Michelle Evans said:Solomon, please, let's move past the old wives' tales and neighborhood gossip. Even science doesn't have all the answers yet. Schizophrenia doesn't necessarily have to come from a parent who has it; it can appear in someone where it hasn't been seen in the family for generations. It isn't just about genetics; there are many different factors at play. Honestly, it’s complicated, and it might not be worth stressing yourself out over, IMO.
Focus instead on supporting your mother in a practical way. If she's experiencing psychosis, then she isn't receiving the right treatment. They told you she was just anxious, but therapy for anxiety is nothing like therapy for psychosis. Until she gets the correct treatment, she won't get better—in fact, things could actually worsen, and it's important you realize that so you don't waste energy. She won't understand if you tell her she's ill, because that's the nature of psychosis; the person loses touch with reality and can't see it any other way until the medication starts working. The right medication...
She needs to see a doctor again (specifically a psychiatrist, not just a general practitioner), and whoever goes with her should provide the medical history. That's standard practice here.
You were telling people they shouldn't try to force others into mental hospitals, yet now you've diagnosed your own mother with sch and are fixated on it. Where is the logic in that? 🤷
Not every psychotic episode means schizophrenia. Psychosis can occur within several different disorders, and as for your mother, she could experience one single episode and never deal with it again.
I'll be spending this week looking after my mother. To be honest, my sister hasn't been much help; she refuses to admit that Mom isn't acting like herself. She insists there’s something else going on—some kind of negative energy or something, I can't quite put my finger on it. Anyway, Dad is going to sit down with her doctor and lay everything out plainly.
So, what does it matter if I’ve diagnosed her? It’s all pretty general anyway. To me, the specifics only matter because I need to get some kind of baseline understanding—honestly, I'm just trying to keep my head above water right now. I started connecting the dots to schizophrenia because so many of the symptoms seem to align perfectly.
Auditory hallucinations—specifically hearing voices—are among the most common symptoms of schizophrenia. These aren't just background noises; they are distinct voices that only the individual can hear. Often, these voices engage in their own conversations, comment on what the person is doing, offer unsolicited advice, or direct criticism toward them.
I’ve actually found myself getting into heated arguments with them too, even resorting to some choice words once in a while. Voices don't just whisper; sometimes they give orders. This brings us to what clinicians call imperative hallucinations.
They wouldn't even let her walk all the way to the edge of the yard yesterday. On top of that, they had the nerve to tell her she was being messy and needs to do more cleaning. -.-Hallucinations aren't actually that common. When they do happen, people start seeing things that simply aren't there—anything from strange, flickering lights to more intense visions like monsters or demons.
She claims she saw these dark silhouettes, though that doesn't necessarily mean anything was actually there. I know plenty of people who have experienced similar visual distortions or hallucinations. In her case, she’s convinced she saw and heard extraterrestrials arriving for us, even flying right over her house. I sometimes experience somatic hallucinations, which means I feel physical sensations that aren't actually triggered by any real stimulus. For instance, I’ll get this unsettling feeling like my internal organs are shifting around or even disintegrating inside me. Other times, it feels like an electric current is surging through my legs. I often find myself linking these sensations to darker thoughts—like the idea that some unseen force is physically attacking or destroying me.
She’s connected it to all sorts of things—claiming people from all over the world are sending her love, or on the flip side, that someone is actively draining her energy. She even mentioned feeling these little "energy vampires" crawling around her legs, trying to suck the life out of her. Honestly, she wouldn't say who sent them... I haven't the slightest clue.Delusional ideas are essentially false beliefs that lack any basis in reality. They aren't just simple mistakes; they are deep-seated misconceptions built on an irrational foundation. One defining characteristic of a delusion is that it remains stubbornly resistant to logic—you can't simply reason someone out of them. Furthermore, these beliefs usually clash directly with the individual's actual education and their cultural background here in America.
When someone is struggling with this level of paranoia, they truly believe they’re being followed, plotted against, or even wiretapped. It reaches a point where they feel like people can read their minds, force unwanted thoughts upon them, or exert total control over their physical movements and emotions. They start believing that invisible forces are pulling the strings or that microchips have been implanted to manipulate them. There's also the tendency to believe they are actually someone else—usually a famous historical figure or a celebrity—or that they possess supernatural abilities. They might even think they're receiving coded messages through the TV, radio, or newspapers. I saw this firsthand recently. She was convinced someone was reading her mind and controlling her every move. At one point, she even tried to use a SIM card she found at work, believing it contained some kind of tracking device. About a week after this behavior started, she became convinced she had the power to heal negative energy just by waving her hands around her body. She claimed this "gift" was left to her by her spirit guide, who she believed had to leave because certain outside forces were destroying their connection. On top of all that, she kept talking about the love of her life, and she's convinced that songs are being used as secret messages sent to her—that people are actually manipulating her movements just to force her to play a specific song meant for her or someone else in our family. One specific type of delusion involves ideas of reference—this is when a patient becomes convinced that other people's actions are directed specifically at them, or that random events and strangers hold some strange, often negative, significance tailored just for them.
(For instance, she once claimed that a city bus suddenly swerved toward certain buildings before turning sharply, interpreting the maneuver as a direct warning meant only for her. She insisted everyone on the bus looked bewildered and that even the driver seemed confused by his own driving... then there was the time she pulled into what she called a "positive spot" in a parking lot, claiming voices in her head compelled a driver to charge straight at her and that specific location, though she managed to dodge him. To her, even the driver appeared disoriented, as if he didn't understand why he had driven that way.) It’s similar to how someone might believe that people on a TV show or a radio broadcast are actually talking about them.
And honestly, how can I not suspect schizophrenia? Maybe it's something similar to... well, that time she was thrashing around on the floor like something out of a horror movie. She couldn't even speak back then; she just completely blanked out. The next day, she started falling into these trance-like states where her eyes would roll or squint, her head would drop, and her hands would go numb. That was the hardest part for me to witness, and thankfully, it hasn't happened since, but she still has these paranoid outbursts. She talks to herself, scribbles constantly in notebooks, draws...