I need help pleasepleaseplease

Family
1

This past week has been a nightmare. My brother is my best friend and we are basically all the family we have.

The past month hes been staying in bed , sitting up staring at the walls in the pitch black with his music. He doesnt go anywhere with me anymore.

He had gotten out of prison in april after three years, hes been in and out since 14. he said hes ust used to being stuck in confinement and needs his alone time. last week he started acting way different. looking in his eyes, i didnt see my brother. he said he knew what i had done and hed been watching me watch him.

he quit his job, in which he was rising high in the ranks quickly. he said he knew his boss was setting him up. he had always been weary of the neighbors but now wanted to hurt them because he “knew everything.”

my daughters father called the police when we found a gun. i called my gpa to pick him up before they came due to him already being a felon. within the following two days he went missing and then took off to our home town.

i tried to reach out to my family and nobody believed that anything was wrong, just thought he wanted attention. the only person he would talk to was his girlfriend. my baby brother…my best friend hated me and couldnt even tell me why.

i got a call from his gf that he was about to kill himself that hes exhausted of living and was tired of “them” coming after him. she was able to calm him and picked him up. he ran away from her before the night was over. yesterday morning she woke up to him in her room, in her parents house.

he was trying to get her so they could get away from the people hes been believing to be after him. he grabbed her keys and jumped in her car, begging her to come. she called me histerical, i had her put me on speaker to calm him down. it made him angry. he slammed the door and her friend tried to jump in and he elbowed her. by this time the cops were on the way since the neighbors heard. hes in jail, in the mental health unit.

ive done tons of research in the midst of my mourning. is this schizophrenia??? how do i get him into a facility and out of a cell? he talked to me for the first time since he left me in our house and told me he feels something in his mind and that he sees everything.

he said hes been terrified to say whats been going on and that he needs help fast because he feels it worsening the longer he sits on his thoughts. he still thinks all of this was a set up. i dont have family to turn to and im exhausted.

WHAT DO I DO??? hes like this because of all of the time he had to think and now hes back in. how do i stop this?? please somebody help me, im so scared. whats happening to my brother?

2

It definitely sounds like something serious - either schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. He needs to get a formal evaluation and treatment as soon as possible. Only experts can diagnose him. Here are the best places to get him evaluated if you can:

http://forum.schizophrenia.com/t/early-psychosis-treatment-centers-how-to-get-great-help-for-free/12743

3

thank you so much

4

I don’t know if I can be of much help. I have schizophrenia, but my mom developed it first. I used to try to talk her through the delusions she was having about people out to get her, but when I left for college she stopped talking to me because she was afraid the phone was bugged. He might have schizophrenia, but you have to get a diagnosis, because it could be something else. My mom eventually divorced my dad and flew 2000 miles away to live with one of her sisters because of what the delusions were making her think. my mom eventually moved out from her sister’s house and lived by herself, still scared of “them”. Around this time I was developing schizophrenia myself. I told my dad not to go after her because I was afraid that if she was afraid of my dad and he went to go after her, that she might attack him. It turned out that she thought he was part of the mafia or something at the time. My mom eventually ended up in a mental hospital for a month after swerving around the roads and not answering the police officers. I think after that and being on meds for a while she finally came to her senses, and decided she wanted to get remarried. My dad said that she had to stay on her meds as part of the deal of getting remarried, and she has, and they got remarried in June. I went off the deep end and if anyone had come after me I probably would have attacked them or something, because I thought everyone including my family was trying to kill me. I didin’t carry around weapons though, and I couldn’t fight to save my life. I spent a lot of time wandering around in circles while I was psychotic on foot because I didn’t have driver’s license trying to figure out who “they” were that were constantly following me and plotting to kill me. I only got help because after praying for God to help me, the next voice I heard told me that I didn’t have to commit suicide if I got myself thrown in jail, but the police directed me to the campus psychologist (I was still taking classes at university at this time and getting Fs but hadn’t failed out yet, don’t ask me how I did this) and then I went to the mental hospital and told my family the diagnosis that they had given me, even though I still thought they were trying to kill me. I basically only took the meds because my delusions led me straight to the mental hospital and convinced me that taking meds and upping the dosages on them was a good idea. Nobody could have really helped me at the time because I thought everyone in the world wanted me dead. I don’t know, maybe if someone had confronted me I wouldn’t have attacked them, cuz by the end of it I decided i would rather just let myself be killed if everyone in the world wanted me dead. I guess that the best thing you can do is talk to him once he s on meds. Now would probably be the best time to talk to him, while he is in the mental health unit, because they might be giving him meds that clear up your mind. I’m no psychologist, but when i tried talking my mom through her delusions, I would explain often times that even if they were true, that everything would be ok, or explain why not all of them could be true. She wouldn’t let go of the delusions though, but it would calm her down to talk through it nonetheless.

5

It’s good he’s in the mental health unit. This hopefully means evaluation and treatment.

Try to find out whether there is Mental Health Court, which would place him in a treatment program and maybe some other resources with oversight, but hopefully no jail time.

Good luck with everything. Try to rest; let yourself cry. This is not under your control.

6

By the way - I recommend your family read this to help understand how to deal with your brother when he is delusional:

http://www.schizophrenia.com/sznews/archives/005561.html

7

If he is threatening to hurt himself or others you need to call the police and have him hospitalized. It’s difficult to do, but it’s probably the only way you can get treatment for him.

