How do you cope with supporting a delusional person?
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.