My guess is the same as yours about that mechanic and it makes me sad . Even if my son one day agrees to change meds who can say it would be better as i heard most meds don’t eliminate delusions or hallucinations completely .
Hi. I truly hear what you are expressing. Its in my every thought. My son doesnt live with either his father or myself which is good and bad as I am always thinking about worrying constantly tat I am going to get a horrific call everytime the phone rings! WE dont have a full diagnosis and we are diving deeper into tests. My 22 year old son wont take any medications as he has always wanted to naturally. I do think he would benefit but will see. This past week we went in for a brain scan to the Amen clinic. If anyone interested pull it up they have been great. They did a zoom call with him and shared his pictures and the conversation witht the pyschiatrist. It is showing a lot of issues with his brain for his age. In addition running lots of blood tests for Lyme, mold etc and other toxins, so we will have to wait. The doctor layed out a natural path with Neurofeedback and supplements. My son has always leaned towards that however from the picture there are some major firing and blood flow problems in prefrontal lobe and his temporal lobe. all the issues the doctor mentioned can happen and thoughts and very interesting to listen too. He is my first born and Im ready to make the appointments order a bunch of supplements but know him and wonder if he will even do? We have ran him around all week to help. I know its not his fault but he leans on my for all socially he has been more withdran and wants to spend time but I cant do it for too long with his thoughts I start to rry and fix and want him to think like me I know he cant right now. I am hoping this information and working with AMEN Clinic will have an impact. At least he did go and has been involved I know he wants help his brain is on overdrive. At times in his episodes it does seem scizophrenic then others its kind of bipolar. I am really confused! Also… to add a new HBO special is on about this I didnt want to watch but have to called I know this much is true a true story about twins. My son is not at that extreme in sickness but its my worse fear. Thank you for sharin as it makes me not feel so embarrassed and alone… agree if someone has cancer or other illness it completely accceptable if mental people shame. Hoping this will change soon.
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Jane, thanks for your response. This site has been an important discovery for me. I’m feeling my way in the dark with this illness—and it’s the loneliest experience. You walk around shattered inside and few you can’t tell anyone. I have only told one friend about my sons diagnosis because she was so worried about me. I haven’t even told my or my husband’s family the diagnosis. They just know he was struggling with very serious mental health issues. I don’t think they would treat him the same. My son is getting treated at a schizophrenia research center through our university. It’s an early psychosis center so fortunately they wanted him since he was only 21. He is there weekly for counseling and they administer his shot, but the down side is they offer no family counseling. His sisters struggle with this and need help processing how to handle their brother. I haven’t found successful counseling yet. I find even in the psychiatric/counseling field, it may be hard to find someone who understands what we are grappling with. The moodiness with him is always there, which is what makes me unsure about changIng his diagnosis from schizoaffective to schizophrenia. Did you find the fluoxetine helps with his mood? I am always puzzled about the lack of insight, since I have read numerous accounts of schizophrenics recalling vivid details from when they were acutely ill.
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It seems you are rather stuck in the idea that your son’s moodiness stems from schizoaffective disorder. I can tell you from my own experience that I was once diagnosed with bipolar with psychosis, that my “moodiness” all stemmed from my unresolved anxiety. You are underestimating the effects of underlying psychology of your son. I had the exact same thoughts that I wrote in my previous post, contributing to my “moodiness”.
In addition, fluoxetine being an anti-depressant in some cases should not be used with someone who actually has schizoaffective disorder as it can contribute to “moodiness” in the form of mania.
If your son does have schizoaffective, what he needs in addition to anti-psychotics is a mood stabilizer.
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Thank you @Lirik! I want to amplify this point also from experience, because caregivers and the general public constantly get this wrong. “Moodiness” in a typical lay-person’s understanding of the term is NOT a direct symptom of bipolar or schizoaffective disorders.
The mood cycles from high to low of these disorders follow much longer time periods, typically months, weeks, even years. Days or hours or minutes don’t factor in much at all. The threshold for “Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder” is four or more episodes of manic or depressive episodes in a year and that’s only present in about 10-20% of people with bipolar disorder.
