I’m in the same boat - I wish it was a cruise ship!
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I have days where I just tell myself that this could and has been worse, and that helps. I think the worst time for me was when the illness had just started to surface and I had no idea what was wrong. After you get the diagnosis, as depressing as it is, you at least have something you can try to work with.
Yes, it was the same for me. I had no idea what was going on with my son. HIs behaviors changed so gradually. Looking back later, when we knew, it was all so obvious. If you don’t have any experience with scz you miss all the early signs.
Some of the parents I have met knew right away with their child. Scz was in their family, they were always looking for the signs to emerge.
My mind kept turning everything this way and that, like he was a big puzzle I was trying to figure out. I was relieved to have a diagnosis also. As devastating as it was, at least, as you said, you have something to work with, a direction for your efforts.
Thanks for your reply. I also had no experience with sz in my family either, so I didn’t t see the red flags. This site is helping me so much because I felt like my anxiety level from all this was so high that I couldn’t go to meetings for fear of having a panic attack!
I think that is why the in person support groups can be so vital. Some of the nights people attending are in hyper crisis mode at home and just need to come and talk about it to feel better.
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After one of my son’s episodes, my husband installed cameras at our house. Two are outside and one is inside. The one inside so if my son gets violent, he’ll have it on film for the police to watch. Of course, this just makes my son’s paranoia that much worse. My husband doesn’t understand and doesn’t care to understand our son’s illness. I’ve sent him links, info, you name it, to read. I think he probably skims it, but I really don’t think he cares to understand. He actually has been on this forum once because I told him how helpful I found it. Since I frequently vent about him on here, good thing it was only once! He has an obsession with the fact that our son has never gotten violent with me. He seems to think that he has taken the brunt of the trouble with M and somehow that isn’t “fair.” He says things like he wishes I could see what it feels like to be down on the floor and have his hands around my neck, choking me. I asked him this morning why he brings this up so frequently. I said, as somone who SUPPOSEDLY loves me, why do you wish me harm? Why do you wish our son would assult me? To even the score somehow? He says he doesn’t really wish that upon me, but then why does he bring it up so frequently? He says in the past, I did NOTHING to stop the fights between them when M would get violent and afterwards, I many times would blame him (husband) for part of it. Well, yes, when he’s escalating it with name calling, yelling, cussing. I think he is responsible for part of it. How am I supposed to stop the fights when I’m smaller than either one of them and female? I feel like I can do nothing right in the eyes of my husband. He has unforgiveness and resentment in his heart. I wonder if all of this obsessiveness is just part of his bipolar? I don’t need this on top of what I’m dealing with my son right now. I left the house early today and came to work just to get away from him.
I am going to my first meeting this Monday. I feel like I am about to rip my husband’s head off. (Not really of course, but he is so stubborn and damn annoying.) I better do something. LOL.
You have hit the nail on the head. As long as your hubby continues in way, your son will pick up on it. Geez, they are mentally ill, not stupid. When someone is paranoid they are even more sensitive to the dislike radiating from someone else. The problem is they cannot really discern the reason, so they become highly suspicious of everything.
Your husband, if at all possible, needs to stop and think how he would react in the same situation…you are suspicious and someone is threatening you. In this case voicing the resentment and “unfairness”, which if your son was in the house probably overheard a conversation like this. It just magnifies the threat when yelling and cursing start. Maybe you should ask him to consider maybe the reason you have not been the object of yours son’s violence is because you do not yell, scream, or curse him.
And yes I hear you about wanting to rip the head off a family member who just won’t consider their behavior is making a difficult situation worse. I don’t know if you ever watched The Big Bang Theory, but I try Sheldon’s head explosion stare. Of course it doesn’t work for me either. 
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I don’t really recommend this, but I can’t help myself and I get right up in the middle of it.
They won’t hit me on purpose, but I have caught punches before because things were out of control.
No black eyes, but my nose felt a little disconnected for a few weeks once.
My son’s nose got broke in that fight, and my husband was temporarily blinded when our son sprayed him with homemade pepper spray.
That was the last fight. I took my son in the car & we spent the night in a motel.
