Co-occurring Delusional / schizophrenia thoughts

[Parentpower]

Our family has struggled for over a decade now with our adult son whose first sign of a problem came with his having paranoid thoughts about being followed. He believed his dad and I were responsible. He was 20 yrs. old and attending college at the time. We were scared by this behavior and wanted to get him help.  He resisted but finally went along with a trip to the local ER to be seen. It was a weekend and upon evaluation, he was seen and released with a recommendation to follow up with psychiatry.  He was noncompliant and adverse behaviors surfaced resulting in multiple baker acts over the months that followed. Each hospitalization was a mix of drug treatment and discussion with poor results and a variety of  mental health diagnosis. Our home was a toxic zone when he was in it with each family member a target for his unpredictable behavior.   Early on our son came up with the idea that he was the creator of someone that had made headlines in the news that had to leave the country for exposing secret government documents. This thought remains with him to this day. He believes the SSI benefits that he receives are not for a disability, but for the information he has regarding this person. The bpd behavior of sensitivity, raging arguments, never accepting responsibility but pointing the finger, refusing to get help are always present. Our best way to communicate with him is by texting and keeping everything brief and simple. Verbal or in person conversations can be detrimental as he reads many thoughts into a facial expression, tone of voice and what you say or don’t say. He already has decided the meaning, which is never what was intended. I can say that as far as sensitivity goes, he wears his nerves on the outside of his body. As a child, he was very loving. I would of cloned this kid.  His parent teacher conferences were positive but will add that the most frequent comment of concern was that he was too sensitive. Little did we know that would become something of huge concern. As a teen, behavior changed as expected during those years. How do you separate obnoxious teen behavior with something more serious?   It’s like time stopped at that point and emotional growth ended. We are convinced that his first diagnosis of bpd was correct and we can check most of the boxes for that. The co occurring delusional or schizophrenic thoughts complicate the recommended approaches in dealing with him.  He currently lives 2 hrs. Away on his own. He cannot establish any friends, desperate to have a girlfriend and very lonely. He has met some girls and in his mind they are far more then friends when in fact they are more like an acquaintance and disappear from him reinforcing failure to him. He wanted a dog which we helped to make possible. We now have this dog along with our own since this too became overwhelming for him. He grew up with dogs and loves them but He admitted later the dog was only to help make him more attractive to a girl.  A colossal mistake on our part. He has very poor body hygiene which he refuses to acknowledge and claims its the other persons problem. Would love to have feedback from anyone who is also dealing with not only bpd but delusional behavior from their loved one and what their approach is.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[Only Human]

Hello Parentpower!

I'm so sorry for the circumstances that brought you here but I'm really glad you've found us - Welcome!

I don't have any experience with what you've described, hopefully others will chime in with their experiences.

You have really been through a lot with your son and have come up with some tools to keep things from escalating - communicating primarily through text is a good idea. How are you coping otherwise? Do you have a therapist of your own? An understanding friend or family member? These relationships can take a toll and a strong support network is critical. Please count us in that network, we are here for you.

~ OH

[PeaceMom]

Welcome Parentpower,

Just reading you post triggers me. I have a DS24 BP (BiPolar) who has had psychotic episodes. As scary as BPD is, psychosis is actually even more terrifying. I get what you are saying. My son also had his first break in college, this is the time it shows up. Marijuana can ignite it. Sounds like your son is experiencing those symptoms of psychosis. Delusions/hallucinations. It’s extremely scary for all involved. We despise psych meds but sometimes they are necessary to calm the brain (that is almost on fire so to speak). Lithium is the gold standard and in our experience has the least horrible “side” effects.
Talk therapy with one trained in dealing with psychosis is fairly important, but we believe med management comes first. Talk is cheap when one is so unstable. These kids must have balance in their lives. Sleep is at the very top of list. My guess is your son is it sleeping bc of the paranoia.
Does any of this resonate? I’m so sorry for you you are going thru, it is terrifying for us parents.

[PeaceMom]

 NAMI has a Family to Family 12 week class that is fairly educational. If he can’t regulate w/P-Doc out patient, he may need to go inpatient for a few weeks for total med management. Again, so sorry.