When you talk to the police dispatch make sure to emphasize that you want a mental health crisis team. They may not have one, but making it clear that it is a mental health situation will hopefully get the cops to pink slip him.

The other option, is to take him to an ER for an evaluation. Though, that requires his cooperation, which may be impossible to get.

8

Thank you so much for opening up. Hearing from a first hand experienced person already diagnosed is what I really needed. What an awesome blessing that you have the love of Christ filling you. This has truly been hell…about a month ago my brother gave his life to christ and everything was great. I finally got a phone call from him in jail and he said “Thank God Im saved Bria” I couldnt believe what I was hearing because it was only days before that he told me he had the devil in him. I keep trying to calm him down but he keeps saying how afraid he is to sit in his thoughts in jail again. He has no idea what hes done. He only believes hes protecting himself and his gf from “them”. I tried to contact whoever is evaluating him and they wont let me do anything. Im a wreck. I wonder why it couldnt have just been me. Hes been through enough. I feel stuck like I cant do anything. Being that he is only 19 and i am 21, and we are all we really have, there is no way we can afford an attorney. Hes begging to get out so he can get help. As happy as I am that he knows he needs it, at least for ten mionutes he understood, I read that the longer untreated the worse it gets. They wont tell me anything and im losing my mind over it…i wish we had parents. someone, im so scared and im trying to keep him calm. i cant grasp this. we were just home on the couch laughing till we couldnt breath…how is it even possible, its making me crazy. sorry to go so in depth. i do appreciate you tremendously.

9

I regret not reporting him as a missing endangered person. But i was so afraid hed attack them or hurt himself due to him already thinking there was someone after him. and after all the years he spent as a young teen in solitary confinement, jail is his biggest fear now. I shouldve done it before he got in trouble though. With trouble involved, this is so much harder. They said without him already being diagnosed or at least his cooperation, they cant help him. He still hasnt spoke to one officer or counselor. And they wont allow me to set an appointment with whoever is evaluating him to explain. Thank you for the heads up on mental health court, ive never heard of it. ill give them a call. Thank you again…

10

Are you in the U.S.? If so you should be able to get a court appointed attorney if you can’t afford one. And here, they can’t give you information about your adult family member but anyone can listen to your information regarding him. Sounds like you just have to get the right person to listen to you. You are your brothers best advocate to say what he is too sick to be able to say right now. Don’t give up, but also don’t be too hard on yourself, you can only do so much, there is only so much we can control and we have to learn to accept what we can not. I pray that your words will find the right ears to get your brother the help he needs. It definitely sounds like he needs the hospital and not jail.
It’s one of my greatest fears that my 18 old son who has sz will end up in jail rather than the hospital when his psychosis is too much. I had to call the police to get him to the hospital recently when he refused his meds for two months. It was this fear that gave me the courage to make that call. It was the hardest thing I’ve had to do, but it got him the help he needed and kept him safe so it was worth it and I know I’ll do it again if needed. Good thoughts and prayer that he gets the help he needs soon. Take care of yourself too, this is a extremely stressful time for you too.

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  1. Get a copy of this book and read it and have their families read it, as well. (Torrey can be a bit totalistic and unwilling to see exceptions to his “rules” at times, but most of the book is really worth the effort to plough through.)
    http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856
    .
  2. Get properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
    Find Top Psychiatrists by State. and Find Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Nurses - Psychology Today
    .
  3. Work with that “psychiatrist” (or “p-doc”) to develop a medication formula that stabilizes their symptoms sufficiently so that they can tackle the psychotherapy that will disentangle their thinking.
    .
  4. The best of the psychotherapies for that currently include…
    DBT – What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)? – Behavioral Tech
    MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
    MBCT - Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: theory and practice - PubMed
    ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
    10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing
    .
  5. the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
    MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
    SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
    SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia
    .
  6. or standard CBTs, like…
    REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
    Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
    Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
    Standard CBT – http://www.beckinstitute.org/what-is-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/About-CBT/252/
    .
  7. If you/she/he needs a professional intervention to get through treatment resistance, tell me where you live, and I will get back to you with leads to those services.
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  8. Look into the RAISE Project at Google.
12

Hi - be sure to read these documents that will help you get the best care for your brother:

13

Hey, I’m glad to have been of help. I’m glad he found Jesus too. The way that my family got the diagnosis was i just told them. So maybe ask him what they say he has got, and maybe he will tell you. I’m not sure, but if he has been diagnosed with schizophrenia and is in the psychatric ward side of the prison, they may be medicating him, which means this would be your best chance of getting him to talk to you as the meds would be kicking in and his mind defogging. I’m so sorry you have to go through this at such young ages of 19 and 21. I was so incompetent at everything at that age, and frankly I still am. It’s good that he is willing to seek help. That and acknowledging to himself whatever his condition is is the first step to recovery.

14

Unfortunately, he hasn’t been diagnosed. And I spoke to him last night, he has forgotten that he has something wrong and he refuses to speak to the counselors…He said I need to stop playing stupid as if I don’t hear God’s thoughts already like everyone else…He refuses to believe he needs medication and now says that all of this is the new world order. Ugh. But I do appreciate you!

15

oh no!!! I’m so sorry! :anguished: I hope things get better.