I apologize for the lengthy post and thanks in advance for reading. My 27 year old son has seemingly developed some psychotic symptoms over the past two months. It started in August with extreme stress and anxiety over his job, which was cold calling sales for a tech company. He had been employed there since January, and at first loved it and was doing well. He then got promoted in June and he was constantly worried about being fired. In August he came home from work one day and said that the bosses were spying on him and listening in on his calls, people were whispering about him at the office. Over the next week be was so distressed he said they were in our home Wi-Fi and we needed to turn it off. In a few days he decided to quit because he was so stressed. He seemed ok and so relieved to not be working. At this point he was behaving normally. This set off alarm bells for me because this same thing happened to his brother 2 and a half years ago. He was paranoid about work and was hallucinating, seeing people with guns. He was aware, though and asked to go to the E R which didn’t help him at all. It was right before Christmas and he couldn’t get an appointment with a psychiatrist until the middle of January. By the time for his appointment came, he refused to go, and ended up leaving this world by his own hand in February. So you can see that I am beyond devastated. I asked my younger son to get help and he refuses saying he’s not sick. He has a sudden obsession with the Avengers,sometimes does not make sense, and I hear him talking to himself ( sounds like he is answering someone). He is sleeping a lot. He also is a heavy marijuana user, and I know the correlation. This has been going on now for a week. I can’t hear to lose another child! Anyone with advice? I am reading the I’m not sick book. I’m afraid to leave him alone, but I need to work. I took last week off. Do I take his car keys? What can I do to keep him safe? I am so frightened. To top it all off i am in the midst of a high conflict divorce from his father, and I have had to be in contact with his dad about this, and his dad is abusive, and having to communicate with him is bringing back the pain. Thanks for listening.
If he is out of touch with reality, you can call for an ambulance and get a psych evaluation at the hospital. If they can get him on the right meds, he may be fine. But right now, he’s unable to see that he’s out of touch with reality so it’ll be hard to get him to a dr voluntarily
Hi Pinky,
I can’t imagine the heartache you’ve endured and let me first say you are a very strong person. My son went through similar symptoms. He was in agony and I won’t go into the horror of it all. I got involved with NAMI ( National Alliance for the mentally ill) and took a class for family and caregivers. They helped me SO much. Look up NAMI on the internet for your area. How I got my son hospitalized was I convinced him he may have attention deficit disorder. I managed to get him to the ER. He was having severe psychotic symptoms, and of course they were not willing to help. I firmly told them my son needs help is it going to take him to kill me to get it?! Well they then transported him to a psychiatric hospital against his will. Where I live it’s called being pink slipped. It’s difficult here they need to be court ordered or have a doctor sign the papers. But since I was so firm and my son was obviously a mess it got done. It was the worst thing I’ve ever gone through because I felt as if I was betraying him. But he needed to go. He isn’t doing all that great, he never goes out and has no friends or anyone but me. But he is no longer suffering. I don’t think I’ve done the right thing after the hospital because I baby him and over protect him. He’s 36 now and went to the hospital at age 20. But in any case, there is hope and please don’t give up. I prayed so hard for my son and I truly feel that made the difference.
I know where I live an officer explained I can call the crisis line. Check if your state has this option. I registered and in the event my son is in the midst of a crisis I call and they send someone to your house to assess and hospitalize them if necessary. I’m keeping you in my prayers. I know how important it is to get care in a timely manner. It can make all the difference.
I agree with the crisis line suggestion. You can google and find a number and if they are not the right resource for what you need, they might be able to point you in the right direction. They are operating around the clock. This is how I eventually got my son to go to the hospital to get evaluated voluntarily. We had already taken his keys by then for safety reasons and were with him 24/7. But the crisis team sent two people over to talk to him and us and were very good communicating with him and suggested going because of all the stress he had been experiencing. It took a couple more days to get him admitted after a failed ER visit, but he stayed for 9 days on a voluntary basis. He called several times a day and we were always able to talk him down and keep him there.
Thank you everyone for your replies. I will look into the crisis line today. My worry is that he is seeming very normal most of the time, with brief interludes of psychosis, and that a professional will not see what is starting. I have started keeping a journal, also.
@Pinky My son seemed to be conversing normally when the crisis team was at our house, very calm, responding to questions, engaged. They were very good at picking up on nonverbal signs that he was likely hallucinating at the time and recognized how sick he was where your average person might not have picked up on much, if any, of it. You would also talk to them and give them all the info and things you have observed beforehand. I spoke with them 3 times before they met my son.
He has to have an individual diagnosis. He can’t be helped without it. So sorry, you have had a hard time.
It is a tough disease when I first found out about my grandson I was lucky to know a nurse that worked at a psyche hospital. She talked to the process there and they said to get him on Clozapine to get his life back soeverytime he went to the doc and I went with him I would ask to pu t him on Clozapine. You got to fight for it. My grandson was back to his normal self after 5 days on it. Of course tgey had to put him in the hospital for 2weeks so they could bring his dose up quickly. In the hospital they can increase it 50 MG a day I believe but in clinic only 50 MG every 2 weeks. Miracle drug