Posts by briskcyclist40

Larry Lewis..check your PMs, I sent you one

For me, OCD is hands down the worst. It mostly shows up as those constant, intrusive thoughts you just can't shake.

I totally get what you're saying. Back when my life was a complete wreck and the stress was hitting redline, I tried dealing with it, and then the panic attacks started rolling in. It didn't last forever, but let me tell you, it wasn't exactly a walk in the park. I remember my doctor telling me that's what happens when things overflow—when the stress builds up too high and anxiety just takes over. Honestly? It feels more like a psychological hurdle than some clinical psychiatric issue. Maybe it’s enough to just—and I know how easy this sounds to say—actually sit down and find answers to the questions we keep burying deep inside ourselves.

Larry Lewis, have you ever looked into B3 therapy—you know, niacin?
Do you read much English? Take a look at this; http://www.drmyhill.co.uk/wiki/Schiz...emical_problem

I just stumbled onto this connection today between metabolic issues caused by a B3 deficiency and full-blown psychosis. I've been reading all over the place about how people are seeing incredible results. In a lot of cases, the hallucinations and depression just... vanished. It's hard to find much info on this in American medical circles, but there’s plenty of research out there in English and Italian.
I actually sat down with my son's doctor today to talk about trying this out, and he gave me the green light. Honestly, he was starting to suspect something like this anyway, especially since the standard meds don't seem to be doing anything for my son at all.

I just wanted to say that having a psychotic diagnosis doesn't automatically make someone a crazy or terrible person!

Of course they aren't. My son deals with psychosis, so obviously I don't see things that way.
The main thing is that when you're living with someone going through a psychotic episode, you have to stay as calm as possible. If you don't, you just end up feeding into their anxiety and making everything worse.
It sounds like vividorca9 is reaching her breaking point—you can tell by how she’s typing—but panicking isn't helping anyone, least of all him. Honestly, it would be best if both of them sought out professional help so they can each find some stability. You can't just dump your own mental state onto the other person. That just creates this endless cycle and makes the whole house feel like a pressure cooker.
It takes a massive amount of patience, tenderness, and just plain old love. Because if that person starts feeling unloved? That’s terrifying for them.

The check-up is almost over, but I really have to hold it together so I don't lose my mind dealing with all this constant attacking.

I’m just as crazy as anyone else—if I start arguing with him about this stuff, it never ends well. I’m going to try ignoring it from now on, but at least I managed to talk him into actually showing up for the appointment.

And yeah, he’s always been untrustworthy and difficult. It’s true. But right now? He’s seriously crossed the line of common sense. This disease is just heavy...

Jesus, the projections are the absolute worst part. I was talking to a friend of mine who's in college, and I think he's got some deep-seated complexes because out of nowhere, he starts telling me I'm stupid for no reason. Or if I compliment him on something that actually bothers him personally, he just starts attacking me. Honestly, it feels like I'm dealing with a toddler right now.

Larry Lewis, believe me, this isn't about stigma. Do you honestly think this behavior is helping him? I don't even want to imagine what the communication is like between those two young people...

vividorca9, I was just reading over what you wrote... Are we talking about your husband here, or are you guys not even married? (I’m a bit confused by that part where you mention gray hair popping up—makes me think you might still be pretty young).
Manipulation, lying, keeping secrets, paranoia, indifference, coldness, jealousy rooted in feeling inferior... these are all red flags. It's a sickness. You either accept him as he is or you walk away. He isn't going to change; if he's been stuck in a psychosis for this long, it's likely baked right into his personality at this point. What seems absurd to you might be totally normal to him. You have to take him with everything he brings to the table—including the stuff he hasn't even done yet, which could lead to some pretty nasty surprises for you. And honestly? Your anger isn't helping him. All you're doing is making an already impossible situation even worse.
Psychosis is a wild horse you can't tame... just remember that!! Don't go thinking you can save him if it's not something he actually wants for himself. You can't help anyone against their own will.
There's a lot more to unpack here... shoot me a DM.
Take care!!

Can anyone tell me if they’ve dealt with this before? Does anyone know if it's actually possible for Haldol to cause hallucinations?
My son is 22. He was completely resistant to Risperdal and Invega, and then Zyprexa triggered malignant neuroleptic syndrome in him, so we had to stop that immediately. Now he's on Haldol, and honestly, things are just getting worse and worse...

