Hello I have been with this person for about 20 years now and they have schizophrenia and we dealt with it appropriately in the past but as of last night something in them snapped and they think the house is bugged, his computer has some super virus that can magically upload itself to other devices like his phone his facebook email etc and what makes no sense is he claims it remais active on the RAM after power is removed and will somehow jump onto a new ram stick when the packing for it is opened like its some airborn computer virus that can even hijack a toaster or coffee pot (Im an IT professional I have degrees in IT BTW), people are talking about him, peeking in through windows, and everyone trying to offer support and help are all in on some grand conspiracy to kill him including the police and his mental health doctors. When I ask questions like what time did such and such happen her gets defensive with “your fussing at me talking down on me and your part of it all”.This is by far the worst because he has tol people that I hired people to target harass him and then kill him… That really hurts becasue I would never harm him in any way I know he;s in an episode but he will not listen and get help again because in his mind all that help system is part of the conspiracy to end him and he is prett much locked into that belief now and no one can get through to him without him guilt tripping you and if that dont work he accuses you of being in on it all. The fact he has gone around and told people what he did has me worried now because are the cops going to come get me because a neighbor called them on his behalf because of what he told them while in a psychosis episode and I did nothing at all yet I get accused and charged for conspiring to commit murder or something. I do plan on calling the Sheriffs office in the morning and giving them a heads up just in case just to cover my own ass here because you never can tell about what others will do with hearsay information especially when they have no idea theperson teelling them is having an episode. I like to think I have been supportive with him telling him I understand this and that and that I got his back and so on but all I get in return is “you’d say that to try and make me feel better cause your in on it, I been on the websites where it tells you what to do” and so on I dont know what else to do here I worry day and noght to the point I been loosing sleep and not eating right I know I need to take care of myself but I cant when Im chewing my nails off worried about him adn his well being, it has me in tears nearly constantly now where usually by me working takes my mind off thinsg no longer works.
One of the biggest risks to our mental health is getting caught up in their episodes. None of what they say means anything. My husband and I were highly impacted when our son’s psychiatrist told us “none of it means anything”. Over time, the stress and the struggle can actually make us crazy, sounds like you are feeling that stress.
We have to listen so they are heard, but we must not get emotionally caught up in it. The police hear this sort of thing all the time.
When the sheriff’s department called me about my son’s accusations of sexual abuse, they weren’t really interested at all. They just wanted to know if I could get him to stop calling 911.
Yes, please try to care for yourself and not get caught up in what your partner says if it is non-sensical. The police also asked me to get my daughter to stop calling 911 every time they came to my home as they could see she wasn’t well. I couldn’t short of taking her phone away. So they came many dozens of times. Also, to protect my own self, I sort of had to mentally “filter” her communications into the wastebasket of my mind if they didn’t make sense or were too paranoid as a lot of what she said couldn’t be true.
Yes, so true @oldladyblue not thinking about the details of the things they say during episodes is to protect us. I would keep an ear out for any sort of self harming or harm to others statements or wishes (to build on Amadorwise).
My friend who struggles with his wife is always bemoaning “how can she say these things to me over and over?” I suspect that he is making the point of how normalizing our family members statements and actions we can begin to lose our own mental health where we are unable to separate reality from psychosis.
There is a way to ask questions that can help them sort things out, some training in CBT would help.
Doesn’t surprise me. Billy used to call the police on me all the time. He told them I was a drug dealer, a sexual predator, a thief, etc. How do I know? They told me, and they asked me to get him to stop. They knew he was batshit crazy. They absolutely despised dealing with him. He was so nasty.
I thought I was the only person that had a loved one that called the police all the time and reported crimes that didn’t happen. How silly of me.
Respectfully, I’ll add a very big qualifier to this— none of it means anything to you
In the moment, it may mean a great deal to him.
And it’s extremely painful and alienating to feel your loved ones, your psychiatrist and everyone around you are discounting and dismissing your thoughts and feelings.
I understand the need for caregivers to insulate themselves emotionally especially if they’re in distress, but there are ways to delay, deflect or transfer these charged issues onto therapists and others better equipped to handle or share these burdens.
Sorry to get up on a soapbox, but since I started out with talk therapy, one of the biggest weaknesses I’ve seen in psychiatrists is their listening and empathetic skills. I’ve yet to find one who knew anything about anasognosia or LEAP without me explaining it to them.
