r/SchizoFamilies

My brother has been suffering from schizoaffective disorder for 10 years now. There have been very rare moments he was able to distinguish his delusions from reality. It’s been a long time since one of those phases. He’s about to turn 30 and I just wish he could be stable so badly.

His dr says he has anosognosia. For those who don’t know, anosognosia is a condition where the individual is unaware of their illness.

My question is, has anyone here had a loved one whose anosognosia improved or went away?

Also, does anyone have stories of their loved ones reaching stability? I don’t know what my brothers future holds but I’d love to hear some uplifting stories.

My daughter was discharged last Monday from inpatient. She was in IOP at our local facility when admitted to the other facility because our local place had no beds. They referred her to their PHP upon discharge. We declined that facility because we were under the impression that she would go back to the local facilities program and be bumped back up to their PHP or be restarted in the IOP. We have had 2 different meetings now with the local facilities outpatient team. They said the other day that we should look for individual therapy, but that if we had trouble finding it to come back. We went back today, and they said that they wouldn't take her for either PHP and/or IOP. When I asked why they said...Dr. soandso (head doctor at hospital) said that we've done everything we can for her. Then, they proceeded to give us a handwritten list of other hospitals he would recommend. These other facilities are over an hour away. I've called a bunch of individual therapist but keep getting met with the "not a good fit" for their practice responses. My daughters normal mental health provider can't see her until the 20th, and we will be without her new secondary antipsychotic in a few days. She will be able to get her injection of invega before then, but that seems to start wearing off about 6-7 days before it's time to get it again. We currently believe we are seeing breakthrough symptoms. Our regular doctor won't up the injection or authorize a refill on a script she didn't write until we see her in person. I'm going to call the outpatient place we were originally referred to tomorrow and see if we can still get in there for the medication management if nothing else. What do I do if I can't get her in there before medication runs out? Emergency Room?

She is 25 with ASD and Schizoaffective Disorder depressive type.

Hello, I am new here and seeking support.

I (33/f) have been involved with someone (43/m) currently experiencing delusions. They mostly revolve around how people are following him, want to kill him, spying on him, and overall paranoid thinking.

The onset of his delusions began 3 years ago when he was going through a divorce and building a new house. He has been through 2 involuntary hospitalizations, the first one in June 2023 and the second one in October 2024. He’s been honest with me about everything in his life and I do believe there was some merit to his delusions in the beginning because someone broke into his house by taking his front door off the hinges and showed me a video of this. However, I think that’s where the validity ends. I have tried to be supportive of him while being careful not to enable or be dismissive. I know he believes it with every fiber of his being.

Up until recently, he trusted me and has told me multiple times that I have saved his life. Last week was rough. I was at his house most of the week along with some of his family as he felt safer with multiple people around. Thursday me and his mom spent the night and I thought he was starting to feel better because he told his mom she could go home Friday so it would just be me, him, and his son over the weekend. I bartend Friday nights so I got home from work and wanted to change. I keep my tip money in my back pocket and set it on the bathroom vanity so I could do a load of laundry. I didn’t think anything of this. I regularly do his laundry and my own if needed.

Saturday he seemed agitated so I wasn’t interacting with him much and instead I focused on making sure his 6 year old son was having a good time and figured him and I would talk later. The 3 of us have spent a lot of time together and it’s not unusual for us to do things together. He abruptly asked me to leave so I did. He believes I am working for the people who have been spying on him and believes the money I left in the bathroom from bartending is what I was paid for spying on him that day.

I would say that up until recently, I was the person he trusted most in his life over his own family. I don’t understand how I became a part of the bad guys and completely lost all trust in me. I have still been in contact with his mom and his sister and he is getting worse. I want to be there to support him but nothing I say will make him believe me that I’m not working for anyone or getting paid for anything.

Family members/significant others, how do you deal with this? I am exhausted. I should add that he has been struggling with life stress, recently began building an addition to his house, and has a construction company but minimal help as he fired his help a couple months ago.

She goes completely crazy as soon as the medication is mentioned.

My partner has schizophrenia and stopped her medication a month ago. She is now in a severe active episode, completely distracted, and I can't communicate with her. While we've navigated episodes before, she was always medicated and calm. Now, she is completely refusing her medication and doctor visits, and is showing aggressive behavior for the very first time.

