I’ve suspected that my youngest bro, who is my best friend, has had schizoaffective signs for like 12 years now. In fact, he was diagnosed with schizophrenia like 11 years ago (after a suicide attempt, was hospitalized), but my whole family, except me and my husband, were like, “NO, HAHA, YEAH RIGHT!!”
But now, for the first time, he is going into an intense psychotic break or something. And quickly. He talks for HOURS about super out-there conspiracy theories, and he has some word salad, which is totally new for him. He talks in circles and doesn’t make a lot of sense. He just recently started going off the deep end, and his GF just broke up with him. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.
I am super worried. Me and him have been super close, our entire lives. He’s always valued my input, always, cause I always try to be helpful but not overstep boundaries. But 2 weeks ago, he snapped at me when I said I was concerned. He said, “I’m not your stupid little brother!” For one, I have never, ever argued with him. Not even once. And I have never, ever thought he was dumb. This was the first time that he thought that I am thinking bad things about him. I think he is losing trust in me, for the first time. I feel like he is drifting away and pushing friends and family away.
I’m so stressed. My husband is my closest relationship, obviously, but my little bro is in second place. I care about him immensely. I cannot lose him like how I lost my mom to psychosis. I know I can’t force him to get help, but I don’t even know how to talk to him now without him completely losing trust in me. I don’t know what to do…
That’s good to know that you were still willing to listen, at least a little bit. I’m thinking of saying something like, “Do you trust me?” I hope he’ll say yes. If he does say yes, maybe I can tell him how worried I am and that he needs to get help.
Yeah, when I first got sick I treated my parents like they were my enemies. In my case, I blamed my illness on them and didn’t want anything to do with them. I was 19 and living in a group home and I didn’t even want to see them. They didn’t give up on me, at Christmastime they brought me gifts and they called me or came to see me. It took me a couple months but soon I realized they wanted to help me and they wanted the best for me. They became my biggest supporters and I had great, (but not perfect) relationships with them for the rest of their lives. I visited and called them as much as I could.
Maybe tell your brother plainly you want to help him and you want the best for him and show it by your actions. Maybe tell him you’re worried about him because mental illness runs in his family and being mentally ill is a disease, not a character defect or personal shortcoming and it doesn’t mean he’s a bad person. It just means he needs more help than his friends and peers and other people but once he gets that help and takes care of his illness he can still live a normal life.
Maybe use your experience with mental illness to show him it can happen to anybody and recovery is possible. @Blossom, I’m sure your illness was worst in the beginning and you have gotten better so you can talk from experience. Maybe just having an open, honest, heart to heart talk with him about some facts would keep him trusting you.
IDK, maybe at this point you (or him) don’t even want to talk about mental illness but it’s a fact that genetics and heredity play a part in it and you’re both aware of your moms condition and it’s possible he even has had a secret fear that it would happen to him some day.
He doesn’t think anything is wrong with him right now. In fact, he thinks he’s the smartest person in the world right now, hence all the conspiracy theories.
He’s 26 years old, so I can’t force him to get help. But I like what @77nick77 said. Maybe I can convince him to get help. It might be difficult, but I have to try.