My schizophrenic brother killed my father

Family
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Of what little I know, anxiety is a symptom of the disease especially paired with delusions of various kinds. The side effects of most anti-anxiety meds actually worsens the symptoms even if there is a temporary placebo effect when the meds are first prescribed.

He almost always feels better if he has anxiety, getting some rest or doing a relaxation exercise that doesn’t require medication is what we usually recommend for him. (Although he insists at that point that he doesn’t need his meds when he can lessen his anxiety with exercises, why can’t he handle his delusions without it too?) This doesn’t fly and in as much as we can make him realize something, he knows most of his things that he likes, like having people visit are contingent on him being able to take care of himself.

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Thank you so much for being honest and replying. I hope you all are holding up well. We all will keep up the fight and prayers for you and your family.

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Thanks so much for mentioning the Treatment Advocacy Center. I haven’t read all the information, but it looks promising. We’ve had so many problems getting help for my brother.

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I am sorry you for your loss
I wonder what you would think of me
I am a system impacted and diagnosed with schizophrenia and ptsd etc
I am done with a lengthy prison sentence for killing my adoptive parent
I now hold a job and have done some college and want to get a degree and start a family and I take vistiril and Abilify currently
It reminds me I have the book A Beautiful Mind
The Professor and the Madman and the other biography of the mentally ill virtuoso signed too
I might have some neurodivergent/ diverse problem due to my birth mom drinking? So I will be blood tested and brain scanned
I also attend Mass weekly

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I appreciate your openness in sharing your story. In my brother’s case my father was the one who lived with him and who was there so his delusions fixated on him being the main source of the problem simply because he was present. Would you say something similar occurred with you? I’m assuming while you were in prison they made you take those medications? I’m guessing in time you adjusted well to them? Did you notice a difference in yourself after a period of time? I’m also very interested in learning more about how the brain scan works and what information you find out from that. These are just a few questions I probably won’t get to ask my own brother so I’m curious to hear from someone who has lived similarly.

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There was some fixation in my case and also from abuse that occurred with the adoption. It was very difficult to find medication that finally I stuck with and medication changes and really titrated doses I dislike and yes I was made to take it and at one point court ordered in prison which was rough. I went off medication once while in the free world now but have been advised against getting off my meds and becoming distorted so I have resumed after one of my mentors was direct with me about taking it and I see no other alternative still now. I think I will continue to do so because my brother after me has fetal alcohol spectrum disorder and takes meds and is very innocent minded but has not turned violent really and has no criminal record yet was raised separate from me. I am eager to learn as well what an impartial brain scans and blood tests will reveal and I wish that were more widespread and commonplace.my behavior is better on the meds and I think I am less on the edge with them.

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Well isn’t that just effing great? Are you bloody kidding me, junegirl?! What the actual ef. God, I am so so so sorry for you and your poor under appreciated exhausted heart broken family. Your poor parents, thank god you have a twin, hopefully you two are close and thank god you have a family of your own. I’m sure you know, the steely resolve of a warrior is required and hastened from proximity to schizophrenia. The heart callous developed to live amongst them like the bare feet of Amazonian tree climbers, is a necessity to survive, without it every engagement with the elements hurts like the first time.
everything with schizophrenics seems to me, to be so unjust, they’re forgotten about in the system, they fill up jail and prison cells, and park benches, and even when they’re expressing being a harm to themselves and others there isn’t a thing that can be done short of a 5 day hospital rendezvous! I had once called a suicidal hotline and used it as a therapy session drunk one night at 23, they were so “freaked out” (rather opportunistically sought their well deserved kickback or “brownie point” and felt my regales of yesteryear justified) tracking me down for THREE DAYS and once they found me they took me against my will for a 72 hour hold at the hospital for a psychological evaluation which didn’t come until the third freaking day in the form of a husky, chaps with fringe wearing Harley Davidson riding broad who asked me if I wanted to “hurt myself or others” and was dismissed hours later because slackers exist in all fields of all professions and i was forgotten about…

