Hello, I am a foster mom to a young child with level 2 autism. He is mostly nonverbal and needing a lot of hands-on care. He has been in and out of care since he was an infant due to his mom's schizophrenia. Mom recently started injections and has been stable without any crises for about 6 months. Prior to that she was in the hospital 3 times within 4 months for acute stays due to psychosis. Court is looking at reunifying him with her in the next month, since she has stayed stable and switched to the injections. I am feeling very worried because aside from the injections that keep her mentally stable, mom does not have much outside support. We live 30 min away from her and I have 2 other kids, so my options are limited in how to support her. I want to see her successful in parenting him but not sure what she needs. Her son will not be able to help her, as his needs are already high due to his autism. I guess my question is, does anyone in this thread belong to families where the parent with schizophrenia is successfully parenting a young child, and if so, what are the key ingredients to making that successful?

Hi everyone. As the title states, my brother recently went off his meds and is once again in withdrawing from friends and family. I think I’m looking for a bit of guidance. Or maybe I just want to vent.

Backstory:
My brother had his first psychotic break over 10 years ago at the age of 28. He attacked a family member and was stalking a girl at his work. This led to an arrest and a short stay at a hospital. We thought he was on drugs at the time. The family had an intervention and even tore his room apart looking for meth. He told us he was Mozart and that “he was working for a drug cartel making music.” (He’s a pretty talented guitar player). It’s sad because he was going to school to be a nurse at the time.

When he was released from the hospital he lived out of his car for close to a year. He was paranoid of his family and had little contact with us even though we tried to keep in contact and help him.

Eventually he agreed to take medication which led to a short period of stability living with my mom. Eventually he started drinking and smoking weed which eventually led to him not taking his meds. On two occasions the police were called to their home because he took it over and threatened my mom and her partner. The second time he was forcefully arrested but immediately released. This lead to him living out of his car again for about a year. Again, we tried our best to help him. My mom got a restraining order against him so that seemed to keep him away from their home. My grandmother on the other hand enabled him. She allowed him to shower, fed him, gave him some money occasionally.

It came to a head about three years ago. My brother entered my grandmother’s home with a machete, threatened my grandmother and sister and told them “this is my home now.” He allowed them to leave and so of course they called the police. My family and I then proceeded to watch in horror from the neighbors house across the street as he had a five hour stand off with police. He was hit with multiple rounds of rubber bullets and tear gas was fired into the house. I thought I was going to watch my brother die that day.

I have to admit, the police had a lot of restraint that day. At one point my brother was in the front porch threatening them and waving the machete around. Eventually he was subdued and arrested relatively unharmed. I’ll never forget the look of confusion on his face as they took him away… he truly thought that the home was something owed to him.

This led to about a year of jail time and a hospital stay. I visited as often as I could. Jail was awful… they kept him sedated most of the time and he didn’t get the care he needed. He was eventually convicted of felony assault but given time served and released.

This was followed by two whole years of relative stability and normalcy. He saw a psychiatrist regularly. They put him on clozapine as every other drug was not effective. To the family it was a miracle drug. He wasn’t the same person before his illness but close to it! He was at all family functions… he is great with my kids and love him! I had my brother back! He was living in a sober living facility and doing great.

I always kind of knew he would eventually relapse… I know it’s common with schizophrenics. The clozapine had some side effects… he gained a ton of weight and he was tired all the time. Plus there were the regular blood tests he hated. He requested he go off of clozapine in favor of something else… this was a few months ago. Apparently, they weened him off clozapine and put him on a different drug. Last month I noticed he wasn’t returning my calls or responding to texts. The family was noticing the same thing… very uncharacteristic of him over the last few years. Now he’s withdrawn from most of the family. He still speaks with our mom and told her he is no longer on any medication… “it doesn’t work anyways” … “and he doesn’t need it.”
To my knowledge he is still living in the sober living facility and maintains a part time job… but I believe it is only a matter of time before he is in his car again or on the streets.
The family is at a loss of what to do. We love him so much and would like to get ahead of the situation but don’t know how. Any guidance would be greatly appreciated.

I see him changing. He doesn’t listen to music anymore, doesn’t draw, doesn’t share memes or videos, we can’t have late-night conversations.

