My 23 yr old stepson stopped taking his meds 11 days ago. He doesn’t want to continue treatment at all. He’s not living with us. He has an apartment and receives financial aid. He wants to get a job and be responsible for his own finances. I totally understand his frustration but this is just going to end up bad. He has an angry temper when he is on meds and it’s worse without them. We had to ask for our house key from him so he can’t just show up whenever he wants. I’m scared. We feel like all we can do is just wait for another storm. I’m afraid when that happens he’ll be in an institution. He believes that he’s a trained demon hunter. He also believes he’s eliminated 2 demons already and has 2 more to go. He’s now a pagan and claims to have participated in some types of rituals. He won’t go into detail about those. Like I said, I’m just scared.
My bedroom/indoor shop is safe room, i sleep with locked solid door, dead bolt, knob to floor dead stop, 357 and a plan to get our if they burn the house down…
When scared from inside or out it is important to have a safe space, i spend 90% of time in this area at this house. I have a second home in the city for weekends…
When I’m home alone I also sleep with my bedroom door locked and a weapon by my bed for protection. I don’t want to have to hurt him but I also don’t want to be hurt. His dad doesn’t like the fact that I do that but is trying to accept my fears. The demon hunting has just thrown me deeper into being scared. Especially since I don’t know the details of that.
Do you have a mental health crisis team in your area? Can you pursue an involuntary admit?
The demon hunting and elimination make me scared for you also. Of all the delusions and hallucinations my son has, the religious based ones are the scariest for him and when he is most scared, I worry the most.
I am not an expert in legal matters, but when there is discussion of elimination of demons and the idea, real or not of some type of religious rite I think he may qualify as dangerous to others. Especially if you do not know details. Please seek some direction. Hope you find some peace.
My grandson is the same way. He also says the demons are inside him. I am so scared of him. He is jail right now and they know but they say they can’t get a bed for him anywhere. Just please stay safe.
Here are some general guidelines for crisis: Get Help in a Crisis - Treatment Advocacy Center
From this website: Schizophrenia Daily News Blog: Recommended First Aid for Schizophrenia and Psychosis
Do you mean that you are afraid of him going to an institution? Has he been hospitalized in the past?
It was about 6 weeks ago that we found out about the Demon hunting. He also said that he had been training with guns. He was involuntary admitted to the hospital then. They kept him for a couple of days to observe him and decided he was not a danger to anyone. The thing is that he’s only admitted to hearing two different voices in his head. He told us those are the demons he eliminated. Then where did the other two come from? I feel like the doctors didn’t pick up on that. And since he’s an adult we have a hard time communicating our concerns to the doctors.
Normal, hard to keep them long over just words, my wife served 60 days for trying to kill a couple cops with her bare hands… They hog tied her in the front yard… lol, wish I had been there to see that…
Sounds familiar here, my wife has about 5 fictional characters that often repeat…
My son has never been a threat to anyone, but he has been admitted involuntarily 5 times for being “unable to protect himself from harm” or too ill to be mentally competent to consent or decline.
He’s also never admitted to hearing voices. To be honest, I don’t think he realizes that’s what’s going on. For a long time, he’d hear people say things they didn’t say - but there had to be a real person there. Then, he started hearing whispers when no one was around. He’d come into a room and ask if someone had been in there, or if people were over, or if I had been on the phone.
Now, it’s that he’s psychic and he can hear what other people are hearing or see what they’re seeing from a distance.
However, when he does go to the hospital, so far, he’s asked to go and he’s been so sick he couldn’t hide what was going on. They watch for the “inner dialog” and wait for that to stop before they start considering whether or not he can come home. In one hospital, they seem to hold him for 2 weeks no matter what. In the other one, it’s 7 or 8 days. Last time, he’d call me and talk to me, then get right off the phone and tell the nurse he thought I was dead.
If your son is with it enough to not tell them things and to appear normal, I’m not surprised they let him out that soon. It’s not right, but they’ve always got someone else waiting for one of those beds.
I understand being afraid…its hard to admit cuz its a loved one but it happens unfortunately…i was bent over on my back porch recently working on something and my son was standing behind me and i heard him say to one of the people in his head…”No-im not gonna do that!” In a very angry voice and I turned and asked him what and he wouldn’t tell me except that “Red” this particular fictitious person in his head wanted him to do something and he refused…and he did have something heavy in his hands so i was more than a bit scared…when he’s here we sleep with our door locked as well-if it came to protecting ourselves i guess wed inflict enough harm to stop him but i could never do more than that-he wouldn’t be acting in his right mind…he loves me more than anyone in the world and tells me constantely but schizophrenics sometimes kill loved ones cuz of their voices or because they feel they are protecting them from worse…please be safe even though they are our loved ones-take care!
