MystiqCasual Contributor
My brother has schizophrenia and stopped taking his medication
Sooo before I get into anything, I have to say that I don't think anyone should ever advise anyone to stop taking their meds if they have a serious mental illness. If they want to stop taking them, they need to talk to a doctor and have the ongoing support of a doctor to lower the dosages or something, and to have some sort of ongoing support worker to do check ins with them later on or something. I'll now list all the ways my brother changed or all the ways he has disturbed me and my parents since he stopped taking his meds:
-became quite manic (talking a lot and really fast, having so much energy that he would constantly jump around)
-went from being the laziest person I know, to thinking everything he did was a form of training therefore putting more energy into tasks that didn't need putting energy into. With this, came a constant competition with me to be better at literally everything.
-I thought it was good that he had more energy till I went on walks with him and he would randomly sprint, spin and leap, telling me he is training different parts of his body
-he bought a giant bright pink umbrella that cost over $120 or something and he takes it with him on every walk, protecting him from the sun he says.
-most of the time, when I try to talk to him, he always turns it into some kind of argument, where he always has to be right about something even though it has nothing to do with what I say. This could look like me saying I love something and him just saying how bad that thing is or trying to say that something he loves is better.
-he started wearing his backpack and shoes around the house every now and then (we have never worn shoes in the house, my parents are completely against it) when I asked him why he started doing this, he can't give straight answers, just saying cause he wants to.
-he went from playing games on his PlayStation and computer all day to watching anime all day and then saying he hates games. He has literally spent most of his 33 year old life gaming. Literally thousands and thousands of hours of it.
-he moved his computer from the sun room to his bedroom, just so a week later, he claimed that he doesn't want to pay for the internet anymore, he doesn't want the internet, he will watch anime on his phone with the data from his phone and that's it.
-everytime my dad would want to talk to him, literally just to say good morning even- my brother would tell my dad viscouslly to shut up
-anytime my dad would accidentally stand behind my brother (not that close, like 3/4 feet away) my brother would yell at my dad to move
-he started going outside the front 6-8 in the middle of the night and every time he does this, it's for 5 minutes at a time so what that looks like is; he goes outside, closes the front door, comes back in after 5 minutes, goes inside his room, gets back outside for 5 minutes, goes back inside his room and so on, loudly opening and closing both doors on every way in and every way out. We tell him how this disrupts our sleep and he still does it every night.
- he just banged on the wall that seperates my room and his, constantly, perhaps trying to wake me up. They were big bangs, in about 20 second durations. I did not react as I've reacted to him waking me up in the middle of the night and that doesn't help anyone. He still doesn't see how selfish his actions are.
-just now (after the banging) he yelled at my dad for putting "his towels" with the rest of the towels. This has never been a problem.
I can't really think of anything stand outish anymore, I'm sure there's loads I've forgotten but my point in all of this is, can anyone relate, how do I deal? He doesn't listen when we tell him to get back on his meds and my parents are in constant stress because of his behaviours. He use to be nice and happy with me at least but ever since I reacted to his night habits, we don't talk at all anymore. He doesn't talk to anyone in this house. My parents now lock their doors before they sleep and I do to when I remember. Anyways, I guess I feel a bit better getting this all off my chest so thank you for having this safe space to do so.
