My husband who is still in denial he has paranoid SZ (a dr told me it was) has been in and out of moods/episodes. Before he would be in an episode for 2-3 weeks. Now he will be in a mood/episode for half a day or less and then act like nothing has happened. he acts like he didn’t accuse me of cheating or doing something I didn’t do.
Anyway, last night I was asleep but woke a little bit as he came in the room. He sat on the bed as he always does right before he lays down. I go to sleep way earlier (9pm) and he goes to bed later (12-2 am). Anyway, this time he pops back off the bed. He walks fast to the living room. he gets his cell phone. Comes back in the room. Calls my name and I am still sleeping halfway. I look up, he snaps a pic of me and says “gotcha”. My reaction was “whatever” and I laid my head back down as he does weird stuff all the time.
He left the room and went to the big restroom and then came back to bed. I have no clue what he was doing and why?
I already knew because he did this he was in a mood/episode. Just as I thought, the next morning he canceled his dentist appt as he is going through a mood.
There is no rhyme or reason to the bizarre behavior. I stopped asking questions after a while as I would never get a straight answer anyway. One time, my husband took pictures that my mother in law had displayed on a living room table and ran out of the house, into the car and drove away with them. I still to this day have no idea what he did with them. He was taking her clothes and my clothes and hid them in the trunk of the car. I found them while he was in the hospital. I didn’t ask, there was really no reason to. All I can say is more is going to come until he completely breaks into a psychotic episode and you will have to decide then what to do. My husband also had an obsession with the pool table balls…I have no idea why and that carried on for a few years with those balls even while medicated. My husband also used to obsess over little pieces of paper on the floor and was never sure whether to pick them up or not. As a matter of fact, I went to pick him up from a mental hospital once and on the way out, he stressed over a piece of paper on the floor and I knew something wasn’t right. So we drive away and got about 10 miles from the hospital and he wanted to go back and pick up that piece of paper so I obliged and drove him back. When we got there, I went into the lobby and demanded to speak to a doctor and they ripped up his discharge papers and kept him and he was bounced to another hospital after that. Why the little piece of paper…I have no idea but without that little piece of paper, I would have taken him home in full blown psychosis and would have started the whole process over again. Thank God for that little piece of paper… Oh yeah, I was accused of cheating many times, it broke my heart at first but I realized that was his disease talking and not him. Good Luck!
When you say there is MORE to come and mention FULL BLOWN pschosis, does this involve him harming me or my child OR do you mean he will be doing even more bizarre stuff and acting off the wall?
Because he accuses me of cheating I think the way he acted…jump up and walk fast to get phone and take pic and say gotcha…I think he may have been hullucinsting and believes he saw me n bed with someone CHEATING which is not true. But he could have thought he saw it. What do u think?
These episodes never seem to just go away, they always get worse to the point of hospitalization. You say he is in denial of SZ, does that mean he is not taking meds? has he ever been properly treated? My husband would threaten me but never lay a hand on me, but I have to tell you I didn’t feel comfortable with my back turned to him. I always felt like he was going to attack me. This in no way means your husband is going to harm you but I wouldn’t leave your child alone with him. I always made sure to be home when my son was home…my husband would obsess over him at times, like he talked about him wanting his son to be a police officer to the point he actually went to the police station to talk to the chief about our son, mind you our son was like 9 at the time. That brought the evaluation team to our house as the chief got the feeling my husband was not right. You need to urge him to get help before things get worse. I could go on and on about my experience, but honestly, my son saw way too much for a child his age… a lot of tangles with the police, I had child services at my house…I decided that I could no longer help someone who won’t help themselves. I wish the best for you and your husband.
Honestly, I don’t know how you take care of 2 when I could barely take care of one. This must be very hard on you and I hope you have some kind of outlet somewhere for relief. When this came on with my husband 3.5 years ago, I knew right away with out them telling me that it was SZ. And the reason why I knew it was because my father had a bad accident when I was 9 and sustained a brain injury which in turn put him out of work and permanently disabled. 2 years after that he became schizophrenic. I don’t know if it was the result of a brain injury or depression from not being able to work anymore as he was 37 at the time. Back in the late 70’s and early 80’s there was little known about SZ and I feel even today, they still don’t know. When I asked numerous times how this could have possibly happened to my husband at 45, all I hear is “depression”. I don’t know about that…my husband was electrocuted when he was 24, lost his hand and his career and managed to go to college and start his own business. We had our business for 11 years and he poured everything he had into it: his money from a settlement, his time working 12 to 14 hour days, everything and we lost it. It was the economy and a series of mistakes on our part and we ended up living with his parents which I have to say was a total nightmare. I have never met 2 more dysfunctional people in my life and they were never nice to him but we had 0 money and had no choice but to move there because we had a child who needed a roof over his head. I am sure this caused him to have depression but it was only in the last few months before the psychosis set in that I noticed he was staying in our bedroom a lot, before that he seemed normal but frustrated with his parents. He had a hernia operation in March before the psychosis started in late September of that year. Looking back after that operation, he was saying things that weren’t normal and at the time I didn’t think anything of it. He was always opening windows and asking me if I heard motorcycles outside…well it was spring and a lot of people have motorcycles around here. Looking back on it, I think it was starting then as later in psychosis, he thought motorcycle gangs were after him. That operation he had will always stick in the back of my mind, because he was normal before that but after that, not so much. I mentioned this to the various hospitals he was in and they just told me that given the things that had happened to him (losing the business, moving to his parents) that it was more than likely depression but every single one of his case managers would tell me that it was uncommon for a male to have late onset at 45. My husbands Aunt became bipolar in her mid 40’s so who knows, maybe it was genetic. I’ll never know!