Is anyone else losing their mind here??? Look, I haven’t posted an update on my son’s condition in quite a while, but I am seriously reaching my breaking point. Honestly, I feel like I want to strangle someone right now, I just don't even know who...
He was hospitalized recently, and they put him on a monthly depot dose of Haldol 300 mg. Well, he got out, things went south immediately, and after being home for only five days, he ended up back in the hospital. This time, the doctor decided to swap the 300 mg Haldol for 200 mg every two weeks instead. He came home... and it has been pure hell ever since. Up until now, he’s only dealt with auditory hallucinations, but now he’s seeing things too, not to mention these terrifying panic attacks. He keeps obsessively claiming he has a brain tumor and that today is his last day alive, then he breaks down crying like a little kid.
We went to the clinic today and got absolutely nothing. We just came home. The doctor barely said a word to us; it was like he was holding back, preventing him from actually expressing his fears... or maybe those fears were coming from voices telling him to stay quiet? I couldn't tell.
I can simply see him spiraling further every single day. It honestly feels like the medication is making everything worse, and I have no idea what to think. I don't know how to fight this, and I don't know how to help him. Since he's still under court-ordered treatment, we aren't even allowed to seek outside help because the state services block our every move. They won't let a private doctor make any adjustments at all. I hate this entire corrupt healthcare system in America. I'm actually thinking about reaching out to a civil rights organization (the World Bank).
Does anyone have any advice or ideas? I am completely desperate and feeling so incredibly alone...

briskcyclist40, does your son actually think people are following him, or that everyone is out to get him, or that his whole life is some scripted setup? I haven't seen anything in your posts that screams paranoid schizophrenia to me. Aggression can come from a million different things; it doesn't automatically mean he’s having a psychotic break.

Thanks for all the input!!
My son never had those delusions about being followed or someone orchestrating his future. He used to hang out with friends like any normal kid. The fears he actually dealt with were based in reality. After that first traumatic stay in the hospital, he felt totally cornered by the doctors. He lived in constant dread that the cops would just swoop in and haul him back to the psych ward. As a parent, I think that kind of fear is actually pretty understandable. One time, a private psychologist told me he’d love to meet someone who *wasn't* terrified after going through what my son went through—something the psychiatrists dismissed as paranoia. He wasn't scared of spies or conspiracies... his anxiety was tied to the treatment itself and how he was being handled. He’d wake up in the middle of the night screaming, "Let me go, I didn't do anything wrong."
The voices started showing up after he got the Risperdal injections, and they haven't stopped since. They're always negative, telling him he's useless, that he's a failure, that he won't amount to anything in life... you know the drill.
What I really wish we could do is get him into a long-term observation program at a compassionate clinic, but honestly, I don't think places like that even exist to help figure out what caused this versus what happened later.

Part three
My son was discharged from the hospital under this mandatory outpatient treatment program. It works like this: if the patient doesn't show up for their meds, the police hunt them down and drag them straight back to a ward. The treatment he was forced into was a Risperdal depot injection—one shot every three weeks.
That stuff turned him into a zombie. Completely apathetic, exhausted, totally lost interest in everything. He just slept. All. The. Time. We went to the doctors, begged them to see something was wrong, told them he looked worse than ever... but they wouldn't listen. They just gave us these cynical responses, telling us we had to "understand" he’s sick and leave it at that. We even hired a lawyer to push for a psychiatric evaluation. We wanted someone to actually take his condition seriously and figure out if this was all fallout from his initial traumatic hospitalization or if it was the illness itself. But we hit a brick wall. Nothing. After eighteen months on Risperdal, he loses control again. He’s aggressive, he's spiraling, and it's back to the hospital. This time, I fought for a transfer to a private clinic, and I finally got it. There, the doctors realized my son is completely resistant to Risperdal. They switched him to Orfiril (a stabilizer) and Leponex. Everything stayed bad—terrible, actually—but that was when the auditory hallucinations first started. He was placed in a locked ward for safety... but after just a few days, he developed Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome. It took seven days of intensive care, but miraculously, he survived. He’s recovering slowly, but he isn't the same person. He gets out after two months, stays home for a week, and then attempts suicide by overdosing on Leponex. That happened last September (2012), where he ended up staying hospitalized for two months. They changed his regimen, dropped the Leponex, and put him on Haldol. The voices? They just got louder and more frequent. He’s terrified, haunted by what he hears... and it kept going like that for months until he reached the point where he’s screaming and threatening to jump off the balcony. It just keeps getting worse for him. At the local clinic, nobody wants to hear a word I say. No answers to my questions, no empathy, nothing. Just: "He's sick, you have to understand!" That was it. That was all they had to say. He was released in the third month and was miserable every single day because those hallucinations wouldn't give him a moment of peace, and now he's back in the hospital again. As parents, we have no say. And he has no say either; he can't make decisions with his doctor because everything is forced on him. Right now, he’s being bombarded with 300 mg of Haldol, 9 mg of Invega, 150 mg of Orfiril, and 1 Valium (5mg) a day.
I am at my breaking point. I don't know who to turn to. Despite all their resistance, we tried to find one of the top specialists in the country. My son opened up to him, talked about everything he was feeling. The doctor reviewed the meds and said the cocktail was too heavy—that one of the drugs might actually be causing the hallucinations. Unfortunately, we couldn't do anything about it. The clinic blocked us from the very start.
We are desperate...........................