Peacemom

[FaithHopeLove]

Hello Parentpower
Welcome to the group. I can also relate to what you are going through
 My 25 year old son also believes he is the target of a global conspiracy when he is disregulated
 I don't know if it is schizophrenia or an aspect of BPD and drug abuse. He also has difficulty with relationships. At this point he is not willing to accept treatment so his father and I have released him to make his own choices while we focus on our own self care. We hope one day he will decide to get help. In the meantime we take it one day at a time.
Hugs
Faith

[Parentpower]

My husband and I have done the NAMI family support group as well as bpd support group that exist in our town. Honestly I came away from each of those meetings feeling horrible for each persons story as many of those personal stories I could identify with. I have coping skills in place for myself as my husband still works full time which leaves me more available to deal with a lot of this.  Outside interest include playing in a community orchestra and volunteering at our local hospital with our dog doing pet therapy. Also have other art interest that I engage in to change my focus. These were activities were already something I was doing before bpd came into our lives.  Always looming in the background would be this disorder that is like feeling sucked dry and left empty after any encounter. I realized I should seek help for myself when I was becoming less interested in these activities and so I started with a psychologist near by. She was on the verge of retirement so interest was minimal at best. I called our local university psych department and found out they have a clinic run by PHD students open to the community. I explained my situation and was asking for ways to best cope with someone with bpd.  They had me come in and fill out reams of paperwork on the first visit. I had to lead the young man in discussion as he seemed lost.  Second meeting I was told they could not help me and only really treat the person with the mental illness. They told me to ‘Google’ help. This was a pathetic but not surprising answer from the mental health community. Since this started we have felt that mental health in this country is in the dark ages.  I decided then to return to the bpd support group who live this mental health disorder 24/7 and explain why I left before.  They have improved their group meetings by sharing suggestions of dialectical behavior therapy that have been learned by some of the people in the group and also will hold workshops from time to time.  This is more useful then before where we all left just learning about the next persons story.  I am hoping to learn from this site as well and have been reading recommended books.  Ultimately my hope is for our son to seek help but that’s out of my control. He knows its what we want for him, but he has to want it as well.

[PeaceMom]

I had the same experience after NAMI-just crushing stories!
My own therapist that I had for 2 years pegged me as a mom that was overly accommodating and tolerant. She continually pumped me up for tough love and swift consequences which I knew at my core didn’t fit my situation. I kept trying to explain that both my DD19 ubpd and DS24 BP (they were 16 and 21 at the time)appeared to not be rewarded in any way by their “odd and destructive” behaviors.  I spent the hour each week trying to convincer her I wasn’t a doormat and consequences weren’t changing their “odd” thinking patterns.

I’ve learned more here than in my 2 yrs of therapy. Have you read “Loving someone with BPD”? The techniques given can be used with anyone and would have been helpful when my son was having delusions.

[livednlearned]

Our best way to communicate with him is by texting and keeping everything brief and simple. Verbal or in person conversations can be detrimental as he reads many thoughts into a facial expression, tone of voice and what you say or don’t say.

Keeping things brief and simple is one of the strategies recommended by Shari Manning in the book Loving Someone with BPD that PeaceMom mentioned.

I ended up learning a whole heck of a lot about my own emotions, too, in trying to understand BPD. The more I can identify and name my own emotions, the better I am able to stay regulated myself. If I can't, then that's time to exit stage left and work on acceptance. Not easy.

We are convinced that his first diagnosis of bpd was correct and we can check most of the boxes for that. The co occurring delusional or schizophrenic thoughts complicate the recommended approaches in dealing with him.

What approaches have you been recommended?

Would love to have feedback from anyone who is also dealing with not only bpd but delusional behavior from their loved one and what their approach is.

My stepdaughter experiences auditory hallucinations, and is currently diagnosed bipolar with psychotic depression. Her paranoia tends to be more pronounced when she is experiencing above-average stress. At least that seems when she reports it the most.

The extreme sensitivity to facial expressions is tricky because it seems to blur into paranoia. There is a study suggesting that people who suffer from BPD interpret neutral faces as negative, and that certainly seems true with SD22.

How does your son support himself? Was he the one who wanted to live 2 hours away on his own, or did you initiate his transition?

[Parentpower]

Our son has been unable to hold a job since high school and is on disability. He claims he initially wanted to move home. Not an option for us and he would agree that it would prove to be the wrong choice in the long run. With our help he lives in an area he desired where he can participate in a water sport he enjoys. This was a form of therapy for him in the beginning. Things seemed to be an improvement for him living independently and caring for a place he lives in. This past fall he met a girl that he believed was something much more then it actually was. When it did not materialize he cratered and its been downhill since. All that was important before no longer is.  He perseverates on a passing ‘friendship’ and cannot move on.  He is highly incensed about what happened and unable to let it go and move on.  Typical of people with bpd. We ask him to come home to take a break from his environment but he wont. We have driven over to him on multiple occasions with his knowledge and agreement for us to come, only to arrive and be greeted with such hostility that within 30 we would return home...a 2 hr.drive each way.