HIPAA only prevents them from talking to you about his health (as if you don’t already know ). You can talk to them as much as you want. If they bring up HIPAA ask them where in the act is states they can’t listen, because I will tell you the act is misquoted more often than not. And a piece of advice we picked up from a doctor this year was if you think you are not being listened to the phrase “remember you are the last medical professional to evaluate him”. Puts the burden on them if anything bad happens and they were warned. Take care and know we are all concerned for you.
Yes! My son was having an episode and the paramedics showed up, My husband and I were out looking for him and when we turned the corner, we saw the lights at our house. I told him to turn around because I wanted my son to be stabilized and they were going to try to get me to take him inside. It was a perfect stranger who called the responders because he was acting odd. The paramedics called my phone and I told them that I was not coming home and that they now had to make the call and there was no way they were going to just let him loose. We don’t have that anymore for some reason - it’s been about a year and a half. Worst night of my life ( well in the top three)
Matt and I had lunch on Monday. I was able to convince him to continue treatment with his dr’s without medication. He was worried if the dr found out that he wasn’t taking his meds anymore that he would be hospitalized or court ordered to take them. I called the dr for him just to verify that wouldn’t be the case. Within 3 hours of my phone call, the dr. called back to schedule an appt with him the next day. I was also able to convince Matt to let me go with him. I told him I would just sit in the waiting room and be there if he needed me. Within 5 minutes of his visit I was called back to sit with him and his dr. That was so hard! The dr was trying to make him see that he’s still delusional. I just sat back where Matt couldn’t see me holding back the tears. His dr is also concerned about him becoming violent with himself or someone else. He has an appt tomorrow with his therapist. He’s going to allow me to attend that meeting as well. I’m going to take advantage of his trust in me for as long as I can. I’m lucky that I work for family and am able to take off from work to be able to do this. I’ve stayed out of his treatment so far because his dad (my husband) wanted to help him. That hasn’t worked. His mom lives in the same town as we do. She’s very busy and Matt doesn’t trust her at all. I’ve spent most of the last 4 years helping/supporting my oldest step son with his opiate addiction. Schizophrenia is so much harder.
He just sent me a text about having sex and extracting the demons from the girls he has sex with. The delusional thoughts are so hard to cope with. I keep praying for God to give me strength and courage to help him stabilize as much as he can.
I appreciate EVERYONE’S support, encouragement and making me understand that his behavior is normal for people with this mental illness.
That part gets easier over time.
Hi Beckys22,
Have you thought about asking him how he killed the demons he killed? And maybe ask him about how he extracts demons from girls?
Dr Amador says they feel a need to talk about the delusions and Dr. Amador says talking about the delusions with them does not make the delusions more real to them.
I ask because maybe you can ease your mind about whether or not he has hurt someone in real life. The lead instructor for my Family to Family class, who also taught other instructors for many years, taught me that delusions don’t have a lot of details.
Example: my son told me someone had approached him at a hole on the golf course and spoke with him. Following the Amador LEAP methods to start the conversation, I was eventually able to ask him “where did the man come from?” “Where did he go when he left?” “What was he wearing, was he dressed for golf? Did he have golf clubs?”
My son wasn’t able to answer any of those questions. When something has actually happened, he can answer all kinds of questions.
Hope
Thank you. Is LEAP something I can research on line? He says that he takes the demons from the girls during sex. He make the demons his “bitches” for about a week. Then he puts them in a special stone and hides the stones in the woods.
LOL sounds perfectly normal to me as I here similar all the time…
funny GSSP - we don’t get demon talk here - not yet anyway. We are a bit stuck on the sexual abuse accusations, but with years of ahead of us, who knows?
@Beckys22 You can find LEAP online. Its the communication process developed by Dr Amador who wrote the book “I’m Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help” The online videos are on youtube - someone just posted on a recent thread here.
We saw his psychologist yesterday. He agreed to try a different med called Geodan. He’s telling me that he’s already feeling side effects. His dr and I had a few minutes alone. He told me that he knew Matt was telling us that his dr was telling us he doesn’t have sz and had been encouraging him to allow one of us to come with him to his appts. I feel that the Dr and I will be able to work together better now. He also recommended that the next time Matt is hospitalized that we get guardianship for him so we can make him continue his medication treatment. As of right now, Matt is happy to allow me to continue to go to his dr appts. I feel like after almost 4 years of hell we may have a chance for progress. With his new found trust in me, he is sharing more of his delusions. It’s wearing on me pretty heavy. I still have to work on getting him to sign that hippa release.