My brother has been re-admitted - please tell me it will be ok

After 2 years of medication my brother decided to stop his meds and we thought he was doing fine and even went back to uni to finish his studies. Now he re-lapsed and has been re-admitted to a pshyche hospital. I haven’t yet seen him since he was re-admitted but I fear for my parents well-being. My dad is not taking this very well and I just don’t know how to help them. Any suggestions please. It will be a looong journey for us all but I am really worried about my parent’s well-being.

it’ll be okay if he makes it okay. if you make it okay for him, he’ll ruin it. he has to build it himself. it could well ruin your parents marriage if he moves back home. just the truth. not trying to be mean.

Exact same thing happened to me (minus university) and I’m still here. Hospital isn’t so bad and will hopefully convince him to keep on meds.

That’s a setback for sure, and a sign that its there to stay. But how were you and your parents coping while he was on medication those two years? I don’t see why it cannot go back to that state once he gets out of the hospital. From there it’s slowly working towards improvement again… Of course I do not know how severe the side effects of medication were, but it is possible to go back to uni on medication. Several members on the forum are, including myself.

Thank you for the responses. I am really hoping that the medication will help him get better. As far as I know his side affects of the meds was feeling very sleepy, and tremours. He was coping (seemingly) well before this last relapse. But then he started smoking weed. His friends even admitted that he smoked alot! And we didn’t even know he smoked anything. So that was a shock and then this seemed to also push him over the edge. What will make him stay on his meds? He thought he was fine a few months ago and took himself off it. How do you make someone want to look after their own well-being?

Hopefully this time around he will learn he cannot go without meds else society puts him back on the psych ward. He should feel better after the Hospital stay, I hope they’ll write him a script and he’ll keep appointments with his pdoc.

Also, from personal experience, weed is bad news for us. I smoked the last 5 years of my life and I’m almost obese from the munchies and did literally NOTHING to improve my life. Quitting a year ago was one of the best decisions I made. And while I do miss it on occasions I want to relax, weed is like a masochistic thing for us as the paranoia will ramp up. After all my Hospital stays I felt better and life would slowly stroll back into normalcy. I wish you the best of luck.

Tell him to cooperate with the staff as even if he doesn’t they probably won’t let him go until stabilized.

They have long acting shots that make it harder for a person to come off his med’s. I think that if your brother gets back on his med’s he will be okay. You have to understand that it can be hard not to resent your med’s, even if you know you need them. Med’s diminish us in several different ways - sex being one of them for some of us. Hopefully your brother will realize that he can’t quit taking his med’s.

It’s a setback but if he can find a low meds dosage that’s good for him, maybe uni is not out of the question. If he can avoid being snowed under by high doses of ap’s at the hospital maybe there is some cause to give him hope. And by giving him hope, maybe also your parents.

But he has to do it, if he doesn’t stick to the plan then things will just get worse. It would also be good if he stopped smoking weed, it’s not generally a positive for sz sufferers.

The weed. Not a good thing. High concentrations or any concentration for that matter can make them psychotic. If he went off his meds AND starting smoking weed, then that’s a double whammy. Let him stay hospitalized as needed, back on meds, and away from people who are going to encourage him to smoke weed. For them it may be okay, but for someone with schizophrenia, it’s not. He will be okay with your love and support.