My first time posting in this forums. I’m glad there’s a community I can reach out to, it helps me realize that there’s families going threw similar situations as I am.
I have a brother who has been diagnosis with paranoid schizophrenia his been going threw this illness for about 5 years now. I feel he’s in his final breaking point where I believe he cannot take it anymore. He hears voices, Punches himself in the face It gets pretty bad he ends up leaving bruises on himself. He believes there’s people out to get him,doing witchcraft by controlling his hands. He’s been in/out of psychiatric hospitals ever sense his been diagnosis. He takes meds but they don’t help his situation.
Majority of his time he spends it in his room either sleeping or listening to music, Rarely goes outside besides going to food markets, doctor appointments and occasionally going to rehabilitation centers. He has major depression, sometimes cries because of what is going on in his life. His also overweight, I believe one of his medication he takes makes him gain weight. He has developed diabetes type 2.
This illness has really taken a hold on the family, me especially. I really feel it’s out of this world that there’s an illness like this, I feel my brother has been taken from us and my family is witnessing the mental destruction of the illness. My parents have taken responsibility of taken care of his needs. My parents are also getting old, I fear for his future.
He use to do a lot drugs when he was younger he is now 35 years old.I believe that’s one of the reason he developed schizophrenia. My family and case workers have encourage him to take in a hobby or even try losing weight but He seems to not want to try.it’s hopeless as none of medication have worked.
Anyone going threw this? I need advice on how to help him
I don’t know if there is much you can do, besides ask the psychiatrist to try a different medicine and a stronger dose, but some people are resistant to medicine. I’m sorry you and him are suffering so much. I’m taking online classes at a junior college right now, but I ended up dropping a lot of classes at junior college after dropping out of university from schizophrenia. Honestly, it’s really hard to be schizophrenic, especially while hearing voices, and the medicine just makes you pack on the pounds. I was on respirdal for only a few months and I gained 30 pounds. I’ve been on 30 mg of abilify a day now for almost 3 years now, and have stayed around 155 pounds. The problem is I think abilify is one of the weaker antipsychotics, and most of the other ones other than latuda or geodon cause weight gain. I think just being there for him as company and talking to him as a friend is the most you can do. Marijuana can increase the likelihood of getting schizophrenia four fold, but I never did drugs and I still got it. I think if it was possible to find a medicine that drowned out the voices that would really help him, but it may be that none of the medicines make the voices go away for him. Then, even if you find a medicine and a dosage that does work, there is the realization that he will go through that he may or may not be able to get married or get a job, which adds to the misery. Don’t get me wrong. There are people with schizophrenia that get married and get jobs, but not everyone does. If he’s at his breaking point then don’t forget to continue to take him to psychiatric hospitals, as it will probably save his life. I personally have tried to come to grips with the thought that I will probably never get married, and may never get a job, but I am working towards getting a job, even if it takes me another 10 years to do so. It’s really hard to go from fully functional to becoming crippled by voices. Sometimes you just have to come to accept yourself as crippled, which is really hard. I don’t know. Does he allow himself mental vacations? I doubt he is able to because of the constant voices.
Right now my brother in a psychiatric hospital as of today. He was addicted to heroin. Last night i spent sometime with him. He wasn’t in a good mind set, he kept hitting himself and wanting me to call the police. I calm him down enough so we wont have to call the police. This is very unbearable to live with, My family needs help
Not saying he is, but I know a lot of people with autism that punish them selves by banging their head in the wall/floor/furniture or hitting and biting them selves when they get overwhelmed by something. Like emotions or impressions.
Dear @stoic818!
This sounds heartbreaking. Heroin was probably making things a lot worse for him. My son is dual-diagnosis ( SZ with drug addiction ). Your brother may be on a medication that is not working for him.
i know that the substance abuse will make his symptoms worse.
Does his doctor know about this? Maybe your brother can enter a drug-rehab program while working with the med doctor?
i know this is hard to watch and I don`t know if any of this will help, but I hope you and your brother some relief OO* **
he’s not using any drugs he’s been clean for 5 years now. He occasionally drinks on holidays. medication changes every few months, doctors have yet to find any medication that help him out. @notmoses bought the book. I’m hoping someone out there reads my story and have insight
My deepest sympathy for you, your family and your brother mainly.
It is a very difficult case. They are all difficult but some worse than others. I just hope he gets better. I all against ECT, but have you consider it? (don’t know if it’s legal there) - but I reinforce that I wouldn’t use it on myself.
Maybe you should talk to your parents about applying for disability for your son. If he can’t take care of himself maybe you should then think about putting him in a group home or an assisted living center for the mentally ill. These places aren’t resorts, but they’re not terrible either. I’m writing this message to you from an assisted living center right now. At least your brother will have peers who are similar to him.
My brother is currently on disability. His case workers have offer him assisted living centers but he doesn’t wanna leave the house to live somewhere else. In my eyes I think it’s a great idea but he gets the last word
Does he have a relative he can stay with elsewhere? If he can leave all the wrong people/things behind and move, he will find a few verbal harassers probably when he moves. These are just the town’s part-time psychotics who will verbally harass a new person a little bit, you just ignore these. The spastic limb movements can happen, even swinging toward another person…this can stop if he just knows it can happen. Only control he has over it is remaining calm and do not talk to self. Whoever he moves with needs to know the community well to know who is an aggressor/predator/crazy and try to keep your brother away from it. He may really feel better after a little time in the country and understands anything that may pester him is just another suffering person. Some of the country people would walk outside with the shot-gun and shoot into ground for whatever reason, he just needs to ignore this as it happens in inner-city too.
If he has relief in the country, I would NEVER have any contact with any of the city friends who seem messed up or anyone from the drug days…He needs to refuse to give into any demands to follow orders from voices as some who try to live in country end up making contact again with their old lives and bring drugs/meth lab to new community…The induced psychosis from the drugs is tough situation. I would NEVER discuss any mental care history or problems with people in the new community or even use the mental care there…he is better using his old mental care back at home or using mental care outside the community by 30 minutes or hour. Should NEVER discuss source of his $$ either and have the SSDI stuff mailed to old address where family can just send it by email scanned into computer. Maybe he will feel up to working eventually. He could suffer insomnia which seroquel is great to treat in ex-addicts. He needs to cut up the pills at bedtime to get to sleep faster. He may need a job with accommodations to change hours to work when he feels up to it. Maybe he would like to get a certificate or education to do something online so he can set his own hours. It is easy to get section 8 housing too with only short wait.
Some communities have their own dirty business people and thugs, so NEVER respond aloud to anything threatening said to him. Some communities will try to tell him the scary stuff and off stuff when he first moves there or within a couple of months. NEVER SHOW ANY CONFRONTATIONAL BEHAVIOR. If he chooses not to deal with community’s business people, he should leave it quietly.
It is hard but factors is that we just have to do the best weekend I’ve been fighting schizophrenia for 18 years and I have ups and downs but I’ll tell you it does get better and don’t worry about him sitting in his room listening to music I know you want to get them out but for me one of the biggest things is music because it get your mind off everything else and you using a different part of your mind so the voice is slowly go away and it’s kind of quiet no matter how loud it is just stand by him because knowing that you are there is the best medicine I think I’ve done a lot of medications but knowing someone is there this makes me smile and knows that I’m going to be ok