How to help someone emerge from psychosis?

Hi @Lattepowered, I just sat here reading your story and felt so horrible for you and your kids....Our story in relation to the scenarios etc are much the same except it's with our son.

I can't give you answers sorry, as there are no right or wrong answers, I can only tell you how we got to where we are now after some years.....

Until the person gets to a point where they know "something is wrong" even if they deny the reality of what is wrong, you are sort of stuck in limbo repeating day by day....Once they make that step to see some professional help then at least the journey to some sort of resolution is started. It's getting them there....you can only nudge and prod towards help, you cant make them unfortunately....

Once professional help came into it, it took around 12-18 months to start moving. The Psychiatrist eventually realised he needed to basically have him put into an inpatient hospital situation. This involved instigating a Treatment Authority (TA) which means he can be sent back if the treating teams feel he is in a deeper psychosis.

Despite all this unfolding, and a formal diagnosis of Schizophrenia, our son still refuses to accept it and says his auditory hallucinations are real and we are all wrong....He is now on his 4th type of meds to try to stabilise but its a long road of trial and error.

I guess my point here is that there is hope of treatment, you just need to get them to go see the professionals and keep going to see them. It begins with a good GP....We never gave up and now at least we are seeing some hope of a better life for him down the road.

I am not sure what state you are in as things seem to be different in each state. But here QLD basically you are on your own until someone gets them onto a TA and then treatment like meds and inpatient stays when things are bad.....Having private health cover for private hospital treatment is so important we found, but too late to sort it out as he is now an adult and not a dependent.....

I hope things look up for you and your family soon. There are a number of us out there going through similar scenes so you are not alone totally, not that that makes you feel better.

Feel free to reach out anytime and all the best

Hi @Parent76 thanks so much for reaching out, and for your kind words. As you know, it's just an unending source of stress having a loved one with this illness, I feel like my life has been sucked into a vacuum. I can imagine having a child with the illness would be a unique type of worry, too.

You are so right, it feels like a day by day holding pattern right now.

Can I ask, how did your son reach that point of actually being willing to see a psychiatrist, and to go on meds? I've managed to get my husband to the GP a few times (he never openly discussed his delusions though, just 'stress') and even got a referral to a psychologist and a psychiatrist, but he has never followed through. He's had the tiniest windows of willingness these past few years to get help, but they've been instantly swallowed up into almost manic conviction about his paranoid delusions.

I just have no idea how I'll convince him to get help, if he's adamant 'it's all real'.

I'm in NSW so I'm not sure if we have what you referred to, in terms of the treatment order the psychiatrist wrote for your son. I'm not sure if that's basically the same as a community order where the person can be court ordered to take medication. I think my husband would be pretty furious to be served one of these!

If you don't mind my asking, do you live with your son? I am just wondering how you go about setting boundaries with your son, when he's talking about his auditory hallucinations? I've had very little luck setting boundaries with my husband- some days he's ok and will only mention how his colleagues, my parents etc are 'monitoring' him a few times, but recently he was raving at me for three hours non stop from the minute I woke up, it was just awful. Last night I calmly just said I didn't want to discuss his fears (it was 10pm after all) but then the response I get is 'you don't care'. I feel like I'm just doing this whole thing wrong. I love him but I feel like I've signed myself up for a bleak life if he doesn't get help.

Hey @Lattepowered yeah i feel for you!
I dont mind at all, just not sure it will help you as everyone is a bit different i guess. But after a couple years of going round and round, losing all friends, losing jobs etc he finally just decided maybe he should use the referals as he (still) believes its all real and he just has a mood disorder….. but went and we pushed him to keep going.

The TA is something he hates because he has to go see mandated psychosis teams weekly etc and can be put back into hospital at their whim. Also they forced him to go onto anti psychotic meds. But after almost a year of going in and out of hospital and failed meds we have some light that the newest one may help.

In regards to how you react, we found that pushing back made it so much worse. He just got upset and said similar things to what your husband is saying. So we changed tack and started asking him gently about what and who and where etc and never say its not real, we just say “its clearly real for you and we wish we could help” etc…..

when he is walking around talking to these “people” out loud we tend to just say pardon, what was that? As if we thought he was talking to us. And then ask what again and so on. Seems to be a better calmer way for us anyway.

I dont know about NSW, but i would assume there is a similar type of system if you can find out. The public system mental health area is best place to ask about unless you have private health cover to get him into a private facility.

Patience and persistence is all you can do right now until he gets to a point where he knows things are not right, even if he refuses to believe the truth of it like we deal with.

not sure that was helpful but its all i can tell you. We basically wing it day by day and soeak to treating doctors as much as we can to get more ideas.