Not taking his meds ... again

Family
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Last couple of days son has been sleeping in till 2pm or later . He is really thirsty, angry and frustrated.
I asked how long? He won’t tell me , he just says they don’t help and how can a pill help anyway.

He’s been on aripiprazole 25mg for one year exactly now.
He is refusing to go back on depot.
He’s back to blaming us for letting his soul be taken , back to saying they aren’t real doctors as they are “foreign” and how can hey work here with “foreign” qualifications etc etc etc.

No idea how this will play out but I’m removing myself right now , mentally or rather am going to try to.

Why is it their voice gets louder and more animated when they are like this?
Could his be a withdrawal or is this the illness .
Just thinking out loud .
Thanks for reading , x

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Jane57,

I am so sorry. Your news has really caught me sideways. I was so hoping your son’s progress would continue on meds. It’s frustrating and heartbreaking that he went off his meds.

Sometimes they are talking louder to talk over the voices they are hearing. The voices can get very loud.

Dr Amador says only long lasting injections will work with our family members with anosognosia. Maybe he is right, I don’t now. Yours did so well for so long.

Big, BIG hug.

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Thanks so much Hope :green_heart::yum: and yes I think Amador certainly has a very valid point .
Least they know they are taking it .

He’s got himself a couple of cans of alcohol tonight and in his room with some music on.
Thank you x

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I am so sorry, @Jane57. I know that my daughter was so much better on a depot shot, but she comes off of everything that isn’t given to her in the hospital. She can’t see herself really (anosognosia for sure).

I was thinking today that I am going to have to figure out better ways to control sound in my home. It is the noise that most bothers me: yelling, constant chatter, loud TV etc. I’m sure it varies with the loudness of the voices in her head.

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Dear ones, I am convinced we have to keep trying LEAP, starting with listening and building trust. Don’t give up. We are seeing good results with Clozapine. Meds can be tweaked and persons CAN gain insight over time. I am choosing to be hopeful.

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Yes, gaining insight on meds is a possibility - not always- but a possibility for some. Others may even have insight fluctuate as the scz cycles.

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Dear all, I really wish you the best of everything and cures for our loved ones but your loved ones are at least talking to you? My sister doesn’t talk for years, how can I use LEAP or any communication model or even the book I’m not sick by Dr. Amador… if she locks herself and doesn’t even talk for more than two years… she’s not harming/harmful so wouldn’t do involuntary hospitalization… her health is going bad due to lack of movement and obviously no human contact and I noticed she had her hand on her cheek/toothache while going back from kitchen to her room but doesn’t let me talk to her, I told her I’d take her to dentist but something tells me she endures far more aches than that. Bottom line is, I’m reading everyone’s parts of their stories with the loved ones and all of them do some sort of communication, mine doesn’t at all…

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My son has very little communication with anyone .He did for almost a year stay in his bedroom and didnt speak .I dont understand how he still can go weeks without speaking a word not sure if this is a Catatonic form of schzaphrenia .He functions at the minute but mostly silent. i do worry that it could go back to him shutting down again . I did force an intervention three years ago and he ended up in hospital for 3 months they started him on clozapine which did help him but he stopped it. Do you think a forced intervention may help your loved one as they are harming themselves through self neglect ? as my son did .It was hard i really know but sometimes to change a situation drastic action is needed . I am certainly not saying the mental health system have the answers and sometimes can make things worse but with me i knew i could not have my son living like that and i made the decision based on what i knew and felt at that time. Sometimes i use notes to communicate to him I also buy him things like puzzie books or books with photos in… plants so he has living things around him and even got a cat ( now died) and a dog so he could Interactive with something living …i will sometimes open his door and the dog will jump on his bed and sit with him sometimes he responds sometimes he doesnt .Keep trying to interact with your loved one… when they wont speak we have to be creative and think out of the box .Wishing you strength in your difficult journey

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@Faith1 your words are so comforting to me, thank you so much for sharing something I needed to hear so I don’t feel alone and feel there’s hope and that I can do more… I wish everyone here does Not hesitate to share any single tip or experience because it’s unbelievably valuable to confused family…

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@Love_Hope I understand your frustration. I had the same problem: she wouldn’t speak to me at all (although she talks constantly though to her “mental beings”, I mean constantly out loud, day and night, except when sleeping, until her voice is hoarse and then keeps talking like right now)

I thought LEAP was totally useless to me when I first read it as how could I listen if she wouldn’t talk to me? Then I realized that sometimes she told her voices something I could ask about, so I tried that. Just a one sentence conversation through her door after knocking on it. I started knocking on her door and asking if she needed something at least once a day despite no answer most of the time. If I heard her say something about her past job, I would ask if she wanted help to find a new job. If I heard her say something about her brothers, I would ask if she wanted her brother to visit. Most of the time I got nothing back but “No” and then she started talking to her voices again.