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Hi Grace. I experience this ALL. THE. TIME. with my MI partner. He will contradict or incite arguments where there should just be simple dialogue or discussion. It appears he thinks this means he’s having a meaningful conversation of some kind. He Seems to feel like simple conversational ‘thought sessions’ are often somehow persecutory in nature. (Or doesn’t want to ‘lose’ as lirik pointed out). Has a history of intentionally causing conflict (malicious or sadistic even) then getting extremely upset by the result. Has a hard time staying on topic or answering simple questions with long ambiguous answers that have little or nothing at all to do with the topic or question. After having an extremely violent episode it’s common for him to do what I call “the flip-flop”. Explode and scream crazy angry mean irrational violent and hurtful things then if I leave the room and come back five or ten minutes later it’s as if nothing happened. At all. He is complete calm, civil, wondering what’s for dinner and I’m still shaking not sure if I’m going to get beat up…
So I can’t speak to if it’s specifically common to SZ, but that’s my life and reality over here.
Lirik, great input! Thank you, it’s helpful for me to get perspective… and MB too as always! I value you guys. Thanks for sharing here.
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Hi Wisdom. You are absolutely describing what happens with my son. It’s sooooo confusing… “He seems to feel like simple conversational ‘thought sessions’ are often somehow persecutory in nature.”—very well said. He flips on a dime, where a simple conversational turn goes haywire and I’m diffusing, diffusing, diffusing. He is furious if anyone interjects or steps on him when he speaks—even when it’s done to add to his point or the story. Like a Jedi, I’m often minimizing and smoothing anything someone in the family says that could be misconstrued by him. It’s very enlightening for you to say that these moments become persecutory in nature—it begs the question if the medicine is doing its job? Is your MI partner been diagnosed for long? Or is the exact nature of his illness still unfolding? Your reference to violence is very concerning. Is he just blowing off steam? My son will do that when he comes unhinged. He’ll say the most hurtful things you can say to a mom. But after 2 years of this I have learned to ignore much of it (after I tell him firmly to never say that to me again). It used to destroy me. Also, Lirik’s point that this behavior Is stemming from anxiety is very possible as well—especially since it often happens when we are all sitting together for dinner.
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Hi Grace , my son has schizoaffective disorder and is on Abilify which i was told is an anti psychotic drug and a mood stabiliser
Hi Linda, my son also is saying that the injection is poison. I don’t think he will be taking it much longer without a CTO in place. My son also got lawyers involved to have the CTO revoked.
Its a hard debilitating drug and they hate the way it makes them feel , its very sad , i pray for them all
Hi Grace. I’m sorry for the late response. I have to say first I love the Jedi in you! My whole life I’ve been a caregiver and first responder and advocate and crisis intervention practitioner in some form or another, and it certainly takes a special kind of person. It seems the Force is strong in this one… (You too! 
)
My partner likely suffers from what’s called Disorganized Schizophrenia. He has zero insight. Never been on meds and absolutely refuses to even speak with a professional. Of any kind. I’ve tried, and still do almost daily, to try and discuss the benefits of cognitive behavior therapy (CBT) or other talk therapies with him (me: it’s THERAPY babe! The name itself says ‘therapeutic‘! This means it’s GOOD for us! For everybody!”… I’m playing on his tendencies to think in ‘healthy active’ lifestyle stuff…He’s not buying it. Sigh. I’ll keep trying…
He doesn’t have hallucinations as far as anybody has been able to tell and none that he’s communicated to us but that’s hard to say for sure because he does suffer severe delusions and acts on triggers that aren’t there. (My ex was a paranoid SZ with full insight. He heard voices that told him to kill me among other things if he wasn’t on his meds. He’d been on clozapine since he was young and it was very effective. I don’t recall him ever though talking out loud to the voices. He’d have to tell me.) My current partner (The reason I found this site and am so grateful) and I have only been together for ten years so as far as symptom onset I can’t say 100% but from conversations with his family (who seems to have always known there was a problem, just didn’t know what to call it or how to get help for it or if there even was help for it) he was exhibiting signs and behaviors in his teens. We are now both middle aged, in our 40’s and 50’s. As far as anger manifesting out of delusions (mostly, it seems) or just good old frustration when some deficits of cognition or control happen, it certainly seems more often accompanied by delusions, though he does have an inherently moody personality. He will smoke marijuana, which in general gives him a more pleasant disposition, but makes it very difficult to have a linear conversation with him. This I believe is him self-medicating/managing some level of anxiety disorder, which also is pronounced often when he drinks alcohol. The first number of years together was mayhem. I call it his constant crisis years. The last few years have been more pronounced by episodes, two maybe three times a week, but usually if not always at home with me were he feels safe. It sounds odd to say and somewhat counter-intuitive, but I strongly feel that it corresponded with and the catalyst may have been when he took a different position at work that required him to have more responsibility, do training courses, and engage with other workers on a daily basis and have to collaborate that have helped him ‘grow’ per-se. None of which was required previously as a delivery driver. I think MB may have hit on it somewhere in the threads here when they said “I got to a point where I didn’t need them anymore, my delusional world became smaller because my real world became bigger…”
~ MB (Thanks MB! 