Her community nurse suggested an involuntary hospital admission, but I really want to avoid that. Does anyone have advice on how to handle this, or suggestions on what else I can try? We are living in Ireland

Hi everyone, I’m posting as a friend of someone with diagnosed schizophrenia, hoping to understand her experience better and hear from people who may be familiar with these issues.

My friend first became unwell about a decade ago, around the time she was getting deeply into witchcraft and “gaining spiritual power.” She was doing spells and group rituals with random people she met at psychic shops, park meetups, etc. One time, she did a spell in the woods using random angel names that someone gave her, and they told her this would help her gain more psychic powers.
Shortly after that, she was hospitalized. She couldn’t speak coherently, was having intense visions of falling off rooftops, and felt like she could hear people’s thoughts in her head. That was the start of her psychosis and her eventual schizophrenia diagnosis.

Ten years later, one specific delusional belief has stayed very fixed. She believes she is under ongoing “magical attack” from forces or people she won’t fully identify. She says her thoughts are not a safe place and that she is being attacked spiritually. At the same time, she’s convinced that if she undergoes a certain initiation, she will gain psychic/spiritual powers that will heal her and cure her schizophrenia.

The “initiation” she describes usually involves a mentor and a long walk. She believes she has to walk for hours while “downloading” the energy of the person initiating her. After this walk, she expects to reach a higher spiritual level where she can heal herself and protect herself from future attacks.

I’m not here to mock or disrespect her beliefs; I care about her a lot and I know how real and terrifying this all feels to her. I’m just trying to understand what might be going on and how common this kind of theme is.

My questions are:
• Has anyone here had, or seen in a loved one, long‑term delusions centered on witchcraft, psychic powers, or “initiations” that would supposedly cure the illness?
• Is it common for the illness to be framed as a spiritual attack, with the cure also imagined as a spiritual/ritual process?
• For those who’ve had similar religious/spiritual/occult‑type delusions, did anything help you (or your loved one) engage more with treatment while still feeling that your spiritual side was respected?

I know no one can diagnose or give medical advice over Reddit, and I’m not looking for a replacement for professional care. I’m just hoping to hear experiences and perspectives from people who’ve lived with these kinds of beliefs, so I can be a better support to her.

Thank you for reading.

**Please read this until the end. We are desperately looking for answers, advice, or anyone who has experienced something similar.**
Before I explain my brother’s story, I want to mention something that may or may not be relevant. When my mother was pregnant with him, she was going through an extremely difficult time emotionally and was under a great deal of stress. During her pregnancy, she also fell directly onto her stomach. I don’t know whether this had anything to do with his condition, but I thought it was worth mentioning.
My brother is now 17 years old, and he has been struggling with severe mental health problems for years. We have taken him to psychiatrists all over our country and tried every treatment that was recommended. Despite all of this, we still haven’t found anything that has truly improved his condition.
He is currently taking medication for schizophrenia as well as antidepressants. I don’t know the names of his medications because my older siblings and my uncle are the ones managing his treatment.
Looking back, some of his symptoms appeared before puberty. He also showed signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) during childhood, although the symptoms were mild and not obvious enough for anyone to recognize at the time.
When he was 11 years old, he began sitting in very unusual positions, sometimes putting his head between his thighs. He also started walking almost constantly. Whenever we asked him why he walked so much, he would simply say, “So the voices in my head will be quiet.”
When he was 13, another child hit him on the head with a wooden stick. The stick broke from the impact. As far as I remember, he didn’t have a wound that required stitches, although I honestly don’t remember whether he was bleeding because I was only nine years old at the time.
When he was around 14, his condition became much worse. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and started treatment for schizophrenia.
About a year later, the schizophrenia medication was stopped. After that, his condition became dramatically worse. He became extremely distressed, was under enormous pressure from our family at the time, and even began taking off his clothes in front of us because of how severely unwell he was.
Later, another psychiatrist evaluated him and diagnosed him with psychosis and obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
While we were driving home after one of his appointments in the capital, he suddenly asked us to stop the car. He tried to open the door while the car was moving. When we stopped, he ran into an open area. My older brother chased after him and eventually brought him back, but he took off his clothes again and refused to get back into the car.
We took him to the hospital, where he was given a sedative. After that, we returned to the capital, and he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for two months before being discharged.
Since then, he has continued receiving treatment and regular follow-up with his psychiatrist. We have never abandoned him, and we have always stood by him. Unfortunately, despite years of treatment, there has been almost no improvement.
Today, he spends almost all of his time walking and rarely sits down. He has difficulty focusing on anything. He often stands in front of a mirror and repeatedly shakes or flicks his hands. He also eats almost constantly. He will eat almost anything in front of him, stuffing his mouth with food and making a mess without seeming to notice.
He has never used illegal drugs. However, more recently he started secretly taking my older brothers’ nicotine pouches (the small pouches placed under the upper lip). He seems to focus only on finding ways to take them without anyone noticing.
The most heartbreaking part is that he no longer realizes that he is ill. Our family is exhausted—not because we have given up on him, but because we have spent years searching for answers without seeing any meaningful improvement.
If anyone has gone through something similar, I would be incredibly grateful if you could share your personal experience. If there is a psychiatrist or another mental health professional reading this, I would sincerely appreciate any thoughts or guidance about what might be happening with my brother.