Finally, I just started knocking on the door once a day and offering a plate of food. Often she would refuse, so I would eat it myself. If she took it I would make another plate for me after.

I had SOME results when I would knock on the door and ask her to quiet down, and started simply repeating what she was saying to her voices. It would quiet her down.

It is now a year later and the results of very limited use of LEAP are that she now takes food from me every night (if I knock and offer), she sometimes goes on a walk around the block with me and the dogs (or asks to go without the dogs) (if I knock and offer), she comes out of her room more to the kitchen (without speaking to us), she goes grocery shopping with me (if I knock and offer), and we take short trips to the movies, a show, a fast food restaurant, etc. (if I knock and offer). Once in a while she comes out of her room to ask me for something, and I usually agree right away (can we go to the thrift store? was her last request).

It is one step at a time repeated daily for a moment at a time to introduce a new idea. I did get her to go to the dentist recently after months of asking if she needed to see a doctor or dentist (one knock, one question, see if there’s an answer even if it’s no, and then leave her alone).

I hope you figure out a way to use LEAP, it is a good book. But you must be very very patient and not take up more than one subject at a time per attempted question. My opinion.

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@oldladyblue I admire your kind actions and patience and most importantly the consistency with your daughter and I wish you peace of mind and success and to everyone. My sister doesn’t speak out loud to the voices, since she was a kid she just laughs (at the voices or with them, who knows…) only quiet little laughters at random times and sometimes when spoken to and one would perceive this as a good or bad thing, I’d say the bad thing about it that there are no words used so I never know what she thinks… but her facial expressions do not align with laughter, expressions of high disgust/disappointment and I cannot blame her or anyone for that matter, she lives with (I perceive them as) clinically depressed low-functioning brother and low-functioning bipolar mother with anger management issues (may they all be cured)…

I will try my best to apply the useful tips I received here during my visits… wishing everyone strength :heart:

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All we can do is try our best to help, and to try and keep ourselves strong enough to keep coping. The worst part I think is the lack of normal communication, or the rotten communication when they blame us for something wrong when we are trying our best to give them the care they need. I long for the 6 weeks that my daughter was medicated on the right meds. Such a shame she wouldn’t continue. I do understand @Jane57 that watching the slide back into psychosis is awful.

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I can really relate to the non-communication and similar comments from several others. We went through at whole year of this…avoidance, wandering and living out of a car for 3 months in a far away state and almost no contact by phone or text, and ultimately repeated hospitalizations due to catatonic episodes, with only a few weeks of “good times” interspersed. I wondered the same thing. How can we use LEAP when we don’t even know where he is? How can we show we are interested in him when he is sitting on the floor outside his room in the psych hospital and won’t come to see us? We were getting nowhere. We each know our loved ones best…you keep looking for windows and ways…great ideas here…pets, puzzles, photo books, keep knocking, but respectful in all.

Especially in your situation now, you can ask “Is she harming herself?” I would say “yes” if her health is declining due to lack of self care. I think you could make a case for that and involuntary commitment if you are wiling to go that route. It is hard, but that is what we did to eventually land our son in a hospital for at least long enough to have some moments of greater clarity where he agreed to some things and eventually realized I would not let him come home. He did not want to go to a homeless shelter, so he agreed to go to a residential treatment program and he is now in a personal care home where he is required to take meds and they are very supportive and tolerant in his recovery process…it’s a long story to get here that I have shared in bits and pieces on this site…now taking Clozapine…but not admitting the meds are helping him…but going along with it. He is now VERY communicative, loving, and wants to be with us!! I enjoy my time with him although this is wearing me out! We have a long ways to go, but it is a start, and with this we hope to help him gain insight.

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Just thought I would update, we have had a really good five days, I haven’t mentioned his meds but I do believe he has started them again,
There are the daily dosages missing each day from his packet in his room when I go in each day.

He’s been happy, only once has he “lightly” mentioned his delusion, once in a full five days though!
He’s has though been sleeping a lot, not surfacing till 2-3pm , he does wake earlier but either lays or goes back to sleep.

For now it’s good. Thanks all for your support .

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If he’s not on his meds it is definitely the illness. My husband has been severely withdrawn after he stopped taking his meds. Except when he is screaming his head off. However, today he is quite calm, but more normal. He has expressed kindness for me and love. He is talking about his anger issues and listened and empathized with me when I told him I was angry about the yelling. It’s the most real he has ever felt to me. It gives me hope. I still think he should be on the meds, but at least there is a silver lining to all this.