My 51-yesr-old son with Paranoid SZ, gets very negative, complaining about his situation whenever there’s a holiday.
Even a minor holiday like Valentine’s has him pitching a b*tch about all his, of imagined, ailments.
I focus trying to ease his suffering, he vents for a while on Messenger, then signs off for the night.
He always apologizes about his rants.
This Valentine’s it was an often repeated verbalization of; he can’t sleep, the meds are poison, he hates the staff at the group home where he lives, he hates his life. On and on.
He has never gone to Family counseling with me, and never acknowledges that his family has iced him out because of his violence and abuse.
I suppose the holidays encourage him to compare his life with the supposed “normal” life others are presumably having. That must be painful. It’s good he has the insight and consideration to apologize after ranting.
Could you, after listening to his (surely valid) woes, supplant his negative thought patterns with some other preoccupation or even a hobby? I know, easier said than done. But I’ve observed that my brother, ill for decades, can lose himself in reading, to give an example, about saints throughout history. In his case, it seems logical that if his head is filled with the lives of this saint or that one, he isn’t only thinking about what is worth complaining about.
It takes energy on your part, and might even seem to be ignoring of him, but if you pushed some interest upon him and then next time you talk, after he vents, distract to the new topic over and over. Eventually he may realize you are going to keep coming back to that damn topic…so maybe he better get conversant on it. Just a thought. Grasping, as usual, and offering what I have.