)
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Hi Grace,
Ability shot made my Son aggressive last year. the doctor stopped immediately then they tried Invega shot 234mg and 450mg Clozapine and he get better and then he was in a facility for few months and they stopped the Invega shot, he did not do very well on Clozapine by itself.
he is now on Zyprexa 20mg morning and 15 mg at night and Prolixin shot every 2 weeks and also lithium. this combination seems to be helping.
I do consider that my son has a severe illness. he argue with me on the phone and he still have delusional thinking at times,
he is behaving OK with his care taker in CA and with my brother and another family friend. it is only with me where he wants to argue with . I ask him to be respectful to me and I do cut the phone conversation off when he is disrespecting me.
Hope you can find the right Combination of meds.
as others on this platform indicated, tough love is also needed and therapy.
Good luck. praying for your family.
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How are the Invega shots? Do they help with all symptoms or do they still have to take other drugs with it? I am wondering because mySZ son just started Invega Sustenna. He was saying all his other pills were messing up his stomach. How is the injection affordable? My son is on Medicaid but I don’t know how much they pay. Any advice would be appreciated.
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There are coupons and vouchers for these medications. Do some research online. When my son first went on the Abilify shot, we used coupons that brought the cost down dramatically. You can ask the Dr. or pharmacist. My son is not on Medicaid, so I’m not sure how it would work with that program.
Invega was the worst thing for my son aske for better
Hi Desmond my son is taking 75mg invega trinza shot every 3 months on top of this he takes 30mg ability 50mg seriquel for sleep.he does get angry once in awhile because he still believes that the injection is poison and there was nothing wrong with him. This disease is so heart breaking
What if mood isn’t in the equation - he does not express bad moods He is just trying to cope with day to day life skills, get up eat breakfast shower wash cloths and engage in conversations is it just schizophrenia
I’m not sure I follow the context. Are you speaking of expressed anger and frustration at performing these day-to-day tasks? If so, I can offer a few theories that frame this as a secondary or functional outcome of SZ symptoms or conditions. I’ll try to frame these in analogous neurotypical experiences.
First, you might be angry or frustrated that you can’t or have difficulty doing something you “should” be able to do. It’s similar to playing tic-tac-toe (naughts and crosses for Brits) with a child who hasn’t learned you can at best tie with an opponent with “perfect” strategy. They can get frustrated and angry after a while unless you either let them win by making a mistake, or you coach them on strategy.
With SZ you can have cognitive deficits that get you mixed up with sequencing or memory. So you might pour your cereal in your coffee cup instead of your cereal bowl, or you put something in an odd place and you can’t find it etc, and you can’t finish a seemingly simple task, and you’re getting hungry or need coffee and you act out in frustration.
Second, you can be distracted by voices or background noise or whatever and lose your train of thought and get frustrated by it. Ever been in a crisis where everyone is giving you conflicting advice or observations seemingly at the same time, and no-one is giving you time to think or act on your own. It generally doesn’t help the situation, and sometimes you get frustrated and lash out at people to get them to back off. That’s what it’s sometimes like.
