My son (24) has schizophrenia

Dear All,

Just wondering how you all are going?

My son and I had a pretty bad night last night. I was woken in the middle of the night hearing my son sobbing and crying uncontrollably. I went into his room half asleep and tried my best to calm him down by talking to him and hugging him. It didn’t work for long and we seriously contemplated calling the acute crisis line or going back to hospital. It was a real struggle to get him out of hospital last time and the next admission to hospital will be for a much longer period. He was triggered by trying too hard to just do normal things to reenter society and after seeing his case worker. He was very suicidal and I have never seen him like this before and it was really scary. After an hour or two I managed to calm him down and get him to sleep. He’s medication compliant but I’m not sure his antidepressants are working properly. They just doubled his dose when he was last in hospital. He’s still taking his antipsychotics which seem to be working but not sure what to do as I’ve seen him off his antidepressants and its not nice. His diagnosis is more schizo affective rather than schizophrenia as he has a mood component with schizophrenia but we are having challenges with his moods as we saw late last night. Does anyone have and ideas or experiences to share with me about how to handle this?

All the best to you all and keep truck’n. I’m trying my best but pretty exhausted after last night so today I will be out of action

@Bunniekins

Dear @classycase

Thank you for your kind message. In an ideal world I would absolutely love to have my son off the antidepressants but I’ve seen him when he’s not on them and he has now been on them for over a year so unfortunately has developed a dependency. I am interested whether your son has schizophrenia or schizo affective disorder? My daughter who had pretty severe depression last year was on antidepressants and couldn’t handle the side affects which in fact made her more suicidal. She’s now coping pretty well with her friend’s support and seeing an excellent psychologist pretty regularly when its required so I completely understand where you are coming from. I also find to keep my son, who has schizo affective disorder with a pretty severe mood component away from my daughter keeps her depression under control. I have shared this with greenpea because I know she has had similar experiences with her daughter and son.

I thank you greatly for your kind thoughts.

Best regards Dadcaringalone

Hi @Dadcaringalone,

Sorry to hear that your son is unwell. My son (27) has Sz. I was interested in your comment about triggers ("... trying too hard to just do normal things to reenter society and after seeing his case worker. "). My son lost interest in "normal things" and spent nearly all of his time at home. A quiet and stable environment is the usual recommendation and that's what we worked towards, as much as possible. He's more comfortable now venturing out and slowly getting into social activities but the transition isn't smooth. Do you know why your son "trying too hard" or if he's being put under pressure? Pressure always tips my son off balance. My son's also on antipsychotics (night) and anti-depressants (morning). The anti-depressants are being used "off label" to manage OCD. The combination seems OK for him.

@patientpatient

Thanks for your message. Concerning “triggers” according to my son, his main triggers are his ex-girlfriend who according to him triggered his recent hospitalization, uni exams, work and my parents and crazy family who triggered his 1st major psychotic collapse. After he saw his case worker and then tried to interview for a job he has now decided to just put more effort into recovery and cancel all these activities which according to him are normal activities which the majority of people may find stressful but are not totally devastated by the prospect of such events.

He is in a way putting himself under pressure himself. He has a future job position which is reliant on him graduating and this stressed him enormously until we met the future employer together who reassured him the main thing is that he just focuses on getting better and they are not going anywhere and he can start when he is finished his studies and ready. Generally a lot of these so called “normal” things such as exams etc take him a lot longer and special consideration adjustments need to be made to get him through the process. He ends up doing pretty well in the long run but he needs a lot of support to complete them.

Concerning your comments about social activities and just staying at home, my son is very similar to yours. Many of his social relationships have just broken down and I found I needed to accompany him to many of his meetings with case workers etc as a type of backup. He is now doing more of these activities alone. He’s on very similar medication at the same times as your son. These completely knock him out and he spends a lot of his time asleep and loves the safely of the Home environment.

Hope these comments answer your questions. Please let me know if you have anything special you would like me to comment on. Have a good day

As folks try to get treatment in the US, it seems that we bump into a roadblock that an individual is not an 'imminent risk to themselves or others.'

Has anyone contemplated (or tried) going to another locality, e.g. outside the US, to see if civil liberties are different and might accommodate an involuntary admission? I wonder how many people would be helped if, indeed they had a regimen of treatment including medication and therapy?

Agree on difficulty of having someone stay against their will. That’s sort of the string I’m pulling on to see if there are countries that have differing civil rights, perhaps even in a facility that is private and costs a good deal of money. I would do anything to help my daughter

@Bunniekins

Hi Greenpea, my son is back in hospital and just waiting to get him a bed. I have a few questions for you if that’s ok? I seem to remember that you have schizo affective disorder. My son was initially thought to have a depression type of schizo affective but now its becoming more apparent that the mood component is more likely to be bipolar. What type do you have? The so called specialists doubled and tripled his antidepressants and now because of the suicidal idealation side-affects he’s being weaned off that and a antipsychotic that’s affecting his liver function. What type of meds does your psychiatrist have you on? He will apparently be put on lithium the best mood stabilizer they have which apparently will improve his suicide risk. Do you have any thoughts or lessons which could make our journey a bit less rocky? I tried to negotiate that this process is handled as an outpatient but this apparently is impossible as last time my son was hospitalized his confidence greatly suffered and his studies/work as well as the negative impact of some of the other patients he met in the ward.

Thought you may have some thoughts and peace to offer. Really appreciate your previous thoughts and experience.

Take care and hope you and your are doing well.

On a positive note, my son finally got his drivers license and my daughter has a new boyfriend.

Best regards Dadcaringalone