My 39-year-old son was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia in July of 2002 at our state mental hospital. He started being scary after 9/11/ and "got messages" that told him he was sent to save mankind. He had a terrible temper with cursing and violence toward his dad. On his second trip to the mental hospital in 2003, they were finally able to get him on Risperdal, which helped but raised his blood pressure very high. After four years, the psychiatrist switched him to Prolixin, an old drug that seemed to work better for him. He will never work again and has lost everything but his house, where he spends his days and nights alone, chain-smoking, like a recluse. He does visit his three daughters and has a cordial relationship with his former wife. I miss my youngest son the way he was before the “evil” took him away, and I cannot find anyone on either side of the family who had the disease. Published: October 09 ::

My mother is 67 years old. She is having a lot of these symptoms. I have not taken her to the doctor yet but we go soon. She is on a lot of medicine including morphine. She was using the fentanyl patches. She was putting the patches in her mouth. The last time this happened she didn't come all the way out of it, after it wore off. Since then which has been about 3 weeks she has all these signs of schizophrenia. I read that drug abuse couldn't cause this disease but I'm not so sure about that. She thinks her mother which is deceased and her mother's best friend who is not deceased is living in her bedroom. She says they are very little and they stay in pillows, blankets, and drawers. They don't want anyone else to see them or hear them talking. My mother asked her mother how she came back from the dead. She said her mother said she did not really die and the doctor made a mistake when he pronounced her dead. But she is embalmed and she crawled out of a whole in her grave and came to my mother’s room. She thinks her mother's friend came about 3 or 4 days later. My mother talks to both of them all the time. Other than this behavior she seems to be fine. She talks with normal sense the rest of the time. She has fears of other people showing up that she don't know. I hope the doctors get this right and don't just say she has dementia. Or is it all pretty much the same? Published: October 06 ::

My brother, who is now 67, has been schizophrenic for many years. He has been on Zyprexa for a long time now and it has improved his behavior tremendously. He still has very delusional thinking, even on the Zyprexa. For instance, he still believes that previously, when he was not on medications, he heard the voices of his spirit guides, who were assisting him when he was being attacked by wizards and demons. He believes that several people at his day program have strong auras that he can sense, and he believes he can communicate telepathically with those people and get a telepathic response (consisting of a "feeling"). In fact he believes that these people at the day program are actually Lemurians (a mythic race that inhabits tunnels under Mt. Shasta in California). He still believes all this, but he doesn't act on it in any destructive way. His behavior is much better, and he no longer hears the voices of the spirit guides. He really isn't "normal" but his interactions with other people are much better. Published: September 17 ::

My 31 year old brother was diagnosed with schizophrenia 10 years ago. He has been on several medications since then. He was in remission for about three years until a couple of years ago when he started refusing to take his medications. He insisted that the medications had too many side-effects and that he was afraid to take them. He started having problems at work, became more verbally aggressive and now he is homeless. We had him committed for treatment many times. My other brother and I could not have him live with us anymore because we are both married have young children and our spouses don't even want him in our homes. Schizophrenia is the worst disease anyone can have: it destroys not only the patient, but the whole family. Published: September 17 ::

As someone whose parent has schizophrenia and whom has it also. I just want to tell you that no matter how hard it may be or how guilty you feel about it, if a family member needs help make that call! I struggled from the age of 10 to help my schizophrenic mum for 6 years I struggled then it got really bad and she ended up in a mental hospital. She’s out now has been for four years and she’s a thousand times better than she ever was. Fight your fear and bite the bullet it’s worth it. Published: September 17 ::

Our 21 year old son showed signs of mental illness when he started talking non stop and became very violent towards us. I believe he had smoked a lot of drugs. He thought he was Jesus Christ coming back to save humanity. Also he used to hear voices commanding him to do evil. We felt that he was suicidal too so we got him admitted in hospital. He spent about 3 weeks in hospital and when he was discharged he became very calm and quiet and hardly communicated with us. In the beginning he took tetracaine and risperidone (6 mg). But now 9 months later he only takes risperidone (1 mg). He neglects himself a lot so we still have to remind him to brush his teeth, bathe, change his clothes, etc. Published: July 28 ::