[Tart Cherry Jam]

I have a friend whom I met almost 30 years ago. We have not had a relationship all those years, but on and off. Now, continuously on for over at least 5 years and we met up once in 2018: I was visiting Midwest, where she now lives (I live in California and she and I met in Texas), and she drove quite a distance to meet with me. I was shocked at how emaciated she was.

From all appearances, she has paranoid schizophrenia. She has a very elaborate set of beliefs about technology and scheming people interfering with her body. I am FB-friends with her brother, who is still in Texas, and he and other family members have pretty much given up trying to convince her to see a doctor. Her daughter, who is educated in the field of psychology, took her to a hospital many years ago and I think it was against the mother's will, but nothing positive ensued.

I have told her brother that I would try talking to her because I thought that I, a person who takes antipsychotics, albeit for bipolar and not schizophrenia, would not be perceived with such fear and negativity as her psychiatrically well relatives. I did not succeed. She gets skittish at a mere mention of psychiatric treatment. So I gave up.

She is very lonely and isolated and I have a lot of friends and I sympathize with her plight and want to be supportive. Plus, she is not always voicing her various delusions, and sometimes I see a glimpse of my old friend the way she was back then, and I cherish that.

The problem is that when she calls me and I listen to everything she says without contradicting any of her beliefs, she gets extremely talkative–imagine a soliloquy of a person who gets more and more excited. Then I stop her by saying I have to go do something. She does not get offended, but I wonder if there is a better way. The thing is, I DO want to talk with her, but I would rather see more of those glimpses of my old friend as she had been before she became ill. I do not want to listen to a monologue about how her Facebook posts (lengthy posts that nobody ever reads) were read by some ill-meaning groups out there who later caused pain in her limbs (she has untreated arthritis, untreated because she would not go see a doctor since she believes that the pain is inflicted by bad actors and technology, and she would not take medication).

Has anyone dealt with such a situation and is there a way to bring out "the old, the prior, the well" person more and put a lid on florid delusions? Again, I am not trying to convince her to go into treatment, I realize that it is futile, but I want to hear more of the person I used to know and less of a manifestation of a system of paranoid beliefs.

[Yaowen]

I am so sorry you are in that situation and also so sorry that your friend is burdened with undiagnosed mental illness. You are a very good person to be trying to be someone she can lean on. That is a heavy burden for you and I can see that you would want to be able to do something other than tell her that you have to go and do something when she gets into an illness-driven monologue.

Sadly I don't have any really good advice for you. I think the way you are handling it is good even though not perfect. It is what I would do if I was in your shoes.

Perhaps others here with more knowledge, experience and wisdom will see your post and respond with things truly helpful to you. I admire you for what you are trying to do. You are someone very special, a person of dignity and moral stature.

[Tart Cherry Jam]

Originally Posted by Yaowen

I am so sorry you are in that situation and also so sorry that your friend is burdened with undiagnosed mental illness. You are a very good person to be trying to be someone she can lean on. That is a heavy burden for you and I can see that you would want to be able to do something other than tell her that you have to go and do something when she gets into an illness-driven monologue.

Sadly I don't have any really good advice for you. I think the way you are handling it is good even though not perfect. It is what I would do if I was in your shoes.

Perhaps others here with more knowledge, experience and wisdom will see your post and respond with things truly helpful to you. I admire you for what you are trying to do. You are someone very special, a person of dignity and moral stature.

Thank you, Yaowen, for your kindness and support.

[AliceKate]

There is a woman on youtube, "living well with schizophrenia". She says when attempting to get someone in psychosis to go to the hospital, it is best not to contradict their delusions, but rather to focus on their feelings and that you know they are feeling like crap, and you want to help and such.

[Tart Cherry Jam]

Originally Posted by AliceKate

There is a woman on youtube, "living well with schizophrenia". She says when attempting to get someone in psychosis to go to the hospital, it is best not to contradict their delusions, but rather to focus on their feelings and that you know they are feeling like crap, and you want to help and such.

Thank you. I do not think this will help me because in this particular case, my friend, many years ago, was in a PhD program in something like biochemistry. She did not finish. I have never been educated in natural sciences. So she often starts talking about "those drugs" that she would "never take" from the vantage point of a learned person, or so it seems to her, in her mind. She recently complained of having severe insomnia and not being able to sleep until 4AM. I gently suggested Trazodone, a very old tricyclic AD commonly used for sleep in low doses, and she rejected it out right. When a person does not want to take something as innocent as Trazodone (innocent for her: for me it is not innocent because it would induce hypomania), there is no way she would trust any doctor or take a heavy hitter AP. She knows that these days hospitals=medications.

But I appreciate the general direction of this Youtuber living and accepting her illness.

[RockyRoad007]

I know this isn't what you're asking, but what if you just accepted her as is.
That is a gift you can give her.
It doesn't sound as if she wants to change, so let her have her experience of life her way, and, if you have it in you, celebrate her life with her. Allow her to be her with no judgment from you.

She probably has very little interaction with friends/family that isn't somehow filled with judgment that her choices are wrong or that she needs to be fixed.

You may even find some of her beliefs interesting. That doesn't mean you have to take those beliefs on, but you can have discussions about them.
And I am by no means saying let her talk "at" you. Discussions go both ways. You still want her to talk "with" you, and not "at" you.

[Tart Cherry Jam]

Originally Posted by RockyRoad007

I know this isn't what you're asking, but what if you just accepted her as is.
That is a gift you can give her.
It doesn't sound as if she wants to change, so let her have her experience of life her way, and, if you have it in you, celebrate her life with her. Allow her to be her with no judgment from you.

She probably has very little interaction with friends/family that isn't somehow filled with judgment that her choices are wrong or that she needs to be fixed.

You may even find some of her beliefs interesting. That doesn't mean you have to take those beliefs on, but you can have discussions about them.
And I am by no means saying let her talk "at" you. Discussions go both ways. You still want her to talk "with" you, and not "at" you.

It is an interesting thought, to discuss her beliefs rather than wait till she is done talking about them. But yes, it sometimes drifts into her talking "at" me, not "with" me. It feels like a download onto me. You have pinpointed the problem for me: "at" versus "with".

[unaluna]

There was a psychiatrist in the 1950's ish who was famous for this acceptance technique. First name Harry, maybe? I looked hard and found a book by him but it was kinda expensive.

[Tart Cherry Jam]

Harry Stack Sullivan | Biography, Contributions, & Facts | Britannica ?

[Tart Cherry Jam]

My friend sent me a clip to a scene in the Nutcracker ballet on Christmas Eve. This was so lovely and shows that on many levels her mind is still intact, despite her illness.