Hi
I called the Ambulance on my son ten days ago and he was involuntary admitted for two weeks in the hospital.
They gave him two shots and resperidol pills
And released him today.
I picked him up today with my husband.
He is soooo mad from us for admitting him to the psych ward.
He came home and locked himself in his room.
What do i do now?
Do I leave him ? Try to talk to him?
I tried to say like what the book said” i am sorry i will be mad if i where you , i had to do what I felt is correct “ but he was still pissed from me.
I think most of us have been through the same scenario. It’s been a while since it happened to me. Give him some time and patiently explain why you felt it was in the family’s best interest to get him help.
Does he have any awareness that something is wrong? Is he seeing a psychiatrist? It’s very important that he sees for himself that he needs help. I assume the book you are referring to is I Am Not Sick, I Don’t Need Help! How to Help Someone Accept Treatment. It’s a great book and helped me.
Yes this is the book
He is with a psychiatrist for the past four years, and was stable,But he stopped taking his medications for maybe six months because his psychologist told him you are not sick! Obviously the Dr had no experience with scz ، when i asked the Dr why did you tell him that he said he didn’t want to scare him off! I told him he relapsed coz of you.
Hope he gets better soon , and forgive us
What a hard illness
hard situation to be in right now I don’t have answers , but if I were in that place right now I would go with time and space while closely monitoring the behaviors.
You are being pro active with learning LEAP skills .
from past experience when my loved one has come back from the hospital etc. there’s usually a lot of anger which is a valid feeling but the reasons you sent him are also very valid .
I think your on the right track with learning more . I wish there was a guaranteed guide to recovery from this but seems to be slow painful lessons .
One thing I learned from NAMI family to family is to create a contract with your loved one when they are in a more stable state of mind .
Something like if we notice such and such patterns in your behaviors
we will need to take such and such actions .
then times like these when he arrives home you could refer to the contract we felt it was for your safety and others
again I wish there were guaranteed strategies ! we just have to keep trying and learning new tools hopefully to create a system that works for us and our loved ones stay strong and keep caring for yourself !
I just wanted to voice my sincere support for you and your family. This might be the toughest time as your child is not stabilized on medication.
I would offer that you find a new psychiatrist who specializes or has experience with schziophrenia.
This can be very hard.
Another suggestion is to consider getting licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) to meet with 1x per week. Meet as a family so your child can verbalized his anger and be heard.
Lastly, do something nice for yourself and hang in there.
Thanks Deb trying my best to put myself together
Actually i was wondering if a social worker will help.
May try one
I had a bad experience with a psychologist who told my son he is not scz and my son stopped his medications
Good luck to u too
Its great you’re using the book. Helpful tool for being able to navigate things. Especially to build trust with time/consistency; even after hospitalization. Give it some time, when you do interact be really mindful to use it.
One of my favorite parts of that book is when you are dealing with severe psychosis; you’re being faced with an extremely unwell person, and the difficult choice/ act of getting them to a hospital for help.
*Assuming it will be at a good place and staff is compassionate (acknowledging that there are people who have not been treated well, with abusive experiences).
It can always be something they resent you for, and can be such a gut wrenching and conflicting situation. I’d remind myself after reading it- that the longer they’re in psychosis, the harder to get stable, and in the book, he mentions it being a potentially toxic state for the brain even maybe damaging it.
Which i think makes sense. It’s a pretty intense state of brain activity/ high stress hormones/ etc!
It’s been a while since i read it, but the end helped me a bunch with the hospitalization and aftermath.
For myself, i chose to help a loved one whose illness was dire, and even if they get upset with me for getting help, i care about them more. I hope they come around as they get a little more stable!
That happened in my experience with a psychiatrist, and they got really sick in their care too. Super dangerous when someone doesn’t know about schizophrenia and isn’t cautious. Thinking they’ve figured it all out from brief 1 hr sessions w/ the person.
He did five sessions 300$ for each , and he told him you have trauma that happened in your child hood🤦🏻♀️
I don’t know what to say
He is better now
Back to medications
We just have to wait till they work.
Oh for pete’s sake! not this childhood trauma {expletive deleted} again!
Not hard to imagine that our loved ones experience negative delusions focused on family or partner when they hear and read this kind of irresponsible take from the therapeutic world.
This is hard. Our daughter had a Psych Nurse Practitioner who let her get off her meds as our daughter insisted. When she started having problems again instead of getting her hospitalized she dropped her case. Thankfully our daughter had a great therapist who talked her into getting evaluated and was eventually hospitalized. She’s highly functional today.I had thought of trying for malpractice but I didn’t.
