My husband told me he that he had Schizophrenia...please help

Hello,

So my husband told my that he thought he had Schizophrenia.
I have research it in many different sites and I don’t think he does but I need help.

  1. He says he feels like someone is out to get him at times
  2. He feels safe having a knife on him
  3. He had anxiety and takes medication to control it
  4. He has trouble sleeping at times. ( not to often)
  5. He has no problem talking to anybody but feels overwhelmed with huge crowds.
  6. He walks in circles. It is like he can’t get his thoughts together.

Other than that I feel like everything else is rather normal but I am not sure what I should do. I do think I might need to contact a specialist but I don’t know if its just his anxiety that he deals with.

We’re not doctors so we can’t really diagnose.

And feeling safe having a knife is not exactly a symptom…

Talk to a doctor about it.

Good luck!

Well He feels that as long as he has something he can protect himself with in case someone comes to get him…he will be okay.

Okay thank you @Minnii

I get that, didn’t mean to sound like it doesn’t mean something. Just it’s a bit of a stigma to associate violence with sz and that’s not correct. I’m sorry if I sound harsh, don’t mean to. You’re in pain, I don’t want to sound insensitive. But I urge you to talk to a psychiatrist. Best of luck.

So why does he think he has schizophrenia? Everything you listed sounds similar to my husband, and he has anxiety. Far from psychosis. But I’ll echo Minnii, we’re not doctors. If he thinks something is wrong, he should be talking to a doctor.

agreed and I understand the direct response. I appreciate any feed back.
@Minnii

@LED My husband’s grandfather had it. He talked to his mother about it and she was the one stating some of the behavior his dad had was similar from what my husband is experiencing.
I personally think it is just anxiety but I do want to help him if he believes it is something more.

having anxiety can make you feel like you are “going crazy”. I used to walk in circles as a child when I had high anxiety level.

Take your list to a Dr. Number 1 sounds like sz but we can’t diagnose. Walking around in circles sounds like a compulsion (OCD) but again I’m not a Dr. so don’t take my word for it. Best to talk to a Dr.

Okay thank you so much @Comatose and @Loke

With Sz you don’t even feel safe with a knife. I hope you can get the right diagnosis.

Sometimes if you read too much you can get med student disease.

Sz should only be diagnosed by a psychiatrist. And usually they can wait 6 months to see if it’s permanent. And they don’t want to lower the boom on someone because of the stigma that can be involved.

So sometimes they can say psychotic disorder NOS. and that can be a one time thing that goes away after a big stress just cracks someone.

I think like many of the others said, have him evaluated by a mental health professional.

The only other advice I could give is to stay off of Google. If he is paranoid, Googling symptoms will make him more so. I used to Google my symptoms for 8 hours a day. I eventually ended up with calluses on my fingertips. And the truth is, you can make any terrible disorder or disease match one of your symptoms.

No matter what you do, best of luck to you and your husband.

I recommend a full review from people at an early psychosis treatment and evaluation center:

http://forum.schizophrenia.com/t/early-psychosis-treatment-centers-how-to-get-great-help-for-free/12743

Schizophrenia is characterized by a person being out of touch with reality. The only sign I see of that in your husband is him thinking someone is out to get him. If that gets worse you might want to get him checked out. Hopefully his symptoms will go away on their own.

Suggested:

  1. Get a copy of this book and read it and have your family read it, as well.
    http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856
    .
  2. Get him properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
    Find Top Psychiatrists by State. and Find Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Nurses - Psychology Today
    .
  3. Work with that “psychiatrist” (or “p-doc”) to develop a medication formula that stabilizes their symptoms sufficiently so that they can tackle the psychotherapy that will disentangle their thinking.
    .
  4. The best of the psychotherapies for that currently include…
    DBT – What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)? – Behavioral Tech
    MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
    MBCT - Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy: theory and practice - PubMed
    ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
    10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing
    .
  5. the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
    MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
    SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
    SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia
    .
  6. or standard CBTs, like…
    REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
    Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
    Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
    Standard CBT – http://www.beckinstitute.org/what-is-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/About-CBT/252/
    .
  7. If you/she/he needs a professional intervention to get through treatment resistance, tell me where you live, and I will get back to you with leads to those services.
    .
  8. Look into the RAISE Project at Google.

I will also say that sounds more like anxiety than schizophrenia, but only a doctor would be able to diagnose. Does he ever have hallucinations? Is he currently taking any new medications? Some of them can cause paranoia and heightened anxiety.

What about MJ? I heard it can make folks paranoid.

YES. Marijuana can definitely cause psychotic symptoms. I think someone posted an article once saying that 25% of schizophrenics had their onset after using pot.

See a psychiatrist, it will help him sort everything out.