[costello]

I agreed to watch my sister's kids this weekend against my better instincts. I'll never do that again! I think I'm more tired and worn down than I'll admit to myself. As long as I don't get too much pressure, I'm ok. A little extra pressure, and I go to bits.

I love my niece and nephew, but they don't mind. You're saying 'stop!' and 'no!' and they go merrily on their way doing whatever they feel like. I had them for nearly 24 hours, including overnight. By the end I was pretty mad.

It was pretty stressful for my son too. After I returned them to my sister, my son and I had a fight. I was too tired to handle it effectively, so I dropped him at home and left in the car for an hour to get some time alone to calm myself.

When I got home he really, really wasn't doing well. And that's sad because he's been doing amazingly well for the last month. His sense of humor is back. It's like the personality he had when he was a child (before the awful teen years) has returned except as a grown man. His quirky sense of humor and point of view and his imagination have been re-emerging. Then last night... I don't know.

He told me a couple of weeks ago that I'm his "only life line." When he starts getting psychotic he doesn't trust me, so he cuts me off. That leaves him trying to cope with the psychosis without his life line. Yesterday we had that fight and it may have left him feeling cut off. He called a friend during the hour I was gone and that friend asked him if my son knew where the friend could buy drugs. That just seemed to set him off in some odd way.

I guess I'm saying I think he needs a wider support system. If he feels like I'm unavailable he needs someone to turn to other than druggies. The good news: during our argument he mentioned his new therapist's name. He said he wished she were present at the argument, because he knew she'd take his side. I feel like it's a good sign that he's developing a relationship there. But he needs some friends who can be a place he can turn without being dragged back into unhealthy old habits.

Sorry if I'm rambling here. I slept very, very poorly last night.

[missbelle]

O.K to ramble......well you learned another lesson that life gave you.....not a good idea to watch the kids....and about setting boundries

Glad son is doing better and opening up to you, and the therapist.....yes, needs to stay away from triggers like old friends etc.....have a daughter like that who is really struggling. She has been drug free, and sober but feels that she is going to loose it again based on where she lives and her friends

Hope today you will be able to take a needed nap!!!

Hugs
Dee

[mgran]

I'm sorry you're so tired Costello, it's really hard when you end up looking after everyone but yourself.

I hear what you're saying about being your son's only lifeline. Before I was diagnosed my only life line was my husband... then he died. I distrusted my family, because for years I'd felt they were judging me for my failures (professional and social... I felt they wanted me to achieve and have their kind of social lives. Probably a little bit true, actually.)

Then there was a time when I started relying more on my son than was healthy for him at his age. It took about a year for the meds and social support put in place by my treatment team to help me find other lifelines. I'm now involved in a church which offers support, and I'd say in the last month rallied so well they kept me out of hospital. Not everyone is so lucky though.

Does your son have a treatment team? In the UK we have a "short term crises team" who are with you for six months and work very hard to stabilise you... at the end of six months they can renew if necessary. If a year or two down the line you start to relapse they'll put you back on their books again. There's also housing support, which in my case looks like it will be ongoing, and help from local charities, coordinated by MIND (a national charity) that helps get you back into work, or voluntary work, as you see fit. They also help you find social activities (music, art, study etc) which get you out in the community.

Is there anything like that in the US? There's also respite care here as well, so people with mental health issues can have a short residential holiday for example, and their carers can have a break, or families can have a holiday together.

I hope someone reading this in the US can put it all together for you, and find some dedicated services that will help your son. Fingers crossed for both of you.

[Tsunamisurfer]

Costello, my head is swirling at the thought of your kid sitting experience.
I hope your son is able to grow his support network with healthy contacts.
Easier said than done, I know, especially when we tend to retreat from other people when in difficulty.

[costello]

Thanks for all the quick replies. It makes me feel better to know people care.

[costello]

Originally Posted by missbelle

O.K to ramble......well you learned another lesson that life gave you.....not a good idea to watch the kids....and about setting boundries

Yes, but I already knew that. Why do I have to keep learning the same lessons over and over and over again?

And why do I seem to think I need to be super human?

Glad son is doing better and opening up to you, and the therapist.....

That's a beautiful way to put a positive spin on things! You're right, he could have easily not talked this through with me last night. He could have bottled it up and that's the path to psychosis. He's very well aware that when he stops communicating, he doesn't get any feedback to counteract his odd thoughts.

yes, needs to stay away from triggers like old friends etc.....have a daughter like that who is really struggling. She has been drug free, and sober but feels that she is going to loose it again based on where she lives and her friends

Yes, we talked about friends last night too. He insists that everyone his own age takes drugs. Everyone apparently. Not possible to find a friend who's clean.

He asked me last night where he could meet friends who are fun and don't use drugs. I told my sister - the recovering alcoholic - about that this morning, and she jumped on it. She said that's exactly how she thought when she was drinking. All the fun people drink.

