My brother, 38, had a psychosis episode and 5 months later killed himself
My brother who I was an absolute genius, data architect, loved school, but after college started isolating himself more. He always suffered from major depressive disorder. He started cluttering his room by over buying. So it was all brand new stuff. He struggled with substance abuse. But was still super successful, denied all forms of help even just basic counseling or medications. Fast forward to 6years ago. He started buying Xanax online, hid his severe issue for a long time. I mean it was so bad the amounts he was taking. He ended up getting evicted from a very expensive nice apartment in the city for hoarding, he then moved in with my mom because I didn’t have room for him yet (I was planning on moving to house him). Then everything came to light, he had his quit job a year prior. Taken everything out of his 401K, living off that etc. well he ran out of money, basically rotted in my mom’s spare room for 2 years. She worked 2 jobs, I would go check on him but I had two small kids at home. We all tried to get him help, but he refused. He did come off drugs the first year that he was living with my mom. Fast forward, and last year he moved in with me. He had been a year and a half sober. He seemed so much better. He said he loved living with me, he would play with my kids all the time he was 100% active in our lives. He even stayed home with my newborn in the summer when I worked. Then in October/November he had his first psychosis episode. I believe it was psychosis. Like I said he had always suffered from depression, but never any form of psychosis. He literally woke up one morning and said that his roommate from college has been doing sleep deprivation torture on him. And that it started in high school, before he even knew this guy. And that he was the reason that he had suffered from depression, his whole life and all this stuff. He said that he was doing it to all of us as well, he reached out to extended family that he hasn’t talked to in years and asked them to verify certain incidents, and they all denied them. Then he started talking about all of these memories that were coming back to him. Like parties in college and people chanting how much of a genius he was. And then that all kind of faded away. He seemed to be back in more of his normal/depressive state. But he would randomly laugh to himself like chuckle. All the time. He would almost try to hide it by coughing after. In February, I had given him an ultimatum that he needed to see a therapist and a psychiatrist in order to live here. And I didn’t want him to think that I thought he was crazy, so I phrased it in a way that his lifestyle and the up and downs are not good for my children to watch. On April 26, he hung himself in his closet in my house in his room.
I’m sorry for the huge backstory, I just wanted everyone to get the full details on everything. That he had never suffered from this, and is it normal for your first psychosis episode to be at 37 years old? All the research that I did on him in the midst of the psychosis episode was saying that they should only last a few days to a few weeks. So I genuinely thought that he was getting better. He started doing Uber eats and was making his own money, he was still talkative to me. He started isolating himself away from my boyfriend and his friends whenever they would come over, because I think he was a little embarrassed because he did tell them about his episode when he was having it. Everything that I googled in the moment when it was happening, nothing said anything about suicide. It was all about being afraid of them having homicidal thoughts, and it not lasting that long. I know that he has been suicidal before with his depression. But I’m wondering if the actual act of him doing this stemmed completely from this psychosis episode. He wasn’t just my brother, he was my best friend. And I have no answers. Because he was a tech guy. I can’t even get into his phone or his tablet, and neither could the police. He changed the lock on his door to a key lock, and he did it when I went to sleep. And normally he slept during the day, so I didn’t find him until 4 PM the next day because I started to worry because normally he would wake up at 3 PM. Two days prior to this, he was acting a little weird. But he seemed more nervous. I was actually afraid that another manic or psychosis episode was coming on. He wasn’t eating, and he wasn’t sleeping. I had planned to talk to him with his dad on Sunday, but it was too late. I also guess according to the gas station that is walking distance from our house that he started drinking three days before this. The police did find empty alcohol containers in his room. I am still waiting on a toxicology to come back because he hung himself sitting down and I’m wondering how he did that. Any answers that I could get from anybody who has been through this or knows anything about psychosis episodes. I was not equipped to handle this, because of his age I felt like throwing him inpatient in the midst of a psychosis episode would’ve traumatized him. But I guess that’s what I should’ve done.