I am a wreck now

Let me know how court goes-

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Weā€™ll be thinking of you and your son as you carry on. Take care, hope

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Hi there, update for my son s court hearing last Thursday, the lawyer kept him detained till the next court hearing Dec 12th. The lawyer did get him to sign papers for preliminary mental health courts, but lawyer said he may not be accepted because of his violent charges, all so confusing. I went in the courtroom and saw my son in his handcuffs and jail garb, sobering for sure. I am glad they are keeping him contained, as he is seems very unstable and I would be afraid for him to be out. Also he is not able to go back to his prior living arrangements. He has been calling me once or twice a day from jail and yesterday he was very angry and said he is in jail because I stole $1000.00 from him. So I would be very scared if he was out. Today he called and sounded calm and said he got a haircut and he was talking about when he gets back to his place and I just said, we will see what happens. He said the jail nurse checked him today and he has to take his Abilify. Just a waiting game and I am trying to get myself calmer during this respite. I hope everyone is having a peaceful day and again, this illness is beyond stressful for all involved. One day at a time.

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So sorry all of this has happened. I just want my boy to be well, but heā€™s not, and he stopped taking his Zyprexa. I have had to go to probate court to get an order for involuntary commitment for my son. The police came and escorted him to the emergency room for psychiatric evaluation. I also got guardianship so that I can approve medications. It seems like they all think they can be medication free, but it never works. One of my people was on Abilify, but it did not help enough. She is now on Invega injections. Hopefully she wonā€™t refuse it. I wish my son was on Invega Injections, but he is terrified of needles. Hopefully, someday.

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Hi, good you got your son to hospital, my son refused to go and it was impossible here to have an involuntary. They do want go off their meds and it sure causes even more trouble for them and everyone else. My son was hard enough when he was taking his meds. He was on Abilify and it never worked well. Years ago he was on zyprexa and that seemed better but he didnā€™t like the side effects. The Abilify made my son have a huge weight gain. I hope all goes well for all of us tonight. :peace_symbol:

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This is so sad and my heart is breaking for you and your son. There is no sadness like this ā€¦ my beloved sweet son has schizophrenia diagnosed in 2013. I still cry my heart out for him, and constantly think of those childhood days. Photos are hard to look at. Itā€™s so unfair. :cry:

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I know! This is a hard day for me, he called me from jail this morning and he sounded so delusional that I am sad all day. I can not stand the thought of him being licked up in prison and being so sick. I cannot look at pics of when he was young and so beautiful and bright. I am feeling so devastated today. I hope this goes away soon and I just feel sad. I know I am not the only one going thru this, but today that does not make me feel any better. Trying to be hopeful, but having a hard time. My heart goes up to you and you beloved son, so, so sad. And it is thru no fault of their own that they got this insidious disease.

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My sons been in jail since January and Ssa continues to send his check. I imagine at some point they will want the money back-

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My son did well on haldol for many years until he decided not to take it.

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So sorry Irene- itā€™s the most devastating thing to watch your loved one decompensate when there is medication available but no one will help if heā€™s refuses to take it.
Take care of yourself

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Yes it is heartbreaking. My son called me from jail last night and sounded completely delusional and was talking very loud and making no sense. It is so sad that they can not be forced to take a shot in a med form so they can come to their senses, it that is even possible at this point. It is even harder to be homeless when you are psychotic off meds. What a sad illness this is for all of us, our loved ones and family. Maybe one day they will get some insight and take their meds. There is not much we can do to help them at this point. Take care of yourself too.

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With your husband having visible wounds, and its happened before, that seems to me to be proof of danger to others. Thatā€™s pretty much standard. Did police or case manager/mental health staff, see his face? I know here where we live, this would most likely get an involuntary committment for a week or two at least. I know about our suck ass mental health system here in the US and it makes me so angry!! Our loved ones deserve better! I wish I was about 15 years younger so I could advocate in a meaningful way. I try to keep up on whats going on with new treatments, new laws, HIPPA laws need some reform. Etc but I get very upset knowing that its too late for my son. Iā€™m crying right now. I feel there isnt much more can be done for him and Iā€™ll go to my grave crying for him and wondering what will happen to him when I am not here to be his mother. That is, if he doesnā€™t go before me, in which case I really will die!

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I am heartbroken for you. I know we all here are. This terrible illness robs them of a good, fulfilling, normal life. We all suffer a form of grief called ambiguous grief or chronic sorrow. It doesnt ever go away, similar to an actual death of your child, it FEELS like a death to us! But we do not get the support and understanding, the closure never happens. We really cannot make people understand how this feels unless theyre in it.

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My 37 year old son is on the monthly invega injection. Itā€™s good because he has trouble with pills; not taking them, or taking too many to ā€œcatch upā€ and thatā€™s so dangerous!

