Psychopathy is not Schizophrenia.
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Hope-I’m going to miss reading what you share here. Thank you for your perspective and wisdom.
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Thank you so much for this note 777nick777.
Thank you chimain. As both a sibling and a mother of persons with this brain disorder, your humane perspective on the difference in how we respond to the relationship is very well said.
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I’m not a doctor. Billy was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in 1980. In my opinion, he displayed traits of psychopathy all the way back to about 5 or 6 years old. It only got worse until he had his first psychotic episode, full blown paranoia where he thought he was Hitler and he was afraid to ride the bus (too many Jews they’ll get me) and so he walked home, about 30 miles, from the party at Northwestern where he did the acid.
I realize there can be a lot of overlap between various mental illnesses, personality disorders, etc. Maybe Billy wasn’t technically a psychopath, but he sure had all the symptoms. Whatever was wrong with him was a terrible tragedy, and six years after his death I’m still mourning his tragic life, still experiencing regret over stuff I did or didn’t do, still left without family, still trying to put my own life together.
I hope this addresses your pedantic remarks to your satisfaction. Happy holidays!
Thanks Nick for talking to me. I really appreciate your comments. I’m really glad you can have a nice life in spite of your illness. It’s what I wanted for Billy but I couldn’t help him if he wouldn’t let me.
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I still can’t help but wonder - did your brother have a dual diagnosis? Drugs will make a schizophrenic and even a non schizophrenic violent. Meth is the worst culprit but others, also.
My son with this illness has never been violent. There were years when he turned to Marijuana which made him have visual hallucinations. He never had visual ones before. Even then, he wasn’t violent. He was scared and asked to go to the hospital. He eventually gave it up.
My son was considered “treatment resistant “.
I don’t believe in such a thing even though he tried most meds. When I took him 2 years ago to a top Boston hospital they said he wasn’t going home until he was well and 2 weeks later I got my son back and he improves every day. He is a talented artist and musician, kind and caring. Both my sons are and I’m grateful to have them both. I did leave my husband when I saw that he was fear based and knew my son could never get well like this around his father. Yesterday his father visited and told my other son about the Reiner incident as if to warn him about his brother. But this son know his brother well (and his father) and pities the father’s ignorance.
The sad thing is my ex husband feared our son. He’d watch these TV horror stories which blamed everything solely on the illness and say “That’s what’s going to happen to you or me if we don’t put him in a home. That was 20 years ago and my son has a home still with me. And my older son moved back home last year to help me out with his brother such as cooking and driving.
Our loved ones with this illness are here to teach all of us compassion and acceptance. Not everyone gets that.
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Thanks so much - I am going to miss all of you.
Billy was a drug fiend, starting around 14 years old. First it was pot, then anything he could get his hands on. He drank alcohol as a teen as well.
I don’t think he would have been so bad if he hadn’t done acid. But even before the big psychotic break, he was out of control. He was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia after the incident with the acid.
He didn’t do street drugs after that, and he never recovered from that psychotic break. He was a real bad boy before that but after he was very, very dangerous. Only Clozapine had an effect on him, and it really didn’t help much either.
I don’t think you can separate the brain disorder from the drug use. The drug addiction can be a result of self medicating to treat their brain disorder. I realize people like to examine and re-examine the “cause” of their family members’ schizophrenia. It’s not a far reach to make the genetic link when other people in the family have schizophrenia, bipolar or autism. Sorry, at this point in the forum’s life, I’m not going to insert a link to articles regarding the DNA relationship.
My son’s psychiatrist’s made the decision that my son was presenting a threat to his dad. She worked and worked with him applying CBT to Mike’s “dad wants to hurt me” delusion and couldn’t make any progress. The sight of his dad would instantly trigger psychosis in my son. Near the end of his cancer battle my son made me promise that I wouldn’t allow his dad near him. So tragic for both of them. When @Maggotbrane explained that a person would do anything to prevent psychosis from occurring (which is clearly why self medicating comes into play for some of our family members) my husband and I were able to respect Mike’s wishes. We both wanted Mike’s final days to be peaceful as much as it was possible.
I’m sorry your child’s other parent couldn’t realize that your child wasn’t dangerous. We can’t force other people’s progress, it is their own journey as well. As they teach in Family to Family, the problems that occur in the family relationships, spousal and sibling, are often because the parties are at two different levels of understanding.
I lived closely with a person living with paranoid based schizophrenia. My son Mike was beautiful, loving, brilliant, talented, sensitive and amazing. He was never violent in any way as a child. When he was psychotic, due to his extreme paranoia, we did fear that he would misread a situation, attempt to defend himself and someone would get hurt. Just days after his psychiatrist had warned us, early one dark morning, he hid himself where he would encounter his dad on his way to work. Mike kept purchasing guns when he was fearful and would sell them later when he wanted money for video games. The story is written up here somewhere on the forum.
As has been said over and over on this forum, these violent issues are rare. Figuring out when the situation does exist is a tricky business.
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