My brother is schizophrenic too and I typically occupy two houses of opinion and feeling for him, either I think he’s demonically possessed and I feel sorry for him or I think he’s demonically possessed and I want to disappear him with my bare hands. He’s on medication, but he smokes pot which metabolizes the antipsychotics faster causing him to hallucinate rendering the medication redundant, but it’s good he’s on it, I guess? It was court ordered a couple years ago after my mother discovered he was defecating into those paper-thin produce bags. One day, after weeks of thoroughly cleaning the house, searching for what smelled like raw sewage, she discovered a collection of plastic bags under the porch. he’d been haphazardly carrying these bags through the house the long way to avoid detection, baptizing maximal square footage of house with prized piss and dumps of a raving lunatic. This weeks long saga of “what’s that smell?” Was my family’s version of winning the lottery, and my mom could cash in her winning ticket by calling emergency services to extract my brother, the goose that laid, what he thought were, his golden eggs. The only way to get peter into the hospital and then seen by a judge was first to take him to jail, if the system made sense maybe the system would work, but it doesn’t work and it doesn’t make sense. The police knew what the situation was, this is standard procedure. He wasn’t going through a psychotic episode, which was explained, he was a biohazard, mentally ill, sure but a biohazard and not a physical threat to police or himself. The police went around the side of the house to the wrong “front door” even though clearly the door every human uses is the door nearest to where they parked their car. And before my mother answered the door when they were outside she heard they said he was “rabbitting” which means “making a run for it” which made NO SENSE because he was in the kitchen. This “validated” my mom answering the door with this jackass piece of shit cop’s gun drawn on her, screaming at her to put her hands on her head. My then 60 year old mother, who has severe PTSD from an escaped-convict home invasion she was the victim of in her twenties was messed up having an episode for over two weeks from this cowardly cop. Regardless, you shouldn’t be a bloody cop if you’re so chickenshit you need your weapon drawn to knock on someone’s door when you’re picking up a sick guy for taking dumps and pees in produce bags, I mean, for fucks sake. Sorry for the language, I don’t think I will ever get over that….

Im sorry to blather on, I think I got carried away, but if there’s any resource I find in my constant research on this topic that I think would help you, I’ll post it here.

I feel so much for you and I’m so sorry your brother robbed years of peace from your family. Thats certainly what schizophrenia does, it robs all privy to its essence any possibility of peace. At least he’s got a state sanctioned babysitter and that’s not ideal, but it’s the best we’ve got until a real rewriting of the system is done…

Best of luck

Emily

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What a terrible story and it hits very close to home for me.

I had virtually no help in dealing with my brother Billy. Since he died I have been reading up and finding out all the stuff the doctors withheld from me. I think this is a grave injustice to the patient, and especially to family members that are flying blind trying to deal with their loved ones.

Since I’ve been studying, I have read time and time again that schizophrenics are not dangerous, not violent. This 100% conflicts with my own experience. Billy was extremely violent and in fact he tried to kill my mother and almost succeeded. This happened while I was away at college.

Billy was like an angry, uncontrollable, wild animal.

The ubiquitous claim that schizophrenics are not violent is 100% 100% 100% bullshit and it is profoundly irresponsible for authorities to promote this blatant and malevolent falsehood. THEY ARE TICKING TIME BOMBS nothing less.

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My Family to Family teacher always corrected people and said "People with schizophrenia on AP meds are rarely violent. I don’t remember where I heard it, supposedly, the claim of non-violence was a matter of contention between Dr Torrey and NAMI. From his writings about violence and people living in terror of their family members with scz, I suspect is is true.

They do teach that if a person was not violent before developing scz, they would most likely not become violent. They also teach that our family members are more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators.

Our family members who are highly paranoid can misconstrue situations and end up hurting someone or getting hurt.

A forum member from the past always warned people that in his experience the most dangerous of our family members were the ones with religious delusions.

I believe it is necessary to warn people of the possibilities. Deaths have happened too often. Two members of our Family to Family class died at the hands of their son. He had threatened to kill them many times.

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Hmm this is interesting. At least in the case of my brother he was not violent at all before developing schizophrenia. He was very sweet and wouldn’t hurt a thing. We grew up with dogs and he was so gentle with them. I always thought if anything he might have ended up hurting himself not anyone else. Schizophrenia turned him into a completely different person.

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She was a long time teacher of NAMI classes - she knew better than to speak in definites eh?

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How sad, I am so sorry for your loss. You never know with schizophrenia, I always have a fear of my son, I have heard way too many SZ horror stories.

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What a sad story and there are so many like it out there. You just never know what the voices are telling them.

