Besides having schizophrenia, my son also has anxiety. He was first diagnosed with generalized anxiety disorder when he was about five years old, if you can believe that! At the time, I really didn’t think GAD was a serious thing. I’ve learned a lot about childhood diagnoses, though, since his devastating diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia in 2013. He was also diagnosed with ADD in grade school, third grade, and put on Ritalin. At that time, early ‘90s, I thought ADD was overdiagnosed, even though I knew nothing about it. ADD was changed to ADHD in the DSM. My son’s problem wasn’t his behavior and he wasn’t hyperactive. He had/has ADHD (inattentive type). And now, years later, he has schizophrenia.
For several months now he’s been having these rages in the morning. He wakes up, comes downstairs, and begins his day by yelling loudly, knocking things around, stomping around, sometimes breaks things and is mean to everyone. It’s very stressful for all. I’m not sure what’s causing this. Could it be his anxiety? He seems very agitated and he sort of shuffles his feet and shakes himself, looks like he’s trying to shake it off, hard to describe. He’s angry and frustrated, and seems uncomfortable. This has never been a problem before. His entire life, until schizophrenia took hold, he was known for being even tempered; kind, considerate, polite, loving and caring and above all mellow. I don’t know how to help him anymore because apparently, questions aren’t allowed. He got mad at me once just for saying How are you? I wonder if something’s happening with his medications. He gets the Invega sustenna shot once a month. And in pill form he takes Depakote as an adjunct to the antipsychotic, Paxil for anxiety, and the newest one is mamentide, something like that, which is given to Alzheimer’s patients! I hate that he has to be on all these medications!
Has anyone else here seen behavior like this in the morning? He settles down and is better throughout the day for the most part, but mornings are hell!
My daughter never had morning rages as you described, but she would be more argumentative when she first awoke. Sometimes she still is. I tend to leave her alone until she’s been up for an hour or so if I can.
i had similar problems with my son…there was always tension in the house, sometimes you’d have to walk on eggshells…i had no control over him, he wouldnt take his meds and was constanty talking to the voices which had total control over him…he was up to all sorts of odd behaviour such as begging on his knees barechested outside the local supermarket…also he has come to the attention of the police due to breaking the law as voices told him to scratch cars with his key in dodgy neighbourhoods…i finally had to get him admitted forcibly to a psych hospital as he aws losing the plot altogether…while deluded he spat in my face three times, responding to voices telling him to do so…at that point we contacted the police and had him sectioned under the mental health act…the police were very nice about it and agreed to pick up my son before 6am as then the neighbours wouldnt know what was going on…my advice to you is if your son is causing too much problems and is posing a threat at home get him sectioned under the menatal health act
I have a question, what do you mean when you say “…have him sectioned”?
We’ve been dealing with MI for so many years, I wish this platform was in here many years ago, it’s like a support group for each one of us.
I have picked up tips here and there from some of the caregivers; as of today I had my son is back at the hospital last Sunday, I tried not to get the police involved since I have called them up so many times before. Someone mentioned "make yourself known with the met/pet (mental evaluation team) and in this city we don’t have such service but I was given the Care Line number (which I think is the equivalent to MET) and they sent a Social Worker to make the evaluation and our son was taken to the hospital.
I believe my son is not going to take the meds once he’s discharged. He has done it so many times.
I try to take one day at a time!
Take care, you’re the most important person!
Thank you so much for your reply. I have a Cuban friend and sometimes I kind of know what she means but it’s best to have a clear definition.
Have a great weekend!