I am new to this but feel that I need help that i cant seem to find. My spouse is a paranoid schizophrenic. He has been my best friend for 17yrs, and i am one of the few people (if not the only) that he trusts over the voices since we knew each other long before the diagnosis and i have always been trustworthy.
We have been back in each others lives and together for 4yrs now (post diagnosis). We have had a long rough battle and i was actually the one that got him to seek help professionally again after his first attempt failed (side effects to meds etc). He has 10 pills left, but needs a new referral to get into a psychiatrist. Which due to his mental illness, my own, my 3 children, work, and lifeā¦ has yet to happen.
But even on the meds hes not fully functional. And more recently id even say they just arent helping any longer.
2wks ago we went to visit his foster brother who was his role model growing up and where a bulk of his morals, reasoning, behaviors was molded by. He hadnt seen him in 5yrs and the visit didnt go at all the way he had expected. But moreover, he realized that his foster brother isnt at all the man he thought he was(doesnt practice what he preached so to say).
Since then my spouse has been tumbling out of control. The rapid decline is devastating and i just do not know what to do.
Last week i was the enemy for the first real time. (Little spats here and there but we could always talk it out, or he was getting too intense and ive asked him to leave and then the next day we talk it out) i am taller than him and with my anxiety during stressful situations my āoctavesā go up. I still couldnt tell you how we even got there. One minute im holding him and trying to be supportive cuz he was crying in a fetal position on the kitchen floor and the next we are in the bathroom and hes standing on the bathroom sink (at this point i was attempting to disengage and take a shower because he was upset i had brought up something that i hadnt actually brought up, he had) and hes screaming at me and i couldnt even recognize my best friend and all i could tell him was that he was scaring me until he left.
Now i wasnt scared of any physical harm. Id like to make that clear. I have zero fear that he will ever harm myself or my children. I had DV issues with my eldest sons father and i have tested this man thru my own insecurities.
The next day when he came home we talked as we always do. He admits at that point he wasnt in control. But he had 3 police interactions where he claims he told them his condition and that he needed help, but they didnt. Now, its hard to tell whats ārealā which after living with a schizophrenic makes you question the validity of that word, and i have yet to fully investigate this (because this deeply alarms me that our boys in blue would allow him to continue to roam skitzn (our word for it) all over town in the middle of the night). He claims to have gotten in a physical altercation and honestly my brain is so overwhelmed i cant even recall what else.
More has been revealed to me in 12 days than in 4yrs and he seems to be losing his grip on controlling it. Hes the type of man who says men dont cry and has been crying multiple times a day during this period. Apologizing and scared
A few days ago we were at walmart and while i check out he and the boys always wait outside. They were playing and laughing when i walked out so i crossed the parking lot to the car as i always do and they follow eventually, but a guy on a bike rode past and my spouse started getting verbally aggressive. I attempted to call him to snap him out of it (which usually works) and it did for about half a second, then he started to pursue the guy on the bike and my children got scared and scattered like cockroaches. It happened so quick and so fast that i couldnt have acted quick enough. My 4yr old bolted in front cars to run to me. My 6yr old ran to my spouse cuz his daddy will protect him. And my 12yr old froze and watched the 4yr old run in front of the cars.
He disengaged from the guy on the bike while i was collecting my kids and screaming at him cuz what else do you do??? But when he came to the car, he was determined that the guy on the bike is the 1 that (in his head) waits for him around the corner from our house to kill him. And even later learn that he believes its one of the voices.
So now, i fear to leave him unsupervised with the boys in public. How do u take a dads right to take his kid to the store away? How do u tell ur best friend that? Especially when they are a paranoid schizophrenic.
Last night i fell asleep on his chest. I woke up to him skitzā¦ cryingā¦ scaredā¦
He had left (i never knew) and had went to walmart and had a skitz attack and thankfully one of the managers knows us and was able to get him outside and out of the situation. Supposedly another police contact where they just let him go. And a physical altercation with a random individual who he thought to be one of the voices that left his only friend telling him that he is dangerous.
I went out to my garage and he has taped papers w the names of the voices written on them to the chairs and walls. He had to have a talk w them he had mentioned previously. Concerned beyond explanation, we tried to do something family oriented and went for a walk to 7-11 with our 4yr old.
We ate our donuts outside on a bench and he was still skitzn, crying, talking nonsensical but that we are kinda used to. Then i find out that he cant go home cuz there 2guys waiting for him so i suggested a different route thru the elementary school so our 4yr old could play while we rode out the skitz. But he is so annimated that it can be intimidating to someone who doesnt understand and that causes the looks which starts the verbal altercation. Its mentally exhausting.
He cant look at planes in the sky cuz they are spy planes looking for him, hes scared of terrorists striking on our land which is leading to stereotyping in publicā¦ and has for the last few nights been taking down the flag in front of our local firehouse because they are transmitting messages to his brain.
Im completely overwhelmed by all this. i see my best friend rapidly deteriorating and i do not know how to help him.
I have made promises to not have him committed in the past, and more recently i have promised to try not to let them take him cuz im not sure i can keep my original promise. To him its like making a deal with the devil.
At the end of the day i will do what i need to do if he becomes a physical threat.
BUT id hate to see his world crumble apart when the only person he trusts has to break that trust.
Id like to find a better route but dont have the tools or the map to find it