Yes they talk and don’t listen. From my experience they don’t have a clue what schizophrenics do to their loved ones. Pretty much only the families know.
Always glad to see you on your soapbox MB 
I wouldn’t want to suggest discounting or dismissing to our family members their thoughts and feelings. The caregivers do need to not get involved with sorting out these thoughts and not constantly be asking themselves and others “how can they say this? how can they believe this?” Sadly, with my desire to write with brevity in mind, I can create confusion.
We can confuse our brains when we normalize the thoughts of our neurodiverse family members. When we normalize, and - whether we like it or not- constantly thinking “Oh how can they say this!” -over time, listening to their thoughts and accusations, you can get caught up and your brain begins to think their accusations and thoughts are reality.
When you live your life too close to something persistent, you become a part of it and it becomes a part of you.
Now this next statement is a bit scary but we see it here all the time. Some people normalize to avoid realizing they live in a version of hell.
My son’s original psychiatrist was correct, when he dismissed to us, our concerns about the meanings of drawings, etc. We were focusing on the wrong thing. We were fortunate, he was pushing Torrey and Amador on us. Mike took his advice, he must have been empathetic, Mike loved meeting with him. Mike contacted a therapist who specialized in CBT to help him with his goals as a result of their time together and that made all the difference.
Thanks so much for being here MB!
Maybe a bit more is needed about “normalizing”.
When the caregivers find themselves saying stuff like “I have never cheated on them” and in this case, “what makes no sense is he claims it remains active on the RAM after power is removed, etc” these sort of statements reveal that the caregiver is normalizing these statements. They are crediting these statements as reality and not seeing the episode.
I guess we really can’t expect them to empathize as long as they are caught up in the episode themselves.
We push and we push LEAP on this forum, you can listen and empathize without believing what they say is real. If caregivers can’t build that wall, their mental health will degrade and we lose another one to extreme mental stress.
As I look out my window right now, I think, what we are fighting so often on this forum is getting people to see the forest through the trees.
Foregoing brevity again, 
the forest is our family member who is in an episode and needs help, the trees are whatever they are saying that we are focused on instead of seeing our family member’s struggle
If we can’t pull back and see the big picture and figure a way forward, everything stays the same for everyone
I’d like to add that caregivers and partners also struggle with constant disappointment, hoping against all experience and logic that the afflicted loved one will “snap out of it” and return to their “former selves,” or that a period of insight/quasi-normalcy, however brief, is the new status quo. The disappointment and pain we experience when these delusions are shattered is part of the mental health roller coaster. But it is hardest on those new to SZ, or those who have not come to grips with the fact that their loved ones will never be the same again.
Good point. Because I’m not a primary caregiver, I tend to forget psychiatrists are often equally bad at listening to and empathizing with family members. And privacy laws can make addressing such matters even more difficult.
All the more reason for caregivers to seek therapy earlier rather than later, since they are working and advocating for you, and may be better equipped to model LEAP style communication patterns.
I think you are correct to call the sherrif and try to get ahead of the situation. I thought my SZ son wouldn’t violate his restraining order and now he’s sitting in jail for trying to give a lady gifts who didnt want any part of him. Also it may be good to do a baker act to get him on his meds if he’s off them. There is a lot of hope that SZs can get remission with a ketogenic diet and taper off meds. They all seem to hate the antipsychotic meds but when they go off them crap like this happens, so its really hard to manage.
Just a bit more I had been sharing this thread with my old teacher and she wanted me to share with all of you, her experiences with LEAP.
She recommended LEAP for decades, she read the book several times, but she never understood it. Her son with bipolar has been much more challenging for her than her son with schizoaffective ever was. She had been fortunate that the son with schizoaffective was willing to take meds and go to life therapy.
When I shared the “forest - trees” with her last week, we began using it in regular conversation when she would share things her son had said to her that were upsetting her. He can get pretty ugly and loud with his accusations. She said she always found herself reacting to the upsetting statements - treating them as if they were real. I told her “now he is throwing the trees at you, but they are still trees and you aren’t seeing his struggle or hearing his needs”.