I also talked to him a bit about my lack of trust. My goal here is to get him on his feet and stable enough to move on with his own life - which includes making his own decisions. But I really don't trust him not to hook up with drug abusers as soon as he moves out of my house. That's what he did the last two times he got his own place - quit his meds and started abusing drugs and alcohol. Part of me wishes I could just let it go and let him have the consequences. But the consequence for my son is psychosis. And when someone is in psychosis they're not in control of their mind. You can't just say, "Well, you made your bed, now you'll just have to lie in it." At least I can't say that to my son.

Hope today you will be able to take a needed nap!!!

I don't think I'll get that nap today. My son has a therapy appointment at 1 and a pdoc appointment at 6:30. No one to take him but me.

[costello]

Originally Posted by mgran

It took about a year for the meds and social support put in place by my treatment team to help me find other lifelines. I'm now involved in a church which offers support, and I'd say in the last month rallied so well they kept me out of hospital. Not everyone is so lucky though.

I thought about getting him involved with a church, but I don't think he's particularly religious. Actually that's one thing that helped my sister in her struggle with alcohol. She just happened to meet up with a very religious woman who made it her mission to help my sister. Literally. My sister's car broke down one day, and she was walking to get help, and this lady pulled over to give her a ride. Then she dragged her to church, found her a job, helped her move, stored her furniture. It's amazing what fate can throw your way.

Back to my son: I was telling my sister this morning that so much depends on what and who you're drawn to. If I were to walk into a room of 20 strangers, I'd somehow end up talking to the guy with a Ph.D. in Slavic linguistics, because I'm drawn to nerdy smart people. My son would find the guy who smokes dope every afternoon. Why is that?

Does your son have a treatment team?

Probably - before I removed him from the mental health center. Lots of people with serious mental illness end up getting services through the county mental health centers. The quality is hit and miss, both from county to county and within any given center. My son received services from our county mhc for several years. No doubt they had some kind of treatment team. The contact person is the case manager. Case managers get their clients hooked up with other services like housing, supported employment, food stamps, etc. It's their business to knows what's available and to help the client access it.

When I decided to support my son's decision to try and reduce or eliminate his reliance on medication, I came into serious conflict with the mhc and we eventually ended up parting ways. I located a therapist and pdoc in private practice whose views are more in line with my own. I think it was a good decision, because these people treat my son with respect and, as I mentioned, he seems to be responding to that respect by forming real therapeutic relationships with them. I strongly believe that my son's chance at healing will come from relationships, not from medication. Medication is a tool. Relationship is health. You can't have a therapeutic relationship with a person you're forcing unwanted treatments on.

Unfortunately the break with the mhc left me in role of de facto case manager. Unlike a real case manager, however, I don't have the training and knowledge - not to mention time! I also have another role here - mom. I know that it's possible to access case management services from the mhc while seeing doctors and therapists in private practice, but I believe you're forced to go to the mhc in your county of residence. Due to the personalities involved, I'd prefer not to do that. Eventually I hope my son will move to a neighboring county - where my job is and where he sees his therapist and pdoc. Maybe then he can get case management in that county.

They also help you find social activities (music, art, study etc) which get you out in the community.

The social activities available through the county mhc seem to involve gathering together with other people receiving mental health services and visiting WalMart or the grocery store under the supervision of a college student who's been hired by the mhc. Kind of dehumanizing and humiliating. My son, not surprisingly, never wanted to participate, which brought him into more conflict with the powers-that-be.

[costello]

Originally Posted by Tsunamisurfer

I hope your son is able to grow his support network with healthy contacts.
Easier said than done, I know, especially when we tend to retreat from other people when in difficulty.

My son retreats from people who might help him when in difficulty. But he seems to draw in people who make the situation worse. I think these hangers on show up because my son is on disability so he has a bit of money coming in. It's to their advantage to encourage his psychosis and confusion, because he's easier to manipulate that way. Like parasites, they attach themselves and bleed him dry. Then when there's only a husk left, they scurry back into whatever hole they crawled out of, leaving the people who genuinely care to clean up the mess. I do hope there's a special place in hell for these leeches.

[KUREHA]

Not sure how to reply, just hope you and your son are ok

[costello]

Originally Posted by KUREHA

Not sure how to reply, just hope you and your son are ok

Thanks, Kureha.

[Tsunamisurfer]

Originally Posted by costello

But he seems to draw in people who make the situation worse.

I see what you mean. That really is difficult, especially if he feels worth more in their company.

[costello]

Originally Posted by Tsunamisurfer

I see what you mean. That really is difficult, especially if he feels worth more in their company.