I have been having issues the last year with my relationship with my wife. She doesn’t know who to believe between my mom and I on what happened to me as a kid. (My mom and stepdad kept my brother mentioned and I in a corner as punishment. I spent almost 7 years there due to “not minding”. I would sit from the time I got up to the time it was time for bed. I sat for slo long my lower half would go numb. They would also make food when I would ask for food, but let everyone else in the house eat their first plate/bowl before I could causing me to wait an extra 30 minutes to a hour to eat.). I don’t really have a relationship with my mom or brothers because they moved out of state the summer of 2022 without telling me. I had to find out myself that they moved and when I would talk to them, it was nothing but asking me for money or “what do you want”. My wife has been talking to my mom behind my back off and on the last few years about me and what’s going on with me. Recently my wife was told my brother is schizophrenic and bipolar. So my wife thinks I should get tested and find out. She also told me that I have until October to fix things or she will be meeting up with my mom to talk about things in person. Another issue is my wife keeps track of my location and rushes me at work adding more stress to my job.

Hi everyone, I’m posting as a friend of someone with diagnosed schizophrenia, hoping to understand her experience better and hear from people who may be familiar with these issues.

My friend first became unwell about a decade ago, around the time she was getting deeply into witchcraft and “gaining spiritual power.” She was doing spells and group rituals with random people she met at psychic shops, park meetups, etc. One time, she did a spell in the woods using random angel names that someone gave her, and they told her this would help her gain more psychic powers.
Shortly after that, she was hospitalized. She couldn’t speak coherently, was having intense visions of falling off rooftops, and felt like she could hear people’s thoughts in her head. That was the start of her psychosis and her eventual schizophrenia diagnosis.

Ten years later, one specific delusional belief has stayed very fixed. She believes she is under ongoing “magical attack” from forces or people she won’t fully identify. She says her thoughts are not a safe place and that she is being attacked spiritually. At the same time, she’s convinced that if she undergoes a certain initiation, she will gain psychic/spiritual powers that will heal her and cure her schizophrenia.

The “initiation” she describes usually involves a mentor and a long walk. She believes she has to walk for hours while “downloading” the energy of the person initiating her. After this walk, she expects to reach a higher spiritual level where she can heal herself and protect herself from future attacks.

I’m not here to mock or disrespect her beliefs; I care about her a lot and I know how real and terrifying this all feels to her. I’m just trying to understand what might be going on and how common this kind of theme is.

My questions are:
• Has anyone here had, or seen in a loved one, long‑term delusions centered on witchcraft, psychic powers, or “initiations” that would supposedly cure the illness?
• Is it common for the illness to be framed as a spiritual attack, with the cure also imagined as a spiritual/ritual process?
• For those who’ve had similar religious/spiritual/occult‑type delusions, did anything help you (or your loved one) engage more with treatment while still feeling that your spiritual side was respected?

I know no one can diagnose or give medical advice over Reddit, and I’m not looking for a replacement for professional care. I’m just hoping to hear experiences and perspectives from people who’ve lived with these kinds of beliefs, so I can be a better support to her.

Thank you for reading.

Has anyone had experience with Abilify causing their loved one to become extremely aggressive and violent. My boyfriend was taking it and it didn't appear to be working. The psychiatrist told him to double the dose and he became completely psychotic and not in a gentle way... he became almost psychopathic and acutely strange. he immediately discontinued and then dropped the dose from 20mg down to 5mg, and he got progressively worse as the days went on until the police picked him up brandishing a knife. I feared for my safety and couldn't be alone with him in the car let alone the house. When he's in a "natural" unmedicated state he is very gentle and calm even when hearing voices. I know it was/is the abilify that caused this.