It’s all gone
My son lost everything because of being hospitalized. He lost his school because he lost his job at the same time—it was hands-on training, so when the job went, the credits went with it. He even lost his girlfriend back then. One word: everything. Months dragged by, but you could see him simmering inside. By the summer, after six months of this, he just snapped. He turned aggressive toward me—really verbally abusive—and then he completely lost control, smashing whatever was in front of him. So, yeah, he ended up back in the psych ward. Diagnosis? None. Therapy? None. After three weeks, they just discharged him. Nobody took responsibility for him once he left the hospital doors. I mean, what happened to outpatient care? He was totally alone, even though we were right there, but he kept pushing us away. Most days he’d just sleep for hours or wander around at night. He barely spoke—maybe a few words at the table if he needed something, and that was it. He wouldn't even hear the mention of seeing a doctor, a psychiatrist, or a psychologist. If we brought it up, he’d just explode. The third hospitalization finally happened after he physically attacked his father and tried to hurt him with a knife...
The whole thing finally started getting attention when social services got involved. Apparently, because a young nurse stood her ground, they forced the hospital to actually take our son's situation seriously.
Up until that point, the doctors hadn't a clue about a diagnosis. They kept telling me there wasn't enough concrete evidence to label him. But once they received that letter from the commission, suddenly he’s being bombarded with heavy-duty psych meds and they slap him with a diagnosis: paranoid schizophrenia (more to follow)

Harold Anderson3 said:Hi there, briskcyclist40.

I’m not a parent dealing with schizophrenia, but I actually live with paranoid schizophrenia myself. It runs in my family too, as my mother carries the same diagnosis.
If I could offer a few pieces of advice, the first and most vital rule is to never, ever stop the medication; if the symptoms return—and they often do—they tend to come back much harder each time.
Second, regular check-ups and psychotherapy are essential. While medication is the foundation, having that therapeutic support is just as important. To be honest, there’s a massive gap between seeing a private specialist and using whatever insurance-covered options are available through the state, but if private care isn't an option, please utilize the public system, because anything is better than nothing at all.
Third, try to stay connected to the world—working, socializing, and striving to lead as "normal" a life as possible despite the illness.

That said, you haven't shared too many specifics about your son yet beyond the diagnosis. I'm wondering if he's on heavy medications, how many times he's had to be hospitalized, how he manages socially, or if he's currently in school or working?

Thanks Kevin Nguyen3 and thanks Harold Anderson3

Yeah, I barely mentioned anything because there's just so much to it, I don't even know where to start. But let me try... First off, I think it's important that we live outside of America, specifically in Switzerland. Even though people think medicine works better in wealthier places, when it comes to psychiatry, it feels like a double-edged sword. Why do I say that? Because every time he gets hospitalized, they scrap his old meds and throw something new at him. In my experience, that wreaks havoc on the body. I can literally see him changing every time, and unfortunately, never for the better. Switzerland used to have easier access to certain substances, which I honestly believe contributed to why their mental health wards are so packed with young people today. Over here, kids end up in psych wards over the simplest family arguments, and once they get in there and get treated like anything and everything, they become permanent residents.
My son was first hospitalized when he was 17. Here’s how it went down: the kid got into a fight with his father over some paperwork that needed signing. My son reacted aggressively and actually bit his father's hand. I was so shocked by the reaction that I called emergency services, asking for a home visit because I needed to know if he had taken something that triggered him. What happened next? About ten minutes later, three police cars and two ambulances swarmed our building. The cops literally burst into my son's room while he was being perfectly calm, dragged him out half-naked, and handcuffed him. I was in total shock... I remember everything being a blur; I couldn't make sense of what was happening. They took him straight to the psychiatric ward, where he stayed for two and a half months. We weren't allowed to visit him (since he was a minor), and he wouldn't call us anyway. His diagnosis? There wasn't one. He had no treatment, yet they wouldn't let the kid go. I'm writing too much, but it's never enough to really show you what happened. Words can't describe what we went through.
My son was left traumatized by that whole ordeal. He built up so much resentment toward his father that there were times later on where he would just snap and start smashing things around the house. (to be continued... but please, if you have anything to say, I'm listening)

Hey everyone! I’m new here, which should be pretty obvious looking at my post count.
I decided to jump into this thread because I really wanted to share what we’ve been going through and hopefully find some people who actually get it—maybe even a little bit of comfort along the way.
My son is 22, and he’s dealing with paranoid schizophrenia. We’ve been struggling through the chaos this illness brings for years now, and honestly, there’s still so much about it that feels completely foreign to us.
I’d love to hear from other parents out there. How are you all managing? How do you cope? Any advice at all would mean the world to me right now.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes a moment to reply!!