Diagnosed opinion:
A reality I feel is important for caregivers to come to grips with is periods of psychosis change you—both psychologically and neurologically. Although I’m ostensibly recovered or “cured” to untrained eyes, I’m not the same person I was before my illness and never can be.
I’ve theorized in the past here that your husband’s behavior can be explained two-fold: First, caregivers tend to be innocent bystanders to delusional thinking and feeling. As you sink into psychosis your social world collapses to mostly loved ones and close friends— ie. caregivers. And through anasognosia and process of elimination, disease and your thoughts and feelings can’t be the source of distress— so caregivers and the vast unknowable conspiracy are the usual suspects. Aside from ranting, there’s no way to address and call to task the vast conspiracy, so caregivers bear the brunt of the “blame” and delusional thinking creates false charges they’re “guilty” of. Second, at an unconscious or conscious level, there’s the troupe of diagnosed people “abandoning themselves to the ice flow”. That is: deep down they realize that their loved ones might be better off without them because of their liabilities or disabilities, and push them away or run away to isolate themselves to contain the potential and real damage they may cause. I feel homelessness for many people has roots in this dynamic, perhaps an evolutionary remnant of hermits, monks and shaman of past civilizations.
As others have mentioned, medication is the best path to improving your husband’s situation and Dr. Amador’s LEAP method is a way to nudge him in that direction, but one that can be painfully slow. For your toddler’s sake, I feel separation is your best option. Recovery in a best case scenario such as mine can take 2-3 years with 5-10 to move to the illusion of “normalcy”. As a sibling and caregiver to an older brother with a serious mental illness, exposure of minors to active mental illness can be traumatic. So reducing exposure of your toddler to your husband is advisable. Since schizophrenia can be episodic, you may be able to reduce your child’s exposure to negative behaviors, while increasing the odds of positive experiences with managed visits.