My brother's story of recovery

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1

Hi,

I just want to share a little bit about my brother. He was diagnosed with Schizophrenia when he was about 15. He had several delusions.

He thought that there were tiny robots in his brain and that these robots were eating away at his brain tissue. He also thought that he was losing his intelligence. He thought that he couldn’t read anymore. He also thought that people were out to get him. He thought this girl had kicked him in the neck when he was sleeping at summer camp. He also felt like his neck was going to break from it being jostled. We would be in the car and hit a speed bump and then he would cry out and would be extremely angry because he thought this movement would damage his neck.

So his pdoc (who is now my pdoc) prescribed him Risperdal. He took it for years. Eventually he started feeling better, so his pdoc tapered down his dose over time. Eventually he was completely off of Risperdal and was feeling fine. Indeed, he never had to take antipsychotics again.

He is now living a productive life as an English teacher in China. He has been teaching overseas for about ten years. He doesn’t need medications and has no delusions.

Anyway, I just wanted to share a little bit about my brother because it is so unusual for a Schizophrenic to recover like this. I’m not recommending that people stop taking their medications. I take medication and I can’t live without it.

Sometimes I think he never really had Schizophrenia, or else how else could he recover? If it is the truth, I think his story of recovery may give hope to other people with Schizophrenia.

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I wish that would happen to me, i stopped using risperdal and i kept having sz. This man is lucky. How do some people come out of sz?

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I’ve tried going off my meds too and I always have to get back on. So I’m not sure how he got better.

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I would say they probably caught it early enough… therefore he never had a pyschosis and recovered. Im not expert but this is what ive gathered over time

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i got on meds before i became pyschotic and it still came back later

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Dang man… not sure then :sweat: im sorry to hear that

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That sucks man…

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I wonder how you separate what is a belief system

and a thought disorder

because beliefs can change, especially since he was so young

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I like this. It gives me hope. i want to stop taking that risperdal soon. I feel like this kind of things remind me that my case is not grave so I worry more than I should and I complain more than I should.

I hope what Geewiz says is right, it would be good for me “caught it early enough”. Because they caught mine in a matter of less than a week when my episode started (5 days to be precise).

May I ask, by the way, more about your brother’s case? How many years has he been off meds?

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could you ask him what he did to get better? so we can learn from his experience ^^

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He has been off meds for about 17 years.

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I know that he did a lot of meditation, and I think that helped.

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okay . thx for sharing SnowTiger! :slight_smile:

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I am psychotic even on medication - just can not be ‘normal’ and I also act very awkward when nervous?! but I am mostly functional =)

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Well, we all have our own eccentricities. It’s good to hear that you are functional. I’m pretty functional myself.

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