I appreciate your responses and your candidness is spot on for me and has helped me. I just wanted to let you know that!
He has never taken meds because he says nothing is wrong; I am just trying to make him look crazy. And my son is at school until 3:30 and I get home at 5:30. So he is alone 2 hrs daily with him. And on weekends when my son dont’ want to go to church or grocery shopping that is about 2 hrs too. BUT, i leave him only because my husband had never made me feel like he is obsessed with my son or anything. My husband and son are very close and play by tickling or aggravating each other. That is it. My son loves it. However, recently my husband started speaking his beliefs about me outloud WHILE my son was around. I DONT LIKE THAT one bit. I feel like that is too much for a 6 yr old. My husband blames me for not telling the truth ever and me cheating. Then i have to go to my sons room explaining none of it is true and daddy is sick still. His brain don’t work right.
And my husband is way calmer than me even in his psychotic episodes. I will be raising my voice as he blames me (not screaming) because I don’t like to be accused of something I didn’t do. He asks why I am defensive. He stays the same tone of voice, stays clam and just continues to say YEP, I KNEW YOU WAS CHEATING. etc. So with that being said, I can’t say I have NEVER thought he might harm me. i do think of that because i know some carry out actions voices give them. But, he has never ever acted as if he was going to harm me or said anything to that point. Is this normal?
My husband has sat and told me stories about how everyone wants to get him because he is writing a book that tells it all about them. I ask “who” is the book about and he says everyone…not specifics. So I have heard a few bizarre stories but he is not outraged or loud or anything. He is sooooo calm even in his episodes. That might be the scary part LOL. If he gets to the point of screaming at me or telling stuff like these vidoes to my child, I might be forced to leave him so my child can have a normal life.
Thanks for sharing for sure! Now I can youtube some more to understand better.
Wow, I have a similar story. My husband and I met in 2007. He was great, energetic, and the more people around the better. He had an accident in 2012 which he was thrown from the forklift and had 2 bolts go through the frontal lobe (forehead). He was fine besides having vertigo and other symptoms from the accident. He was out of work from the symptoms because he drove an 18 wheeler which you cant do if your dizzy. The year he got hurt was June 2012 again. He started his SZ symptoms in Jan 2015. I never understood how he could be okay for 2.5 yrs then start this. I did remember he used to tell me people are across the road at the church watching us and helicopters fly over can hear us. I overlooked it and didn’t know what the was saying. This was I can’t remember, either right before or after the accident.
Either way, with only having those two weird statements, he was fine. Still went places and normal.
Now, he stays in the house. He will go 6 months to a yr if I let him. The only place he goes is straight to his parents house 3.5 hrs away and back. Thats it. And i have to beg him to do that.
He is definitely not the person I used to know. I will never see that again. I feel sad thinking about that.
With 2 of them and for 20 yrs, what makes you stay? Do you feel like a caretake instead of a husband? How do you react to accusations from your wife that aren’t true?
She cant help it, you should NEVER take ANY of it personal. You must learn to blow it off or you will not make it… Why I stay: Wife and child, married 27 years, daughter 25, I sleep very peacefully in my room, solid wood door, locked, dead bolt, knob to floor dead stop, ear plugs and a 357… Plus my home in the city for me… That’s how I have not blown my brains our many years ago…
yes, I have a separate life… Worked hard my entire life and have recourses many do not have…
Not good, they change and with no meds his changes will not be for the better… They will cycle up and down, the period of the cycle will change with time, the peaks and valleys of these cycles will become more extreme… As an example: normal for a day, crazy for two, now when I say peaks and valleys that means: the degree of crazy/normal will fluctuate and the length of time as crazy/normal will change, my wife is only normal for a few minutes once or twice a month and that is with the BEST docs, meds, facilities available in the southern US…
My best advise to you is to formulate a long term plan, your plan must incorporate the possibly of a complete break down and the physical/mental survival of you and your child…
I’m glad you can vent here. I hope you are also able to see all the good in what you are doing by caring for your family, as F’d as the situation is. The loss of a beautiful, disciplined daughter to this illness is not something most people will ever understand. Also your wife… The anger is normal, as I’m sure you know. Best to you.
Wow, for a few mins once or twice a month. Now you are a strong man! My husband gives me normalcy a little more than that thank goodness. But its more not normal than normal.