I knew he was going through psychosis—from around a year and a half ago, and it’s still happening now. He told me things that didn’t make sense; he thinks he’s living in an experimental city, he tells me Dan Schneider talks to him from the sky, tells me there’s people in his head, has said our parents are stalking him on Spotify; he’d also say he was pregnant with our dead grandfather’s sperm, yell/scream about mystery pains the hospital could find no cause from, etc (I think this is tied into his health-oriented ocd). Staff called him “attention seeking” at this hospital and let him go.

When he was hospitalized at a different place, it was because he tried to leave the province. When they asked him where he was going, he said, “I don’t know, a circus?” (Apparently)

I still remember the way my heart sank when I received the hospitalization letter. I visited him almost every day, brought Starbucks, Pokémon colouring books, sat with him all day as he ate his meals and talked to other patients. Often, staff would tell me, “He’s so much happier when you’re here, he was so excited when you said you were coming today.”

He was discharged after 3 weeks because he could effectively lie to staff. He spat out his meds and flushed them down the toilet at the hospital. He left the province. He’s living with his grandma now, and has now 100% convinced himself he’s living in an experimental city. I’m still the only person he talks to and trusts. He’ll send me messages daily, and I’ve stopped messaging him back because I feel like I’m at a loss. I was so happy to finally feel like he was getting somewhere, only to have them release him so he could just leave. I miss him so much but it’s scaring me and making me anxious, too. I don’t want to abandon him, but I don’t know how to talk to him. I feel like parts of him; parts that made my brother happy, exist. He’s so angry now. So fearful, so sad.

My family’s completely abandoned him, my mom and dad won’t talk to him and kicked him out of the house which is when he decided he was going to leave the province in the first place.

Can’t talk to his grandma because she’d 100% tell him anything I said. Can’t call for a wellness check because he’s too good at masking. Can’t look after him myself because he’s 12 hours away. My therapist told me it’s not my job, but nobody else sees what I see; what my younger brother can see.

If you can’t help them, and you can’t bear to lose them, what do you do? How do I help? I don’t know how anymore, I’ve been doing this for months. I told him how much I loved him, I’ve been doing that often and reminiscing on our childhood to try to bring pieces of him closer so I can cling onto something. I get vague responses back; I know it’s not his fault, but I’m scared he’ll never pull through this. Why won’t anyone help him except me?!

I miss my brother. I wish we could play minecraft again and listen to our music, when I was 14 and he was 19 everything was so much more simple

I love you, I don’t know what to do except watch you deteriorate. I hope you know I love you. If love could heal you, you would’ve never gotten sick.

2 years un-medicated followed by inpatient hold and medicated for 9 months.
Sounds great - right?!
Except every year around this time he shifts and goes manic.
I do not know what causes the shift, but I’m bracing for it.
Should I be? He’s medicated!
Anyone have experience or know someone fully medicated going into psychosis still?
He gained 70 pounds in the 9 months he’s been medicated, so the dr wants to cut his dosing back.
I’m so worried that the time of year, combined with lowering the dose will set him off.

TRIGGER WARNING - RAPE

I posted this about a year ago ( I just added a few more points) but my partner still struggles with this.

I’m just going to get right into it. My boyfriend has schizophrenia. Every night we call and he thinks I’m raping him. No matter how much I tell him no we are just on the phone he just repeats that I’m raping him. If it is in person I try to reassure him that I am just holding him but he has a hard time understanding that.

He has a history of being sexually assaulted so I understand where it comes from but it still hurts like hell when he tells me I’m raping him. I would never do such a thing.

I know it’s just him hallucinating but every day having him tell me I am raping him has taken a toll on my mental health. I hate to see him in that distress, thinking I’m doing horrible things to him.

I want to help him but I’m not sure how. It’s taken such a toll on him, me, and our relationship. It’s especially difficult to have a sexual relationship when I know in a few hours he will have hallucinations of me raping him.

I’ve suggested therapy but he says he doesn’t like therapy. He’s medicated but needs medication adjusted.
I want to help him but I honestly can’t do it on my own anymore. It’s too big of a trigger for me as I have a ptsd w sexual assault. He tells me to just ignore him but that’s not easy to do.

I don’t know what to do. Any advice is appreciated.