I’m so sorry I haven’t responded sooner to you. I read this and saw myself in you, the sadness is unbearable! Every mother who has a child or an adult child with this awful disease knows what this feels like. At first I felt so alone, so lost and forlorn. Nobody knows this heartache unless they are living it. It’s not even the same as losing a child to death!! It’s worse really because there is no closure. And also, because in death, people rally around with hugs and comforting words, even tears … but not for our children. I am now three years crying. My son has paranoid Sz and he never goes anywhere, barely goes outside. I love him. He’s my first born. I hope you are and your son also getting a little better. I’m sorry I’m not much help other tha to assure you that you are not alone.
Thank you, not being alone is a tremendous reassurance. I only have one son. I am here a lot for support and hope I can give back too! think that is why it was so hard for me to go to church last year. I would just openly cry when I got back and It was too much. I looked around and thought there isn’t a person here going through what I’m going through. Of course, that is a lie. On some cases they are going through much worse.
I hope to find DBT therapy for our family. I think ill just go ahead and be the first. Take care of me first.
I’m reading this again and it made me cry again. How are you and your son now? My son is still just wandering around the house, smoking.
And I’m still crying at least a little most days. But I was reading in one of the other threads how it’s an excruciatingly slow process and that his brain is resting. Healing! So I’m feeling kind of hopeful. He still doesn’t have any interest in doing any kind of therapy or programs. There really isn’t anything around here anyway. Sucks.
About the going outside thing - my son, right now anyway, enjoys sitting outside on our deck & listening to his music.
Some days, for now anyway, he can go into a store with me for a little while. Sometimes, he will stay with me until I get to the register. Other days, he leaves within minutes of walking in.
He says, in some of the stores, the lighting bothers him. But, regardless of the lighting, the people make him nervous. Last night, in Walmart, he said he hated going there because it reminds him of how much he hates his life. We talked about it a little bit in the car & he says he hates it because he just can’t bear to be around people. A little more questioning & he said they make him nervous, but he wouldn’t go so far as to say he hears them talking about him - I know that happens sometimes from what he’s said in the past.
I let it go after that, but how do they list social anxiety to this extreme in the symptoms?
Is it a negative symptom - isolation?
Or is it a positive symptom - hearing voices, paranoia, delusions, etc?
My son isolates at home a lot, but also will go out to some places - we tried a new restaurant recently, he goes for his haircut, and we go for coffee or juice, and to the bookstore. He generally interacts very little with people while we are out, but is polite. He has a standard response to the question, ‘How are you?’ He will answer with ‘I’m well.’
I often ask him if he wants to come with me when I am running errands. He usually says no, but I try to always put it out there. He will usually say, ‘No thank you.’
He has more problems with his paranoid feelings from delusions than with social anxiety.
There are times when we are out and he will seem fine, but when he gets home, he will become upset and symptomatic, probably because of something he saw or heard while we were out.
We are scheduled for a ‘mini-photoshoot’ this weekend. I have really wanted to get a nice photo of him, and also one of the two of us. It will be at a park, weather permitting. I told him about it, and said I would like for us to do it but he doesn’t have to. He said he would do it, we shall see what happens on Saturday. If he doesn’t, oh well.
I really don’t know but it’s a good question. My son has always had anxiety to some degree. But now it’s almost agoraphobia He admits to having anxiety but says he is not depressed, even though he looks depressed. That depressed look is part of the flat affect. Does your son talk much, hold a conversation with anybody? Mine doesn’t.
My son holds long conversations with me & when he’s in the hospital, he seems to be able to talk to the other patients there just fine. He doesn’t have a reason why other patients don’t bother him, but people other places do.
My son doesn’t really have a flat affect right now, although I’ve seen it in the distant past.
Agoraphobia, in the true sense, is afraid of being outside in open spaces. Like the opposite of claustrophobia. I’ve talked to my son to make sure it’s people, and not places. He says it’s the people that make him nervous.
My son’s also had anxiety for as long as I can remember - mostly social, but general too.
I’m actually going to google “is social anxiety in schizophrenia a negative symptom of the disease?” I think anxiety stems from paranoia or something. My son’s diagnosis is paranoid Sz.
Let me know what you find.
Negative means it’s something they lack that most other people have - like emotions, or taking care of hygiene.
So, it’s negative in that they can’t interact socially.
Positive mean’s they have something extra - like voices or hallucinations.
To me, the anxiety is also positive.
For my son, it’s the most chronic and pervasive symptom - and nothing really helps.
Yep. I know. I read constantly and look stuff up about Sz and had to buy a kindle because of all the books I want to read. But I can still come up with questions! It’s amazing!! And frustrating. Just when I think I’m understanding or getting something, it seems to slip through my hands. So I’ll let you know what I find.
I just thought: Anxiety might be another diagnosis in there.
My son has been diagnosed with anxiety, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, depression, major depression with psychotic features, psychotic NOS, major mood disorder, now paranoid schizophrenia, and it will most likely change to schizoaffective because he definitely goes manic.
Bipolar runs in my husband’s family & I’m pretty sure I have some relatives with it too.
However, no one has social anxiety at all that I can tell, although my one great-aunt who had what the old folks called a nervous breakdown, then just kept referring to her as nervous, might have now that I think back in hindsight. She passed away years ago, so no way to ask her. She was one of my favorite aunts too.
General anxiety - sure - I probably have a touch of that too - but no one has this, and no matter how good he is doing, it doesn’t go away. And, no medication seems to touch it - except for the opiates he got addicted to.
I typed in a google search, “is anxiety a negative or positive symptom of schizophrenia?” Two articles I liked. One from Medscape and the other from Harvard. I don’t know how to do links, but you can figure out which articles I’m talking about LOL!
Daughter, 29, exactly the same. She’s in hospital recovering from relapse at the moment. Anti-psychotics are dealing with the sz symptoms quite well, but anxiety is the main reason she can’t rejoin society. She gets anxious when we visit, after about 30 minutes, then we have to leave. When we take her out for the weekend we have to avoid anywhere with a lot of people, so no going to stores, restaurants, coffee shops etc. For the time being, until she’s able to deal with it, either by growing stronger as she recovers, or medication, we’re just living a very quiet life when she’s with us.
I know exactly how you fell slw. My daughter was also diagnosed with anxiety, social anxiety, generalized anxiety, depression, major depression with psychotic features, psychotic NOS, major mood disorder. I think she was diagnosed with a lot of “cover your a@!” when no one was sure. She has had psychosis since childhood. She went to a low income facility and a nurse practitioner, not even a doctor diagnosed bipolar and was put on meds that really messed her up. Finally she started volunteering for medical study groups and got a wonderful psychiatrist who ran multiple test and got the diagnoses of disorganized schizophrenia. It took 20 years from the time she was first hospitalized at age 12 to get the proper diagnosis and she has been treated I thinks properly for about a year now. Meds were changed often and now finally there has been improvement. Her social anxiety has substantially decreased and she can even go places alone now. When she talks, she make a lot more sense. It has been a very long process, but for the first time I feel there is hope. Prayers and hugs to you and your son.
My family tree is full of schizophrenia 
Try to get him on clozapine. You have to fight for it but it was the only medicine that brought my grandson back. It is considered the gold standard for schizophrenia
My cousin has Sz she was diagnosed at about age 17 I believe. That always was a little bit of concern for the possibility of one of my kids developing it. But not so much that it would cause me to choose not to have children! So I thought I was, or we were I should say safe. Then I knew about a cousin of my mother’s who just never did much and lived his entire life with his parents. They always wondered about him my mom used to say. Found out, because I started asking questions, he was also Sz! And there are two others, my son being one of them.