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It is the 27th year anniversary of my schizophrenic brother murdering my father, my brother was 27 an my Dad 56. My Dad fought since my brother was in his early teens for health from doctors, mental health services and police. Just 2 weeks before what happened my brother was arrested for shooting a gun in a town centre but was told by a forensic phycologist he was not mentally ill and released. This is after years and years of trying to get help and support for him. I still struggle now as that day I lost my whole family as my Mum killed herself when I was 9, it’s so tough to deal with. I really wish you all the best in the future , it’s such a hard thing to deal with x

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I’m so sorry for your loss , this disease is so devastating :disappointed_face: it seems unreal that our loved ones never do receive the help they need even when it’s so obvious they need it . Thank you for sharing in this space .
Wishing you strength and peace .

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“it seems unreal that our loved ones never do receive the help they need even when it’s so obvious they need it”

Billy used to really straighten up when he talked to doctors and social workers. They were never convinced of just how bad he was. And he had them somewhat convinced that somehow I was to blame for his problems. This is almost Charles Manson level manipulation, but Billy was manipulating my parents as early as 6 or 7 years old.

The courts always gave him a break; he’s just a good kid that steals cars and tried to kill his mother. And the doctors just asked him a couple questions and declared him competent just like that, even when he was living in filth and never bathing or changing his clothes. It was very frustrating to me because the buck always stopped with me.

I was always afraid of him; always afraid he was going to do something truly horrible that would make me regret not taking more drastic action. The thought that he would rape a minor or kill someone in a psychotic rage was always front and center in my mind. And nobody would listen to me. Billy was so good at his gaslighting that there were times I thought I was the crazy one.

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( Billy used to really straighten up when he talked to doctors and social workers. )

Eddie it’s horrifying that there was no support for you, and as family members we are just expected to be able to help our loved ones.
It’s obvious we are looking for outside help because we couldn’t help!!

I completely understand when you say Billy used to really straighten up when he talked to doctors and social workers, my sibling has passed so many competency tests .

And even times when he didn’t there was still nothing done I recently came across some old paperwork where a crisis intervention team had been evaluating him they had their physician evaluate him and recommend him for guardianship the way they filled it out he was unable to do anything for himself and a threat to himself and it was still denied :enraged_face:

I also understand sometimes you thought you were the crazy one, the way my sibling rewrites events and crisis situations his behaviors caused,

Has made me question my own reality so many times.

The truth is we have very different truths and even though facts are facts his truth is his truth even if it’s not reality and I have to keep reminding myself of that.

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Wow it’s unbelievable how many of us pleaded for help and were still turned away! When my brother was brought into the psychiatric unit after being arrested the first time for stalking women at a target plaza he was released after 24 hours. I pleaded my case with whomever was in charge and he was still let go the next day. Just like the others, he could certainly put on a front when he wanted. This all happened about 2.5 years before he killed my father. So he was already in a bad state at that time.

God even after he did what he did to my father he was out in our small town neighborhood knocking on doors looking for women. I read in his report he thought he had to sleep with a certain number of women for the air to stop being poisoned. He also thought my dad had something to do with the poisonous air but when that didn’t fix the problem he continued looking for women. Was his plan to bring them back to the crime scene? Absolutely insane.

I wonder if you could, what would you change about our mental health system? What would make it easier for us to get them and us the help we need? I think about this a lot and don’t even know where to begin.

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I have never met another person that had the slightest clue what I’m talking about. Nobody ever understood this. Thanks, Meg.

When Billy died, people were so disdainful towards me, as if I had made his life miserable. These people didn’t have the slightest clue what our relationship was like. Billy was extremely abusive and callous, deceitful and selfish. He constantly hung me out to dry, then he would blame me every time. And whatever he told his social workers made me out to be a villain. Plus I was so selfish for not letting Billy move in with me. All taken, it framed me as a real bad guy.

When I see Rob Reiner in the news, it hurts so much. I think of how much he must have loved his son, how difficult it must have been to deal with him, and how much he must have sacrificed for him; and then his son commits the ultimate betrayal. For most people it’s sensational tabloid news; for me it’s a stark and disturbing reminder of my life with Billy. And the facial expressions of Nick, especially his eyes, remind me so much of Billy.

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Just as a quick thought I would definitely change the release process,

A lot of places my sibling has been are supposed to have a release system in place and it never happens never,

So when somebody is coming out of an inpatient stay and has nowhere to go I would definitely change that part.

Make that part accountable make sure that they are being taken to the next place the next step not just being released to the street or to a family that can’t have them back in the home.

Once my sibling was released and they gave him a bus pass for the day and that’s what they called a plan even after I had spent weeks talking to them about not releasing him before there was a plan in place.

That’s just one part

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