How do you deal with this situation with the type of a irresponsible comment to you on his/her part about telling him he was not sick? I do hope you find a different psychologist. Did the psychologist work with the psychiatrist? It is important that our adult child has coordination between his providers as well as the person(s) who cares for him.
We were told that for our loved one to function well it is a three legged stool - medication, hospitalization and outpatient therapy. The outpatient therapy is often missing. It is best set up before the person leaves the hospital.
Be kind to yourself about this even though it’s extremely hard. Educate yourself and realize it’s a difficult challenge. Seek out NAMI advocate and/or other support resources for yourself as well as your son.
Have you read I’m not sick, I don’t need help by Dr. Amador? This process helped me with our daughter but it’s a challenge to learn to implement.
Trust things are getting better for you.
They also told you childhood trauma?
That is crazy
My son was loved by us and both sides of grandparents.
He completely ignored that he is claiming that he is not our son and that he was a billionaire at age ( 24)
Crazy
Hi
I was planning on reporting him to the private clinic but I didn’t, I didn’t have the time and energy to do so. Plus he will come up with an excuse and get away with it.
Son is better now , at least he stopped the verbal abuse( it was intense!)
I lost interest in psychology for now , he have appointment for him second shot in two weeks. Will ask his psychiatrist to recommend someone who knows how to talk to a person with scz.
I did buy the book and found it very helpful.
In four years this was his first very bad episode, hope he get better with time.
Best of luck to you and your daughter
Several weeks ago, my son (age 25) came home from his 10th involuntary hospitalization in eight years. Tragically, he has anosognosia, which of course is what Amador discusses is “I Am Not Sick…” and which afflicts between 50 and 70% of those suffering from SMI (serious mental illness). Anger? Of course. He has been furious with us, his parents, for all these years because he has no concept of why he is so brutally, in effect, imprisoned. This time, though, I very carefully applied some of the LEAP method when he was in the hospital and for the first time, I felt–and he did, as well–that we had truly bonded. I also once again saw the dear, sensitive, deep-hearted person he is, However: The second he was discharged, he seemed to instantaneously forget the bond we had forged and promised to continue and ever since has been rude, abrupt, and nasty with me. His father (my ex, but we are a solid unit in dealing with our son’s illness) reminds me that as the illness progresses, the brain loses more and more gray matter and is irreversibly altered. I am horrified that this may be happening. But back to you and your situation: As another mom said, it’s probably best that you give him space and time and try mightily not to be intrusive. He has been through a trauma and needs to feel what he feels and not have that pain taken away from him or invalidated. (I finally figured out that my son has PTSD on top of everything else due to all his frightening hospitalizations.) I hope eventually you will be able to use the LEAP method to begin communicating with him. I only got as far as “listen” and “empathize,” but at least it was a start. We all hear your distress and angst and are here for you.
P.S. Psych units in my experience are required to put a post-discharge plan in place, including a psychiatrist for meds and a therapist. I’m stunned that your son’s hospital did not do this.
It has been 5 days since your original post, so this may be late, but if I was in your situation I think I would just wait patiently (even if on pins and needles) to see what he does. He will eventually come out of his room. Of course, it may be impossible for you to give him medication if he does not come out soon enough. And will he take the medication? If you have any reason to be concerned about his safety or yours, however, you should call 911 (immediate danger) or 988 (24 hour Suicide & Crisis Hotline). Yes, try to use the LEAP strategy but I suggest just allowing him to re-acclimate to being in your home and not bringing up the past unless he first does so. When he is more calm, you could plan to have a “family meeting” or “touch base meeting” because you care about what he thinks and what matters to him (or similar LEAP terminology). In that meeting, you discuss how your family will live together in your home. The ONE requirement that is not negotiable is that he follows the doctor’s treatment plan (taking medication) and follow-up appointments. The other details of family living can give him some autonomy in accordance with what you can (or cannot) live with. And you have to be willing to do what you say you are going to do (consequences…use a different word) and then do it, if necessary. Help him feel heard, valued, and that he has control over SOME part of his life.
I actually did talk to him, he said he didn’t want to scare him off!
I told him my son stopped the medications coz of you.
I didn’t feel that i wanted to fight so i let it go
Thanks
He actually did come out of the room
He is still ignoring us , but he is taking his medications coz the Dr told him he will call after a week and ask me if he does, otherwise he told him you have to come back to the hospital.
He hated it at the hospital, so he is taking his medications and will take the third shot at the end of the month.
Will see how things will go
We need patience and lots of prayers
I’m praying that the medications soon take effect and he regains insight.
I am optimistic for those of you with young and even not so young adult children. New meds on the horizon, as well as approaches like medical keto, show great promise in better managing this most horrible of disorders. One day in the not too distant future, SZ will be fully curable, or be just another treatable, chronic disease, like diabetes,