I know there's no solution there's no need to tell me in the comments. I'm just exhausted.

My mother is schizophrenic since I'm 7. Refuses treatment and doesn't believe she's sick. My dad stayed home to protect us from her and lost all his money/career because no family members wanted to help. No, there's no solution because I'm from a third world country. Not only is mental health taboo and never talked about but there's also no ressources to help. Unless you're rich and ready to put 5k+$ a month to commit her full-time in the hospital, there's nothing to do.

Now I'm in my 20s and I live abroad. I'm just so exhausted because, though I am relieved of not living with her anymore, I just hate what my future holds for me. My family has now a bad financial situation which is why I studying to go into a career I don't particularly like so that I can make money to support my parents. They have no home and no income so their retirement is on me. On top of that, I just see no solution with my mother, the only way this will end is when she'll die and that's horrible, for her and for us. So I'm just looking into the next 30+ years as an exhausting burden. I feel like I'll never be normal or allowed to have a normal life until she dies and I'm so tired already.

The situation has been like this since I'm a kid, it's all I've ever known and the fact that I won't be liberated from it until I'm 50 years+ is exhausting and depressing.

I just don't know what to look forward to anymore.

My 19 YO has a long standing history of mental illness (depression, anxiety, self harm, suicide attempt) Despite having the support of psychiatric and therapeutics interventions she became non compliant. Her behaviors developed into periodic paranoia, disrupted sleep patterns, decreased hygiene, then agitation. I attributed the agitation to being a moody teenager with lack of sleep.

Things changed when she came home in the middle of the night with a loaded g u n. In severe psychosis Delusional believing she was followed, spied on, devices and ceiling fans and air conditioners were hacked and also being used to spy on her. She said she wanted to take herself out and didnt want to leave us behind. She had the g u n in her hand roughly an hour and followed her little sister to her bedroom and became distracted and set the gun down. I hid the weapon , called police, and she was placed under a baker act. She is now in a facility and they’ve petitioned the court for guardianship so she can continue to receive involuntary and hopefully long term treatment.

Afterwards, I found numerous notes about killing, shooting, beating. dismembering her family, hanging us by our intestines, removing our brains and mashing them together, leaving dead animals outside the home. I found a dead animal that morning at my parents house where she spent the night with its head and intestines removed. I’m not sure if it was predation coincidence or she was responsible.

The notes are graphic and were written over the past several months. Some of the notes I pieced together, some on index cards including imagery and steps to carry out the killing and post mortem mutilation. Disorganized thoughts.

I’m not sure why I am writing here but I thought it’s a start since the notes are deep and dark.

I’m looking for perspectives from people who have lived through something similar, either as the spouse or as the person who went through trauma and mental health challenges.
My husband and I have been married for 19 years and have two children (11 and 13).
Before I explain my concerns, I want to say that I love him and have a lot of compassion for what he has been through. This isn’t a post from someone who wants to attack their partner. It’s from someone who feels increasingly lost and unsure what to do.
Before active military service, he was part of a mefloquine trial. Following that period, he experienced significant anger issues. He later served in the police force and was exposed to traumatic events that contributed to PTSD and depression.
In 2023, he experienced a serious mental health crisis and was involuntarily hospitalized after spending around $60,000 on domain names. Since then, he has received psychiatric treatment and was prescribed medication. More recently, he gradually stopped the medication under the supervision of his psychiatrist because he felt emotionally numb and was struggling with side effects. He wanted to feel like himself again.
The problem is that over the years I feel like I’ve watched a gradual personality shift.
He has become intensely distrustful of institutions and authority. He is strongly anti-government, anti-monarchy, anti-pharmaceutical companies, anti-police, anti-AI, and anti-Department of Veterans’ Affairs. Every conversation seems to circle back to these topics. He sees himself as simply telling the truth and exposing things that others don’t want to hear.
I’m not saying all of his opinions are wrong. Some criticisms of institutions are completely valid. My concern is the intensity, the constant focus, and the way it dominates our family life.
I find myself worrying about how he comes across to friends and family. I worry about social isolation. I worry about our children growing up hearing constant negativity, distrust, and anger toward the world.
Most of all, I worry about what kind of relationship we are modelling for our kids.
I want my children to see a relationship built on connection, laughter, mutual support, growth, and emotional safety. Instead, I often feel exhausted, disconnected, and responsible for managing the emotional atmosphere of our home.
At the same time, I feel guilty even writing this.
This is a man who has served his country, served his community, experienced trauma, struggled with PTSD and depression, and has been through a psychiatric hospitalization. Part of me feels that leaving would be abandoning someone who has already suffered so much.
Another part of me wonders whether staying is teaching my children that it’s normal to remain in a relationship where you feel unhappy, disconnected, and increasingly alone.
Has anyone been in a similar situation?
How do you tell the difference between supporting someone through trauma and sacrificing your own wellbeing?
If you stayed, what helped?
If you left, how did you know it was time?
And if you’ve been the person struggling with trauma, PTSD, depression, or intense distrust of the world, what do you wish your spouse had understood?
I’m genuinely looking for perspective from all sides.

