My wife had been having several bad days but all of the sudden 3 days before Christmas it was everything back to normal. She even went out Christmas shopping for about 2 hours. (did not buy anything) She still seemed not really interested in Christmas but she wasnt locked up in her room and mumbling under her breath like before not speaking and not eating. She seemed happy and interacted with the kids. She even went to church and a church kids play. Christmas came and went and she seems to be happy but she will still say things like turn the cameras off I am going to shower? Or she mentioned that she now thinks her cousin is in on it to. Her cousin that she has not seen in years and lives in Alaska? But she is not angry and distant she interacts like back when things were normal. Does this kind of thing come and go? I am new to this and just trying to understand. Is she going to wake up today and be another person?
With my son yes , he can be ok and normal and clever and logical .
Then he can say something like stop putting poison in my food !
Don’t text from my phone calling for help for me etc etc .
Also says things like he’s being watched etc,
Christmas was mostly good but he did say he felt something happening with his body , his bloodstream etc and wasn’t mental it was physical.
So yes I think expect the unexpected at times.
Thanks. She woke up today around noon. She fixed her some lunch and was talkative. I asked did she want to ride to the store with me to pick up a few things and she started packing her stuff up and said she dont have to deal with the games today and she went to her room. So I guess enjoy the good times while you have them because you dont know when they are going to go bad.
When she said she didn’t want to deal with games today , did she mean that you or others “play games” with her ?
My son says that ie he can’t read minds and he doesn’t want to play games or people shouldn’t play games with him etc etc.
From much reading about others, yes, what you are experiencing with your loved one can be normal for the illness. Is she on an anti-psychotic? And if “yes”, how long?
Yes, that is a correct assessment. The illness is often sort of cyclical in my opinion with good hours/days and then bad hours/days. If you can, read up as much as you can on this site, there is lots of good advice and info from people who are willing to share in order to help others. I wish I had been understanding and kind from the beginning of my loved one’s illness, I was angry and afraid at the strangeness back then. The hallucinations and delusions are not possible to change unless medications can tame them, so there is no point in challenging the odd communications. If you can, read “I’m not Sick, I Don’t Need Help” and figure out how to use the LEAP method to communicate with your wife. I hope she has more good days and good for you for trying to understand.
I know how you feel about wishing we had understood this in the early days.
My almost 78 year old Dad said to me the other day that he felt bad the way he got frustrated with my son a few years ago when he though he was being awkward , moody, aggressive etc. I reassure him saying he did nothing wrong and no one knew .
Trouble is with this illness the prodromal phase isn’t recognised until it’s over, hindsight would truly be a gift to all involved in this illness .
Thinking of you.
Yes she thinks I am sending secret messages somehow. She thinks cameras are everywhere and that I track her phone and computer and anything else electric. This started out with her focused on other things and other people and turned against me. She hates me and has told me to leave multiple times. Then an hour later acts as if nothing happened.
These sound normal to me, I am very sorry to say. Have you read what constitutes sz? Educational pages on this site explain the 5 main symptoms both positive (added to the person’s character) and negative (missing from the person’s character). Once I understood the changes that occur (out of the ill person’s control) I became calmer about the oddities, insults and missing communication and drive.
It took me years to learn very valuable info. I advise the sooner you learn to recognize what IS the illness, the sooner you forgive and accept the insults that come your way. The wife you knew is still there, but underneath tons of problems caused by sz. All caregivers live for the good moments where our loved one still shines through the sz and tolerate the bad behaviors as those bad behaviors are NOT our loved one but is the illness. It is hard, very hard, and will sz will last a lifetime usually, unless an afflicted person is lucky to find the right medication and stay on it (usually through the help of loved ones and government authorities, as the ill person over 60% of the time does NOT know they are ill, but believes their delusions as truths.)
I am sorry you are beginning this long, hard journey with your wife.
Does anyone when seeing the really really good times actually think ahh they are ok really , then have a down day and realise again nope this ain’t going away,
They say that’s why we keep going back to the grieving cycle. They have good days and we hope they are fine. They have bad days and we feel the loss again.
This was my first Christmas without my son . He will not come to my house because we will put him in the hospital. He’s so far gone now you can’t talk to him. He calles me only for money. He just got his disability money on the 21st. Now its the 27th and he had no money. I pay all his bills and have been sending him hundreds of dollars every time he says he has no food and starving. He throws everything out says its not his or conterfit or peaple coming into the house everynight and steel everthing i pay for his cell phone now he says that the phone is no good he needs a new one he also threw out my 1lap top that I lent him and paying for the internet. My bipoler husband doesn’t want anything to do with anything locks himself in his bedroom . I just don’t know how to handle this anymore. I told my son that I can not send him anymore money then he puts the guilt trip on me. I8 not handling this very well I end up arguing with him . Can someone please give me some advice
I am sorry that you did not get to spend Christmas with your son. Have you tried to find a NAMI Family Support group in your area? That is my best advice. We did not get to spend Christmas with our son the two years prior and things seemed very dire, but this year things were SO much better! Quite good, in fact! But this is due to my refusing to let him come home and he did not have money or a place to live and he did not want to go to a homeless shelter when that was presented as the only other option unless he would go into a residential treatment program. So eventually, after multiple hospitalizations and medication that he initially refused, he is getting supervision and help and has been med-compliant for 7+ months. I had to learn to say “no” in order to help him. I had professionals telling me to say “no” and it has paid off for now. There will still by challenges ahead, but at least now I have real hope.
Yes, Margi, I agree with @hope4us that if you could contact a NAMI near you, it would help you. I really was helped by their support group and their classes.
So true. You can’t rationalize with someone who is delusional but you can listen and empathize to the emotion and not get caught up in all of their words.
Hello @Dallas, welcome to the site. I appreciate your answer and your insight about delusions. It took me soooooo long to properly understand delusions. After my daughter’s second hospitalization, she came home with a diagnosis of delusional disorder. I was upset and confused about that, and STILL didn’t understand that I couldn’t argue her out of her “silly ideas” (delusions). You are so right, that getting caught up in all of their words is not beneficial, but empathy can change things.
Aw thanks for the welcome. Yes I talked to my son so much in the past three years and learned that I did it wrong. When I argued or tried to convince him it wasn’t true he’s just get so upset. Now I try to listen and I won’t agree with his delusions but I just apologize first and then disagree. So when he tells us we put a chip in his brain last December and he asks us not to do it this Christmas we told him oh that sounds scary. We definitely will not do that.
I miss my son though. I love this person now but I miss my boy 
You are using LEAP (Listen/Empathize/Agree/Partner) principles right out of the book “I Am Not Sick; I Don’t Need Help”! Is your son taking medication?
With regards to the book “I’ve read about half of it”
How can though we adopt the LEAP method if our son lives at home and blames us at times and rants and has a severe impact on our mental health.
He is scared to live by himself so it’s not as easy to say get him his own place.
I understand and have great empathy for the fact that so many have their loved one at home and there is relatively little escape. LEAP is not about kicking your loved one out of your home. It starts with “L” for Listening and not offering any suggestion or judgment. The LEAP concept does not come naturally to us, so if you have to, read it multiple times. Practice it with a family member or good friend. If if doesn’t work at first, or you simply don’t have the opportunity because of the rants, keep LEAP in mind and BE READY to use it when there is any tiny window of opportunity. If the rants and behavior are more than you can bear, or if you do not feel safe…if your loved one is a danger to himself or you/others, then you will have to seek other means to have him removed from your home, hopefully to get treatment. That is an entirely different scenario. But when he is “better”, and I hope he is someday, remember to come back to LEAP!