Third, you may have heard of people with brain injuries, strokes or dementia abruptly changing personalities and being angry, violent and argumentative. I knew a guy from work who was a bit like that, and I’d heard later he’d had a car accident and they were keeping on even though he was difficult to deal with. If you understood this and knew how to approach him and calm him down if he was upset, he was fine. Well, in some cases SZ damages the brain significantly— especially if untreated for a length of time. This shows up visually on CAT and PET scans. Before they coined the term schizophrenia it was called dementia praecox which means premature or precocious dementia, because of the parallels between the two.
So in short, yes, I think this likely is the schizophrenia ‘talking’. Just remember the ‘mood’ in mood disorders doesn’t translate to moodiness in layman’s terms. It’s not Jekyll and Hyde behavior either. It’s relatively long periods of heightened and diminished affect or emotional responses.
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Thank you - you are a wealth of information- And thank you for explaining “mood disorder” . I will clarify my question and my statement - I read a lot of people expressing their love one is aggressive or rude to them in the moment but my son is not which is great - iam thinking maybe that comes later, the aggressive behaviour-he is in the hospital first time and it’s a good experience we are happy He knows he is on his road to recovery - The diagnosis has not been confirmed or written in stone yet - we as parents know what it is but afraid to say it out loud (sorry if I have offended you)- it seems to be a slow progression for him but that’s ok - he is on meds now so we can see some clarity and it’s no problem he takes the meds. He is working on simple day to day care plan (simple to me not for him) but his day only consists of him getting up staying out of his room and showering washing his cloths - he is talking a little bit( we call it poverty speech) not a lot of conversation- but he is trying and of course we love him - he really struggles to do those task - he has been in hospital for 2 and a half months and will be there for a bit I think which is ok because he is getting the help he needs - sorry I have lost my focus - but thank you for responding to my comment 
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I see, I understand now. Poverty of speech may be a family trait 
.
I feel on many fronts, people are changed by serious mental illness (bipolar and unipolar depressive disorders, and the schizophrenias) but mostly the brain does not fall too far from the tree— to mix a metaphor. And often a first episode is a preview of future progression.
I tend to think of it this way: developing a mental illness is very stressful, and a good predictor of progression is how you’ve reacted to stress before becoming ill. I follow two main strategies when faced with a stressful problem: avoidance, and trying to reason my way out. So what manifested was I avoided my hallucinations and delusions and tried to reason them out on my own. When this failed, I tried to convince others of my reasoning which also failed and set off a conflict, because I was asking for help and I wasn’t satisfied I was getting it. This lead to repeating myself at increased volume because I felt unheard and misunderstood, door slams and such which lead to talk of medication etc. What I felt I needed was someone to talk this through with, and I got it, because I was taken to a psychologist, and twice a week sessions sufficed to keep me stable enough to work and go to school until a new stressor came along.
So if someone laughs at stressful situations, or retreats or freezes or fights back verbally or physically, that’s the sort of response I would expect in an exaggerated or melodramatic way. Whatever behavior you see is likely a response to symptoms based on strategies that have worked in the past, and only when they aren’t working and there’s increasing conflict will increased intensity and behaviors seemingly opposite to type crop up. I learned this in a social styles and psychodynamics course I had at an employer years ago, and I’ve found it holds pretty well for ‘sane’ and ill people alike, although levels and duration of stress is usually higher when ill. I’ll add a link to course literature if I can find it. I found it on the web in the past.
Here’s a link to a blog post about the stress-induced z-pattern:
https://www.brightyellowcoaching.com/blog/stresspattern
There’s bunches of literature on social style theory on the Internet. Search for social styles, analytic, driver, amiable and expressive and z-pattern and you’ll find more than you’d care to know.
In summary, it sounds like you are doing well with your son. I would try to educate yourself as much as you can and keep a positive attitude, but with vigilance to listen to your son and his concerns. Even if you aren’t sure of a diagnosis, I’d probably pick up a recent copy of Surviving Schizophrenia by Dr. Fuller Torrey and I’m Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help by Dr. Amador. Although your son seems to possess some insight, I still think the LEAP method is helpful in communicating with people with SMI whether they have anasognosia (lack of insight into illness) or not. I’d also normally recommend NAMI and the Family to Family training, but since the pandemic makes this difficult, reach out to the forum and start a thread with your questions if you run into an issue. We’ll do our best to help.
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