Both blamed the other - I can blame no one. My husband came in later than he was supposed to & had a few drinks, although he wasn’t drunk. This has started arguments in the past between the two of us, so my son was already nervous about that. Then he “saw” him come towards me like he was going to hurt me and “heard” him say he was going to kill me. And, he “saw” his dad charge him, when he charged his dad.
Needless to say, my son was just starting the worst phase of his illness - this was about a year and a half ago.
When we came back home, I made everyone apologize & hug it out, but there were some hard feelings on both their parts for awhile. My husband was sure our son hated him, and that hurt his feelings, and that’s way worse than a physical injury to him. Our son was sure his dad hated him and wanted to kill us both - again, worse than a physical injury. And, I had to hear about that broken nose for about a year.
I also made sure that they both understood this could not happen again. My husband was instructed that if he couldn’t come home sober and on time to not come home - it’s not like he doesn’t have plenty of places to stay. We were already in the midst of buying a camper for our property, so I made sure that happened with placement on the property immediately so that he didn’t have to feel the pressure of working on projects out there late then having to make an hour drive home. Now, he comes home about once a week to do laundry and everyone, including me, is better off with less stress.
Unless our son is totally manic, he’s way easier to deal with than his dad, even when his dad is having a good day.
He always needs something - you never get a minutes peace around him unless he’s sleeping.
I identify with everything being said - my husband radiating his dislike which of course my son can feel -
My husband resenting me every time I say our son hasn’t threatened or hurt anyone - when he seems to feel threatened by our son breathing and thinks I need to show him more concern than our son. I’m not the one who makes the laws in this state. Those laws are what define threats in the court system, not me.
My son would be capable of a hug out - but my husband would not be.
The expressions of resentment that LIsaS’s husband has voiced at her, that sort of thing makes me furious. I am trying to solve a problem here and that’s the sort of support I get?
The cameras that he wants so eagerly to “catch” our son doing something? They’ve been running for a long time and NOTHING HAS HAPPENED. - Oh, I forgot, we did record a neighbor on a four wheeler looking for his dog. I don’t allow him to have them facing our son’s apartment. I know just their presence upsets Jeb.
Mine has been angry for days now because I didn’t allow him to go out and place the recording device outside the other night. He didn’t want to sneak it out there, he wanted to make a show of going outside himself to upset Jeb.
Not gonna happen buddy boy.
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Not funny, but pretty damn funny…
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That’s passive aggressive?
You at least make me feel better that my husband will acknowledge he has issues, and he feels terrible about whatever happens when the heat of the moment is over.
However, if it came down to choosing, I’d always have to choose my son.
My husband can take care of himself - no matter how crazy he can get.
Our son has more than proven he can not.
I think the days of him trying to force the issue are over. Some of the things he had to see this past year, which was not nearly as much as what I saw, made it crystal clear that our son was seriously mentally ill - to the point we were lucky he made it through alive. All of the random comments about maybe it’s because of this, or maybe he’s faking it for drugs or attention, or maybe getting a job/girlfriend/etc would help have all stopped.
I think part of the change is also me. Now that I’ve pretty much came through menopause & my hormones seem to be dead level, I’m much less apt to entertain any kind of nonsense or crazy ideas from anyone other than our son. At a certain point, it was get with the program or don’t come home - ever.
We had several very brutal discussions because I just couldn’t deal with both of them acting out and pulling me in so many different directions. If it had continued, I’d have needed my own bed in the mental ward.
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My husband will seem to make progress in working with me and showing compassion towards Jeb, but cannot maintain it. He ultimately wants Jeb gone. When Jeb was young (under 10) one of our dogs was hit by a car and killed. Jeb loved the dog and was upset. When my husband showed grief for the loss, Jeb lashed out at him saying “You never cared about “Spot”!” My husband was hurt that Jeb felt that way. How could Jeb have felt differently- when all my husband ever did was complain loudly about the dog?
My husband has always been a negative spirit as an adult, it does make sense that Jeb’s illness would focus on him.
He has a low threshold for frustration and after reading about cognitive behavior therapy, I do believe his issue is jumping to conclusions which contributes to paranoia.