She said she found that when he was going on with his accusations, she found that changing her thoughts made it possible for her to separate the trees from the forest. She started grounding herself during his rants by thinking “the L is for listen, the E is for empathize, the A is for agree to disagree, and the P is for partner”. She said at first it was difficult because her thoughts were so caught up in his tirade, OR she was thinking about what she wanted she wanted to achieve from the conversation.
They have a long history of arguing and getting emotional with each other - which in my experience with people in a manic episodes- is exactly what the mania wants you to do. Mania is looking for a “dance partner”.
Mentally reciting the L is for listen,etc, kicked her brain out of its emotional response and turned on another part of her brain that could process. She said doing so has made all the difference.
As a Schizoaffective middle child in my equivalent scenario, I’ve often felt frustrated and detached from both the “well” and “less well” branches of the family. LEAP’s tough enough in single player mode, but can be even harder in multiplayer.
“Yep, there goes another tree and another tree, don’t waste your time chasing those…” versus, “hey I see your trees there and I know they’re important to you, but how do they make you feel, maybe you could hug them a bit and we can work together and find a solution together.” You’d think knowing intimately how it feels would give me a successful advantage, but it hasn’t often worked that way for me.
My “well” brother’s arriving to visit later this evening, and I half expect him to insist on attempting to get my brother with bipolar disorder to “admit” that everything in his last delusional episode wasn’t real so the “healing” can begin. Even though I’ve coached him over and over that this isn’t productive, serves no purpose other than giving him the opportunity to be “right” and could undermine any progress we’ve had in keeping him on medication and away from his hoarded-out house and his neighbors who enjoined him with restraining orders. Oh well, we’ll see when his court date finally arrives, but I fear once my mother passes he’ll backslide.
I keep coming back to those statistics in Amador’s forward to his book that give better odds against anasognosia for Schizoaffective Disorder over Bipolar Disorder and Schizophrenia. It always felt paradoxical that Bipolar Disorder was considered the less serious disease and I’d somehow had so much better luck than my brother.
The comments are real. The accusations are fabricated.
Billy used to fabricate accusations almost nonstop. His bizarre paranoid delusions would be motivated by the slightest stress or dissonance. And he would broadcast them far and wide; often he would call the police and make scores of bizarre accusations against me. And people would often believe him, despite the bizarre nature of his claims. This is what widened the schism between my uncles and cousins, and me. They would say the accusations didn’t come out of thin air! I was surely hiding something from them. My uncle got him a job- he actually thought Billy could function on the job! - and when he got fired the first hour he pressured me to find him a job- for 20 years! I was always, always, always wrong. I was always the bad guy.
My teacher was fortunate in that when she recently stopped herself from emotionally/angrily responding to her son’s anger mania (sometimes people don’t realize that raging anger is a form of mania) she began to hear the theme that was being spelled out by his thrown trees.
She applied empathy instead of her own angry emotion and he responded by expanding. She realized that her son felt belittled by having to live with her. She couldn’t listen or empathize while her brain was busy hearing and responding with her own emotion.
We laughed a bit as we are both familiar with the dog trainer Cesar Milan’s videos. Cesar often demonstrates that a touch can change the track of the dog’s brain. She figured out how to change the track of her own brain during her son’s manic episode.
So brilliant, still laughing here - probably because I have played in multiplayer. The “wells” can make it terribly tricky.
You are so correct, those are real words (and real emotions) coming at us.
You were a good brother. You are still processing what happened. Sounds to me like you stayed in his life. This forum is full of families who had siblings who just walked away and stayed away.
This is why so many mentally ill are homeless and walking the streets. People don’t get it.
You might see a young homeless person with obvious mental problems walking the streets. You think the family is being callous and selfish; if only they’d let him come home for a few days to clean up and rest, he could get himself together right? But I can tell you from experience, having Billy in my house was enormously stressful because if I so much as blinked he would break something, ruin something, or steal stuff. If I was cooking (I always did when he came over) I couldn’t leave the food unattended for one second, because he would stuff his face until he threw up. It was like having a wild bear in the house.
So it’s easy to pass judgement if you don’t know the reality. Here we know.
I couldn’t imagine having Billy over if I had kids. Just a few minutes with him could leave them permanently traumatized. I’m all grown up and I am permanently traumatized from dealing with Billy. My choice would have been to break the cycle.