TL;DR: After years of trauma, PTSD, depression, and a recent mental health crisis, my husband has become increasingly distrustful, negative, and consumed by anti-institution views, which is affecting our marriage and family life. I love him and sympathize with what he’s been through, but I’m struggling to decide whether to keep supporting him or leave for the sake of my own wellbeing and our children.

I don’t know what kind of trigger warning to potentially put here so: proceed with caution? Alcoholism? And I apologize for my ignorance in this topic.

My husband has two memories of watching videos of either Asmongold or Tim Pool where they covered news of two violent 💀 incidents as a part of current events.

He is an active alcoholic.

i have always chalked his memory pov being so “people are out to get me” to the alcohol, but figured the events were at least real and he was altered at the time. Think: worse case interpretations of interactions. Sometimes, not all the time.

But in the last year- while heavily intoxicated -he remembers watching videos about two topics covered by A or TP but he can’t find them again and he genuinely believes they were taken off of YouTube, his Watch History, and his internet browsing history. Like they’ve been scrubbed.

i’ve looked up the incidents of the videos he describes: they don’t exist anywhere. If they did they would be huge stories because of the potential for political sensation.

He won’t listen to me when I tried to point that out, and said I was worried for him and thought he should consider they might not exist.

Is this psychosis? Has anyone had similar experiences? Was there anything in particular that helped you get help?

Thanks for your help and time. Sorry again if I’m in the wrong place. This seems like a very supportive community and I genuinely hope you all find what you’re looking for and can live feeling safe.

Hi everyone,
I just needed a place to vent because I honestly feel like I’m drowning, and I wanted to know if anyone else has gone through something similar.
My sister was diagnosed with schizophrenia in 2022. Before that, she never had serious anger issues, but after her diagnosis, everything changed. Over the past few years, life has become incredibly difficult for my family and me.
I come from a middle-class family, and we’re financially dependent on our relatives. I was born and raised in Saudi Arabia, but I moved to Pakistan to continue my education. I completed my A Levels here and now have just one year left before graduating from university.
The hardest part is living with my sister’s illness. She becomes extremely upset if her belongings aren’t arranged exactly the way she wants them or if someone forgets something she considers important. During those moments, she can become very angry, and arguments and accusations follow. I know it’s because of her illness, and I don’t blame her, but living through it every day is emotionally exhausting.
We also live in a rented house, which makes everything even harder. Whenever she has an episode, the noise disturbs the neighbors and the landlord. We’ve been threatened with eviction multiple times because of it. Living with the constant fear of losing our home has become a nightmare.
My biggest goal now is to finish my degree, move abroad, build a stable career, and one day buy a home for my family. I don’t dream of luxury anymore. I just want a place where we can live in peace without worrying about being forced to move again.
Honestly, this is a life I never imagined, not even in my worst thoughts. Some days I feel completely hopeless, but I keep reminding myself that I have to stay strong for my family.
Has anyone here experienced something similar—either living with a family member who has schizophrenia or dealing with the challenges that come with it? How did you cope?
If nothing else, I would really appreciate your prayers. I hope one day my sister finds peace, my family finds stability, and we can finally have a home where we don’t have to live in constant fear.
Thank you for reading.

hi all, hope you’re having a. good day. I’m just looking for some insight on my friend. she has been purposely homeless for the past seven years and believes to be god. there is no wavering from this stance in her mind. she calls us all evil in emails and videos and “sends us to hell” regularly. she claims the end of the world was yesterday and now we are in the start of the apocalypse that she is in charge of.

