Is my son schizophrenic?
My 13 year old son has always had some weird sensory things going on. With food, sounds and situations. One of the first big incidents I remember is going mini golfing with my new boyfriend, who he’d already met a few times. He was about 8 year old. I don’t remember every detail but I remember him yelling “help my moms trying to murder me”, out of no where. He’s ruined many many family activities with these weird outbursts and general negative outlook on basically everything. I would describe him as caring, empathetic, creative and incredibly smart- outside of these moments.
Recently, in the last year or maybe two years, it’s escalated. He’s snappy most of the time, especially towards his little sisters (4&2). I know he loves and cares for all his siblings, he also has a 9 year old brother. He gets along well with his step dad, the same man who was my “new boyfriend” in the mini golf story. But his sisters are little kids, they’re loud and obviously sometimes annoying. He has no patience for them. It’s effecting their behavior now as well.
He doesn’t open up much but when he does, it’s scary. Once after an argument I went to check on him and he was in his room covering his face laughing in the most terrifying way, like also kind of crying. Manic shit. He couldn’t break out of what seemed like a psychotic episode and was pointing in front of him, like there was something there he didn’t want to look at. When I finally got through to him he was crying and hugging me and begging me to keep him safe.
More recently he has expressed things like “I have no control over what I do” and he doesn’t know “who to believe” but he isn’t referring to anyone of us who are actually around. He says loud noises cause him physical pain and he “doesn’t want to hurt his sisters or anyone else”.
Last year I took him out of school to focus on his issues and that hasn’t seemed to help at all and homeschooling has been a nightmare. He plans to go to highschool in the fall but is also worried that will be a trigger for him.
He doesn’t talk to his friends anymore, all he wants to do is sit in his room and play video games. He used to draw and play legos and all kinds of stuff but all of that “isn’t fun anymore” to him.
I am in the process of having him helped and he has a 90 minute evaluation coming up but we are all struggling. There’s this dark cloud over everyone in the house and my heart is breaking for him.
Has anyone else dealt with similar things? I just don’t know how to help him and I hate the idea of medicating him.