How does your day to day communicating go?

I’m so sorry. Do you listen to music? You are not alone. It’s a struggle to muffle my loud mouth husband. I love him but the he can’t hear well and it gets louder all the time. Guess I shouldn’t complain.

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My mother doesn’t talk to me or any one else in the house. She lost contact with anyone from the outside world over a decade ago, does not talk to my father, barely talks to me. She only really says something when she’s angry and wants me to do something, calling me down for dinner/lunch, or when she feels like asking me how my day went at school if she bothered to pick me up.

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My son will text me, the last time we talked was when I had to pick him up when his car battery died and his car wouldn’t start. That was this past summer.

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Had a bad day with my son, we went to lunch and he got weird on the short drive home. He wouldn’t talk and got very shakey. He walked into his apartment without saying goodbye. Our hour out together started out fine and ended awful, I knew he was having an episode and hearing voices. Oh, and I forgot to mention that he had not showered for at least 3 days!

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I’m sorry. One Christmas Day before we knew what was going on with our son, he asked us to leave his apartment about 2 hours after we arrived. I wish we had known what was going on like you did today, Probably doesn’t make much of a difference to know, it can hurt all the same.

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I’m sorry Irene. This illness is so cyclical and is especially so if they forget or stop their meds. Do you suspect this and can you try to get him to his doctor?
I really hope it was just a bad day. Big hugs.

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Thanks Mom2, He is med compliant (Zyprexa 20mg) and he does take it everyday, I think he needs to try a different med, but he refuses when the doc suggests it. He is becoming more and more isolated since he moved into his apt. 3 months ago, would describe him as a shut in, doesn’t t want to go anywhere,. just to get his nicotine pods… As time goes on the heartbreak from this illness does not get much easier for us parents, but can t even imagine how they are suffering.

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Thanks Hope, you never know how they will be, Hard to make plans with them because they will not feel good at last minute and decide they don t want you around them. So hard, but glad to have this site, to know it s not just my son, it is the horrible disease doing this to them.

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70’s here…a bit cold at night and in the early morning. We move a lot for my husbands work…this is NOT winter people!! Literally sun and palm trees.

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Any pets in the house?

One little dog who is my shadow, one cockatiel who talks to our son throughout the day and SCREAMS when son leaves the room, and one turtle named “Lucky” as husband rescued him from the middle of a busy freeway. These three have moved everywhere with us!

By the way…the drs suggested that we train our pup further, which we did, and he’s been working as service dog for our son for years now. It helped with the “code adams” at walmart. Son would believe he spoke to me, and then disappear. The dog freaks out if he is separated from me, and reminds our son that he shouldn’t be leaving. It works!!!

And the cockatiel making noise when he leaves the room helps. He doesn’t move often, but when he does it could be a problem. He also finds a comfortable reminder with the bird. The bird needs water, or to bathe…so does he.

What is it with showers/bathing and scz??? “Why do I need to take a shower?” Uhhhh, because you stink?

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Yes, I think poor hygiene goes hand in hand with mental illness. Teeth, nails, hair but luckily my son sometimes takes a couple baths a day. He finds them relaxing and I manage to squirt some soap in the bath water. It comes and goes but I appreciate that he has found a way to soothe himself.

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In my opinion, Zyprexa is a good medicine but the nicotine can make it less affective. That was the same dosage my son was on for a couple of years.

My daughter has that problem with hygiene so bad and I didn’t even realize it was an SZ symptom. I didn’t even know you could have a personal hygiene disorder! How ignorant I’ve been for so many years. My daughter has never, even as a small child, liked water. We think it’s some mixture of phobia and the SZ possibly. Of course, if you saw and heard scary things in the bathroom mirror or shower, that would make you not want to shower as well which has been a lot of her issue and we didn’t know it. So, unfortunately, the SZ may be giving her a phobia of water because she’s always seeing and hearing things in the shower. There has been more than one instance of a full-blown panic attack while showering due to a hallucination or delusion, so much so that she often showers in my bathroom so I can be nearby to help her. I was helping her shower well past the age that is appropriate just to help her and there were multiple screaming meltdowns during them. Yeah, hygiene is a really difficult thing in our household. My autistic son? No issues at all, which should have been a clue for us.

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That made me smile :slight_smile: My husband’s hearing is bad and he get’s more and more quiet. I’m not sure which is worse!

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I’m going to say it: OMG!!! (I’m too old for OMG, but this did it!)

My son had a fear of the “turd god”.
He lived below the toilet, kinda like Oscar the Grouch. His chief duty was to eat turds.
I didn’t even use the term “turds”, and certainly didn’t refer to a “god” living below the toilet!

The screaming, and the constipation issues as he wouldn’t use the toilet. He had to be enrolled in a special classroom which had a toilet in it to overcome this challenge. Brother (a year older, and they were hmmm, 6 and 7?) asked for the blueprints for how a toilet works.

That helped…to understand what was actually below the toilet, as he now had other kids scared.
I forgot about that.

Toilets are still an issue here. Must be our toilet, and must be left alone. He takes a long time, and it is a worry as he has self injured in the bathroom. He’s 13 almost 14 now.

Turd gods…he used to scream that he was being fed to the turd god.
I forgot about that. I thought it would never end.

I guess it did!! :grin:

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Wow, that sounds awful! I’m glad we didn’t have that issue although we did have an early potty training delay. It took 18 months. She mastered it quickly but then for some unknown reason she regressed severely for 18 months. We kept pushing, and finally at age 3 it just stopped being an issue. She transitioned to underwear and never looked back. But for 18 months it’s was baffling and to this day I’m still not sure why. It could be she had some kind of fear she couldn’t express at the time.

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so true…so true.
He had a psych break while he was under suicide watch but still at home a few years ago. We had to go to the dr for brother, and the office understood that my younger son could not be left attended at all. While we were at the office, he entered mania. Interesting thing is that I asked for some paper and a pen…perhaps if he drew (note to self, carry these supplies from now on) he could refocus.

He drew ALL THE HALLUCINATIONS.
With a guide. They have names, they have behaviors and realms and punishments and…messages.

Scared the snot out of the staff and drs as this was a family practice not a psych’s office. He wanted everyone to know now that he could explain.

He said it’s like one of those headmasks that the kids wear for virtual gaming. (We do not have one, but he’s seen it.) He said that the world around him shifts, he has to blink his eyes to refocus, and then they are there. If you walk, you’ll walk into a wall, because what is real is only real in your eyes.

But, it’s real. The unexpressed fears.
Geesh, when I saw the pictures and heard the navigation involved…geeeeeesh!
And I wonder why we are still struggling with multiplication?

Geeesh.

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South Park has a recurring character called Mr. Hanky, the Christmas poo, who lives in the toilet. Occasionally, he surfaces to go on some adventure.:poop:

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You make me laugh.
“Hydeee Hoooo!”