i only recently came back because the emails previously were so hard to deal with and hurtful. so I was ready to give it my all this time and overlook the meanness. I offered her to live in my house so I can cloth her, feed and make sure she has a roof over her head. I’ve sent money but it was “not enough”. I was “on her side” when I first came back and now somehow i am as evil as her family. Her emails are extreme emotional abuse and when I mention it she just says I deserve it for ignoring her in the past and it’s my karma.

she also mentions she does not want friends but disciples and none of us on earth are on her level. it seems every time I started to get close she managed to push me away to the point I feel im losing my own mind. She refuses medications and she doesnt really think for herself, she talks to heaven and only listens to her guides from heaven. the push pull dynamic is so severe but i am not willing to give up so i was hoping to get some good advice on navigating this. I recently sent her something vulnerable to show her I am totally here for her but now it’s complete silence.

is there any way to get through to her to show her im on her side? I accepted she is above me because she is my favorite person in the world and she is above me in my mind. she blames us for her homelessness but at the same time is perfectly fine where she is. She said people should be lining up to give her gifts because she is god. she seems angry always. in this time back she was teaching me lessons but that’s as much love as I have seen. There’s no feelings being shared just lessons and anger.

thanks for taking the time to read

I’m a mom of a 19-year-old daughter who has struggled with mental health for years (depression, anxiety, self-harm, suicide attempts, prior psychiatric hospitalizations). She has had periodic episodes of paranoia in the last 6+ months, quit college, went no contact with her friends . Went no contact with me for 3 months for unknown reasons (she was still staying at her dorm at this time and lived a mile from her dad and step mom house) and showed up unannounced and was welcomed back.

Then she went No contact with her dad and step mom for the last 2 months with no known reason. Recently had disrupted sleep, decreased hygiene. Agitation I attributed to lack of sleep and being a teen. Last week everything changed.

She developed what appears to be a severe psychotic episode. She became extremely paranoid, believed people were hacking and following her, didn’t seem to recognize family members at times, and came to my house with a loaded revolver. I was able to get the gun away from her and law enforcement Baker Acted her.
After she was hospitalized, we found multiple notes that had been written over months containing graphic plans to kill me, my husband, and her 5-year-old sister. The writings included detailed descriptions of murder and dismemberment. Because of those writings and the gun, I obtained a temporary domestic violence injunction for my family’s safety.

She is currently in an inpatient psychiatric hospital. The doctors have determined she currently lacks capacity to make her own medical decisions, made me her health care proxy, and have now petitioned the court for guardianship because they believe she still needs protection and treatment.
She has started antipsychotic medication. When I was able to speak to her, she sounded confused and disorganized. Later she stopped taking phone calls from me and other family members. My mother told her she had brought a gun to my house, and she said she didn’t remember. My daughter is no longer responding to her name and believes she is someone else. She doesn’t recognize family members. She’s been there 5 days and hardly eaten. She’s withdrawn. She’s laughing by herself.

I feel completely torn. I love my daughter more than anything, but I’m also terrified by what happened. At the same time, I keep replaying her entire childhood wondering if I somehow caused this. I feel guilty, scared, and heartbroken.
If you’ve had an young adult or patient experience psychosis, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder with psychosis, or another serious mental illness:
Did they recover after a first episode?
Did they remember what happened?
Did their relationships heal over time?
Has anyone been through guardianship or an involuntary hospitalization?
What does the future look like?
How did you cope with the guilt and fear?
Provisional diagnosis? I just feel very alone and would appreciate hearing from professionals who’ve treated something similar.

Hi, sorry if I make a few mistakes in my grammar I'm still recovering from an episode I had a moment ago.

Also TW for me sharing my symptoms

So, I have BPD, and 50% of borderlines have psychotic symptoms and episodes so really I didn't think much of it before. But I recently, it's been getting much more reccuring. It used to be a few times every like, 3 months or something, now it's been happening every few weeks, sometimes every week. They've also been getting more violent, for example >!the """entity"" that I saw regularly during those episodes have been like, morphing ? Evolving ? Idk how to say it but it became more and more terrifying by sightly changing it's appearance. My disorganized thinking became more obvious and I've been getting much more terrified during them too, not to mention the delusions where I feel like some kind of otherworldly entity is stalking me, seeing eyes staring at me when I close my eyes.!<

So my worry is that not only I've been getting much more as of recently, but they're also more terrifying and violent. I'm kind of in need of advice, on how to calm them down and maybe prevent them? Maybe this might be a tricky question so feel free to ignore this one but should I be worried of having another pathology than BPD ? (like schizophrenia or schizotypical disorder having a history of bipolar disorders in my family)

TL;DR : i have been getting more psychotic episodes and they're increasing in violence. Is there anything I can do to help myself ?