Road rage - he jumps to the conclusion the other drivers are doing things to him personally
Jeb - parents we know were killed by their son with scz, he jumps to conclusion that Jeb will kill us.
He concludes that Jeb in jail will mean Jeb gone from his life.
Jeb having a psychotic episode means Jeb is about to kill him.
My choice is like slw’s. When the apartment was being built and Jeb was saying he would not move into it, husband was freaking out that I was building it for nothing. I meant it when I told husband not worry, one of us will be moving out there, that I know for sure.
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My son isn’t in the house because he attacked my husband (and went after me with scissors). He also tried to kill himself that night, cutting himself to ribbons and trying to hang himself in the backyard from a tree. He was in patient at the order of the judge for 2 weeks. Now he is in a juvenille (jail) facility awaiting placement in a group home. He called us last night and has been trying unsuccesfully to get us to bail him out. When I gave him another no and my reasons why, he said “He’s manipulating you, isn’t he?” (His dad.) I explained, no he isn’t, these are my decisions and thoughts and mine alone. Things got nasty and he said he didn’t want to speak to me anymore. Hung up on me. The next hour was spent having my husband rant and rave in a complete bipolar meltdown. He had the audacity to ask me this morning if I was mad at him. Do you think? I resorted to sitting on our patio last night in 95 degree heat because I was tired of his tirade. I feel sad and exhausted just typing this. I hope everyone else is having a better day than I am.
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Why does the energy from our children with mental illness unleash these extreme behaviors in our spouses?
It is such selfish behavior on this part for you to have to endure his rant. I am sorry.
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I. The mental illness is most likely genetic - and it had to come from somewhere.
- What people don’t like in others, is usually a reflection of what they don’t like about themselves. I think these fathers have a milder form of what their son’s have - and it scares them. Either they blame themselves or they’re afraid they may get that sick themselves one day.
My husband had a bad motorcycle accident about 8 years ago & they kept him in a drug-induced coma for about 10 days so they could keep him on a ventilator. When they brought him to, he seemed OK at first, but within 24 hours, he was in full-blown psychotic break mode.
He wouldn’t sleep, he saw dead people coming out the ceiling, he was sure another patient (he could see their door, not them) was walking around with a baseball bat killing people, he was sure we were in New Zealand (one of the male nurses had been watching sports in New Zealand on the TV while he was supposedly unconscious - he remembered too much of stuff to be all the way out), he thought I was dead every time I left the room, he kept asking for his other body (that body was black, he’s white), he talked about children we don’t have, he was sure the poor guy who had to check his blood was pumping him full of Adderall and that’s why he couldn’t sleep – I could keep going.
So, I know he’s got that psychosis trait in him - he’s just got better control of it than our son most of the time…
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When I respond in a way my son doesn’t like, he will dismiss my response as ‘mind control’! Not by my husband, but by the military, or the aliens, or whatever external power he is currently paranoid about. It would be funny if it wasn’t so darn difficult to come up with a response to THAT!
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That’s one that doesn’t happen here thankfully.
My son doesn’t know why, but I’m one of the only people who’s not susceptible to his psychic abilities.
So, he can’t see through my eyes, predict my future or make me faint over the phone.
I guess when that ends, so will the little bit of influence over him I still have.
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It is exhausting and sad.
We had a huge crisis this spring…police, restraints, involuntary admit. Thing are better now. Hope knowing that we all go through something similar and understand helps you through this.
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It does help to know others go through similar. Not that I would wish this on my worst enemy, of course! Although my son told me he didn’t want to speak to me again last week, he called last night. My older son was over for dinner, so I let him talk to his brother and he urged him to use this time to really think about his future and what he wants for himself. He encouraged him to behave and not cause problems where he’s at. They had a nice chat and ended it with “I love you’s.” My younger son attacked my older son last fall, so there has been some hard feelings there. My older son is being the bigger person and forgiving. The younger one is still pestering me to bail him out. I wish he would just let that go. I am not going to no matter what. Our conversations would be so much less stressful for me if he would just stop with that broken record. Anyhow I have bounced back from my sad day last Friday and back to my normal sunny self. Thanks to all of you, it is easier to do these days!
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