I’m here out of frustration, desperation and concern.
My husband in mid December had a severe psychotic break…the police had to be called by my brother (who is a psychiatrist) who lives in Canada because the only access I had to help was Facebook and him.
My husband had taken and kept my phone after I had called our oldest daughter to have her attempt to get her father to go to the doctor with me. He agreed with her until the phone was hung up. Then informed me that “they” would tell the police what he had really done and both of us would be arrested. He also believed that the police were talking to him on intercoms attached to their police radios and broadcasting throughout the neighborhood. When I got home from work he informed me that “they” (the police) were coming to get him and then I would “find out” what he had done. He went on like this for several hours, before I could get help.
The police came and encouraged him to get in the car with me to go to the hospital. They followed to make sure he went. At that time he was not diagnosed, supposedly it was due to an episode at work where he found a suicide (he works in a motel and had to see if the person had checked out and just left the door locked which is a common occurrence). When I got home his brother called, he had had an episode earlier in his life and I had not been informed.
He was again contained/encourage by police after they removed a shotgun from him as he was going to “shoot those kids” who were making fun of him. There was no mention of any kind of mental illness when we got married 30+ years ago. He spent time in a mental hospital then. He was treated in the emergency room in December and put on Risperidone. He took it for two months and decided he did not need it, nothing was wrong with him. He proceeded to cancel his counseling session as well.
So February 23 or so was his last dose. February 28th late night he started having another psychotic break. Again the police were going to come and get him for something he had done “you’ll find out” was all I could get out of him as to why they wanted to arrest him. He actually got up in the middle of the night from bed, dressed, got his coat on and stood by our front door waiting for the police to come and get him. I sat with him for a while. He then went outside to smoke (he can’t smoke in the house as I am allergic) and I went through our kitchen to the bathroom looking out the window saw car taillights on in the garage door.
My heart stopped. Choice was go see what I found, an unconscous at the least or dead at the worst husband or go back and grab a phone. I went to the garage because I knew there was a panic button on the keys to the car, I could push for help if I had to give CPR. He was standing there, with the car running, laughed when I asked what he was doing and informed me that nothing really “bad” could happen because there wasn’t enough gas in the car. I drug him back in and informed him that we would be seeing a doctor as soon as the office opened (this was around 4-5 a.m. and doc in town open at 8:30). I didn’t sleep after that.
Where ever he went I went, until I couldn’t keep going up and down the back stairs to watch him smoke. One time…he came in and shortly thereafter started vomitting horribly. This happened the last psychotic episode as well, I asked what his problem was …he said “upset.” He then started trying to get ahold of the girls (we have 5 daughters) to tell them he loved them. Was becoming incoherent, couldn’t walk right, and just very drunk acting. I got him to the car telling him that I needed to do something at work and then we would go to his out of town doctor. I work at a hospital.
We got to the hospital and I raced into the office asked for help. They got him to the ER. By the time I got around he had informed them he had drunk a quart of weed killer. I had seen him with a bottle of antifreeze earlier, not thinking anything of it, and didn’t think we still had weed killer around. The DON took me back to our house so I could get what I thought he had taken. Took it back to the hospital and he agreed he had taken it. My co-worker, doctor had the most blanched look on his face…and said “there is no cure for that”.
Suffice to say there was a treatment, he was given it, and went into a coma in the process of everything. He spent 10 days in the hospital, about 56 hours of that in a coma. We didn’t know what was going on, the doctors didn’t have a clue as to why he was in a coma. Psychiatric help came in said he was in a delirium. Talking to my brother (psychiatrist) he said it was very likely a psychotic coma of some type. We waited. My active, brainiac, family oriented husband …MY rock, was no longer. He came out of everything, eventually, having to have help to walk, and eventually could stay awake.
Final diagnosis was Schizophrenia with psychotic tendencies, thought to have started in his late teens. He spent another three days in a mental rehab place. He was sent home, no information on his illness, I was given nothing, no support, no plan of action. He was told “go to the counselor first thing Monday morning, and then you can go to work.” Um…what? basically 3 weeks doing nothing, JUST started on medication, no clue if the meds will work …no warning of what to watch for it the meds don’t work. NOTHING.
Now here we sit, he has seen his “counselor” once offically, has been out of the hospitals for 3 weeks. I had to call his doc at my brothers suggestion to get his meds increased. He still hides from regular family members, I had to remind him to eat, shower, etc. He has to be told to take the garbage out…even when he sees it is full. He is a little better, today he took a shower on his own and took the trash out. But I still don’t know what is really going on.
My girls keep telling me it will “just take time” and he will be back to “normal”. I know he won’t be his normal, I would just like to see a little normal. He is working part time not full time, he goes when he feels like it having excuses the other times. He informed me that I caused him to try to kill himself because of telling him that if he didn’t take his medication that he would end up in the mental hospital. That our marriage was not good, that I am controlling and has become very negative towards me …this hurts.
WE have always had a very honest and open relationship. I feel like I am being kicked around, I get told by family they support me but then they don’t really, I get the statements like above or told “hang in there mom I know you can do it.” I am a strong person, but I don’t feel strong, I feel lost and alone. My best friend was my husband. I am in therapy to help me deal but it feels like no one really understands schizophrenia, they try to put it under depression, or similar. No one will tell my husband what he had been diagnosed with or how it will/has changed him. He is walking around oblivious to that aspect until I told him and tried to explain it to him. He now says it is wrong, the meds are not what he needs and he doesn’t need counseling. HELP!