Ps : I do have antipsychotics but I'm on a very low dose for anxiety and sleep.

I will try to summarise this and keep things fairly brief but my brother is fairly older than me in his 40s and has been diagnosed with bipolar schizophrenia for a very long time. The last few years have not been good for him or easy to say the least and he has been spiralling with delusions for some time now. End of last year we forcibly hospitalised him after finding out he had lost his job, didn’t pay rent for 3 months and was about to be evicted. He was thin, dirty, with scabs all over his body as he believed there was listening devices inside him. He resents me for this hospitalisation SO much saying I ruined his life by admitting him.

He only reaches out currently to ask for money, and has done for 10+ years. The thing is he used to be an addict, and would spend our money on drugs, alcohol, and pointless things. My mother paid off his last rent debt, but he has called me tonight saying he somehow has another of $2000 and is being evicted. He also wants me to send him $250 for cleaning supplies even though I just sent him $50 so he could feed his cat. I just don’t trust what he is saying, but I also feel so terrible at the situations he is constantly finding himself in. I am so absolutely exhausted by the non stop stress of it all, and almost feel relieved when I don’t hear from him for a while. He is unable to work and often abuses me and screams insults during phone calls. I’m 20 weeks pregnant and feel so helpless because I cannot send him the money he seems to always need and my husband refuses to help him as he’s seen me fall apart over all this. Visiting him and doing drop offs of the cleaning supplies and food isn’t an option either as he lives 3 hours away….

Not sure what to do… maybe this was all just a vent as well 😢

&#x200B;

You promised me you wouldn't hurt me. You put a lot of love patience and effort into convincing me to give you a chance. I finally did. You completely stole my heart, I fell in love with you.

But.... You kept a secret from me though. You should have told me, It would have given me a chance to be prepared. But instead I had to find out the hard way.

In the beginning I was so confused and scared. I didn't realize what was happening. I was in complete shock with the drastic sudden changes. I couldn't even think straight. It was scary how hateful and dangerous you became overnight. I stayed regardless. Stupity I guess.. then you finally told me...

Then it all made complete sense.. by then it was too late.. the "secret" had already swallowed you whole. Leaving you in a distorted reality of your own. The voices hated me, they convinced you I was the enemy. I still stayed! I thought you'd eventually come back to me.

The version of you that I fell in love with was completely gone. No matter how hard I prayed for you, it only got worse. Watching you change into someone I no longer recognized was one of the hardest things I've ever experienced.

We were supposed to get married, build a life together. But Little by little, the man I once knew disappeared, leaving behind only a shadow of who you used to be.

During this period of time, I lost insight on my own reality/life. I believe I became unwell myself, codependency maybe? You were my only concern, I stayed by your side through the torment and abuse.

I lost everything that mattered to me. My Job, Apt, car, friends, family. All in just a cpl weeks. I can only blame myself for it though.

This "secret" has taken so much from you and from everyone who loves you. It's devastating to watch you battle a mind that has turned against you.

I miss you, and my heart breaks knowing how much you're suffering. You refuse to get treatment, You refuse to even admit your unwell.

I tell myself this isn't your fault, it's the "secrets" fault. If we only caught it sooner, we could have gotten help with making it more manageable. But instead You tried hiding it, hoping you could make it disappear.

I know that you would never intentionally hurt me in all those awful ways you recently have. I'm lucky I'm still alive. I'm done with all of it! I've accepted the fact I can't fix you, and you just kept getting worse.

This last incident was a total wake up call. While you spent those days in jail, I had a chance to wake up. I'm not turning my back on you, I'm just putting myself first. You're going to end up killing me if I stay. I can't and won't do this anymore.

I'm getting my life back. Nothing will change this decision of mine either. Even if you get treatment and get better. You've done way too much damage, where I'll never ever be able to feel safe around you again.

Maybe this isn't your fault, but it's not my fault either. I wish you the best. Good luck