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The ambiguous grief is the worst. We all know what it feels like, it is horrible, no closure, no sympathy, no peace. The police arrested my son after he attacked my husband. He is in jail with a felony charge and unlawful entering my house. I was at the police station at the time of the attack begging them to take my son to hospital. I had called police many time in past months since my son went off all his meds. They, of course, could not take him to hospital. I tried to get writ at states attorney for involuntary hospitalization but could not. He is now in jail and he sounds extremely psychotic and paranoid when he had called me from jail phone. He called Saturday night and was saying the voices give him supernatural powers and other delusional angry stuff. He blames me for him being in jail and is very threatening sounding. He obviously is not on meds in jail and I think Saturday night he might have been taken to solitary confinement because before he hung up he said they are taking me to green room. It was so traumatizing for me to hear him sounding so psychotic and not even knowing what year it was or how many days he had been in jail. I could only imagine how scared he is. I would think that the jail would send him to a hospital where he belongs but that is not how it works. Such an uncaring broken mental health system. It is good your son is on meds, but I know the heartbreak even when they are on meds because they have lost so much of a normal productive life. My son is 29 now and was on meds for 8 years before he stopped taken them in April 2024 and got to this point. It is beyond tragic with this horrible disease. We have lost the son we once had and no one can understand unless you have been thru it. My prayers for all of us.

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Yes, being on the meds helps, but the story doesnā€™t end there, does it? When my son was diagnosed in 2013, he had been committed to a psych hospital, not the psych ward of a general hosp. He got his diagnosis during this first hospitalization, he was there one month. Over the phone the psychiatrist talked a bit to me, but all I heard was ā€œparanoid schizophrenia.ā€ I wasnā€™t floored by this, it runs in my family, on my motherā€™s side. I was completely upset, I just didnā€™t realize how much the genetics play a role.

It really was about a year later that I suddenly had this eye opener, looking at my son just kind of sitting there, just looking down, and I knew at that moment that this thing is real! And he may not get better, this might be all there is ā€¦

I went with him to his psychiatrist during this time and when we were leaving I asked her (my son was heading out to the car) ā€œDoes my son REALLY have schizophrenia?ā€ She said, ā€œOhhhhhh yes ā€¦ā€ handing me a box of tissues. Then I remember she gave me some information about NAMI, said to me, ā€œBut there is hope.ā€ So I got a business card, a few words alluding to hope, and a box of tissues. Thatā€™s all there is ā€¦

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This is my experience. Nobody could ever grasp the damage our loved ones do to us. My brother has been dead for five years and I can still hear him yelling at me in his angry, incoherent manner. He still lives in my head and there is no escape. I spend at least an hour a day crying as I ruminate over his tragic life. I thought his death would bring peace but that will not happen.

When I talk to people they just tell me to blow it off. My best friend- 55 years of friendship and heā€™s way more of a brother to me than my biological brother ever was- just shrugs his shoulders and says ā€œwell heā€™s dead now so you can just forget about it.ā€ And Billyā€™s social worker used to talk to me from time to time, and I swear she didnā€™t have the slightest hint of a clue what kind of person Billy was. She would tell me things that were ridiculous. She also thought I was a terrible person because of course Billy had poisoned the well (everyone that knew him thought I was a terrible person, even my uncles) and she had swallowed it hook, line, and sinker. Billy was very manipulative and while it didnā€™t work with me, it seems like everybody else took the word of a raving madman at face value.

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Some of the most frustrated and angry people who have visited the forum have been people who had a sibling with a brain disorder.

One of my Family to Family teachers became a friend. She was incredibly supportive and loving with her son who had scz. Her attitude towards her sister with scz is a different story, there seems to be a hatred there that runs pretty deep. The dynamics of sibling relationships are quite different from the dynamics of other sorts of relationships.

Grieving a sibling is different as well. No matter how much that manipulating raving madman made your life miserable, at the end of the day, a loss of a sibling is a loss of a part of yourself.

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Irene, just read you latest updated post. My son is still in jail. I think heā€™s spent most of the year in solitary. They say itā€™s to protect him and to protect others from him. He continues to refuse meds. Itā€™ll be a year in January since I last saw him. He was not well. I think my fear of him is also related to the grief of losing my son. I think they will release him sometime soon. Lawyer and judge says they canā€™t do anything because he has misdemeanors-he originally had 3 felonyā€™s which would have gotten him help. Iā€™m afraid for him - havenā€™t heard from him in many months. I am glad Iā€™m not alone but my heart breaks for all of us and our Iā€™ll love ones. Iā€™m so sad, angry, depressed that our county has no help available for people with serious mental illness. This illness is much too big for families to deal with. Sending hugs for some peaceful moments.

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I agree, as my daughter is really suffering over this ā€œlossā€ of her big brother, heā€™s three years older. Itā€™s been over ten years.

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