I'm not sure how he feels in their company. He considers them friends, but then he gets into conflict with them and doesn't know how to cope. For example, one friend (coincidentally this is the friend he talked to last night) was visiting him at his apartment a year and a half ago. They were drinking. The friend started teasingly poking my son in the stomach and telling him he was fat. (My son isn't fat, but the friend is.) This upset my son and he asked his friend to stop. The friend escalated, and they ended up in a physical fight in which the friend's tooth was chipped.

Or another story: he allowed his neighbor to drive his car while he rode in the passenger seat. He asked the neighbor to pull over but she refused. She continued to drive for two or three more hours while my son asked her repeatedly to pull over. She finally pulled over. My son grabbed the keys and left the car telling her he wasn't coming back until she was gone.

I would like to advise him on how to handle these situations, but I honestly cannot imagine myself confronted with one of these problems. People I know don't poke me or misappropriate my property. Yet these things happen to my son all the time. His friends cross boundaries, and my son gets overwhelmed emotionally. He either gets into punch ups in which people are injured and property damaged, or else he gives in in order to avoid the fight.

The only advice I can think to give is: Don't have friends who violate your boundaries or hijack your car.

No one's ever done anything like that to me, and if they did they wouldn't be given the opportunity to do it a second time. And I certainly wouldn't call them 'friend.'

[costello]

Tired again. My son wanted to "talk" last night at bedtime. I told him I needed to get to sleep but we could talk for a few minutes. It turned into a fight, and I didn't get to sleep until midnight.

I'm so nervous about the lowering of the medication. I want to stay positive, but I'm worried. Then he does things that seem to be signs that he's slipping into odd ways of thinking, and I get even more nervous.

I imagine one of the hardest things about being dx'd with a mental illness is that people around you - and even you yourself - are constantly scanning you for signs of MI. Act a little happier than usual, and you're getting manic. Seem a bit more withdrawn than usual, and you're depressed. Well, last night my son was saying and doing things that made me worry he was showing early signs of descent into psychosis. I don't want to make a big deal out of nothing, but I also don't want to wait until things are bad before I try to intervene.

He got so angry with me about a scenario he'd completely made up. He asked what if he had a gif and what if I didn't like the gf and what if we all went out to lunch and what if the gf was being a b!tch to me. I told him I would leave if I was being mistreated. He said, "Exactly! You'd storm out." Then he got really angry with me - almost as if the whole thing had already happened.

It worried me, because this is exactly how his delusions start. A bunch of what if's that he decides really happened. Then he proceeds to act as if they had happened. Then he makes up a bunch of supporting stories to back up the central delusion.

I tried to talk with him about it last night, but he just said, "What does this have to do with my delusions?" Well, many of his delusions are centered on gf's who aren't really his gf's. And the first thing he does when he's going into psychosis is get angry with me. I can see a lovely delusion blooming from this one argument: he used to have a gf but I didn't like her and drove her off.

I don't want to let my fears cause me to imagine a problem that isn't there. I want him to be able to express his feelings, both positive and negative, without being accused of being "crazy." I don't want him to fear being open with me about his delusional experiences. He's been more open with me about this recently. I don't want him to think, "Oh, I confide my experiences to her, and she uses it against me, so I won't tell her anything that's happening with me again." But I also don't want to ignore the early signs that he's slipping. That's the perfect time to begin working with challenging the delusional thoughts.

I don't know what to do.

[Tsunamisurfer]

Originally Posted by costello

He got so angry with me about a scenario he'd completely made up. He asked what if he had a gif and what if I didn't like the gf and what if we all went out to lunch and what if the gf was being a b!tch to me. I told him I would leave if I was being mistreated. He said, "Exactly! You'd storm out." Then he got really angry with me - almost as if the whole thing had already happened.

Costello, you may have good reason to be cautious. But this looks to me like your son may simply be testing out a scenario in which the possible outcomes could jeopardise relationships. His anger could be directed at the principle of your decision rather than at what he fears has already happened. I've been guilty of that emotional response many times, even when I'm not out of touch with reality. People around me tell me I'm overreacting or being over the top. Since I've been on mood stabilisers I hardly ever respond like that anymore.

Maybe it is a sign of instability that that in your son's case is a warning of impending psychosis. I don't know.

[costello]

Originally Posted by Tsunamisurfer

But this looks to me like your son may simply be testing out a scenario in which the possible outcomes could jeopardise relationships.

Thanks for responding, Tsunami. He asked to come to work with me this morning. We talked (i.e., argued) some more on the long drive to my job. Finally I told him to cool it, because he was upsetting me, and I don't want to fight with him in my office. He and I were both able to calm down and were even joking and laughing by the time we got to the office.

At this point I think my fears (and fatigue) were making me overreact to what he was saying.

[costello]

Well, Friday turned out to be a very, very good day for both of us. I would have thought it would be just awful the way it started!

It's frustrating that even when I'm trying so hard to guard against it, I still thought he was slipping out of touch with reality just because he was very angry. He clearly was not having any kind of psychosis. He's doing the best I've seen him do for many years.