we’re also in the UK and also like to holiday (vacation) in the US (Florida).

Plenty of eating out choice in the UK but much less of it than the US. In part this is probably because of real estate prices and business taxation, so eating out in the UK is expensive and more of a treat than an everyday thing.

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Where are you shop1uk? We are in the north east .

We’re in Cambridgeshire.

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