My therapist thinks I have Schizoaffective Disorder. He’s been using talk therapy, and I’m improving. I had no idea how bad I had gotten. I was enraged, euphoric, I’d become terrified. I had tried to bury a rosary in a churchyard, because it had broken and I thought it would be respectful. Now, I realize that was a really weird thing to do. I am getting better, but now I need to face a problem and I don’t know how to do it without hurting my grandma.
Someone in my family who has SZ committed a murder last year. It devastated my family. He’s in jail. Every time I try to talk about him, my jaw seizes up and I shake and I can’t think straight. I get sick, I feel worse. Over one weekend, I got a fever after a phone call about him. After talking to his attorney on another day, I felt so tired I couldn’t do anything else. I fell asleep on my rug.
My grandmother in her eighties. She still loves him. She wants to share news with me about him. My grandma does not know that even thinking of him makes me ill. He killed an innocent man who was a grandpa and a father. I cannot talk about him. I’ve tried, and it makes me sick. I don’t want to say that I hate him, but it’s reached that point.
The TL;DR version is that when this guy comes up, my brain hits the brakes. Life comes to a screeching halt. Studying history? Not anymore, you’re not. It’s naptime on the rug for you. Oh, you were cleaning? Well now, instead, you’re going to get sucked into the vortex of endless darkness. I dread these phone calls.
I completely understand. My cousin that Iwas very close to turned out to be a molestor after he entered his 20s. Broke my heart and turns my stomach. I pretend he doesn’t exist.
I do not want to cut someone out of my life when they’re at their lowest. The problem isn’t my brother’s SZ. I’ve always loved him. If he was sad and crying, I would drop everything and go see him. I shake because, separate from my brother’s illness, he has changed. I had a good friend with SZ, my uncle who I love had SZ. I don’t think my brother’s SZ is what made him do this.
I had a dream I had made all these ugly statues of him. They were clay. I’m an art major, and I had actually made a statue of him before. It was a simple dream. I didn’t have a photo to go off of, so I was using my memory. The more I made, the less like him they looked. “Do you want to see what he looks like now?” A narrator asked. The voice, “Do you want to see what he looks like now?” Scared me, so I woke up. Who knows what my brain would have shown me. It’s just a dream, but I was always told to trust my instincts. It’s been a year and I still feel this fear.
I’m so sorry that happened to you. I’ve always done this thing called ‘Scrapbooking’ people. Scrapbooking is when you take old photos and make an artbook out of them. My grandma does it a lot. Scrapbooking people, for me, would be taking a moment in time with that person I treasured, and taking a mental photo, and keeping it. Sometimes I’d make a drawing of it.
This was good for breakups, friendships that went bad, (always needing rides, a place to crash etc.) because I appreciated the memories. Scrapbooking doesn’t work for breaks like yours or mine, because the memories make it worse. We hurt because not only did we lose a relationship, there’s a sense of terror about the person and also for them, like, how long were you this?
I do. He’s been helpful, but I haven’t really shown him this side of things yet. If I get bad, it comes in bursts. I do hear things, I feel fear. It never went away like grief is supposed to, it intensified to paranoia. I have an appointment tomorrow
I talked with my grandma this afternoon. My brother will never go to trial. He is in a mental hospital, and we think it’s safer for him. I feel calmer, knowing this
I took your advice. It’s been a few days. I’ve processed what my therapist and I talked about. A lot of my shakes and nausea was a terror for him. We found out that I actually wanted him to be a monster because he was in prison and I was scared for him. My therapist and I talked about fear, different kinds of fear. My attitude is so different now after knowing he’s in the hospital and not in prison. Thank you for reaching out to me.