So the stabilization for Joey was short lived…. (4) weeks later and he Decomposed again. This time harder! Meanwhile, Noah’s visual hallucinations continue and are more vivid than ever.
Since January rolled around, Joey is Visibly not feeling well. He has been sleeping in much longer, until noon or almost 2:00pm. Then refusing to eat, brush teeth and shower. He wears a disheveled appearance, like he is out living in the streets again! There is an empty look deep within his eyes. He is almost mute most of the day, except for the random outburst of laughing which startle me. He goes most of his short day this way.
Then, in the early evenings, Joey becomes volcanically vocal. I am still learning much about Schizophrenia or Schizoaffective Depressive type, but I will say that in the evenings Joey has uncontrollable psychotic episodes with loud crying, while he is either pacing, rocking, or lying on the ground in fetal position. His delusions are powerful voices/demons inside his head and body that they are physically killing him from inside out of his body by choking him to stop his breathing and at the same time trying to stop his heart so he can die. In the midst of this, he is scratching or smacking his red face until it bleeds.He’s wailing loudly with many tears down his face, like he’s at a funeral, his own funeral. He’s crying and talking quickly; says he’s going crazy inside and “they’re” killing him and he is dying. That he is scared, that they are stronger and he must go to the hospital so he won’t die. These episodes are intense, and doesn’t seem to hear me to respond to my patient and soothing words. I’d love to rush him back to mental health urgent care, but they don’t seem to want to do anything when there is an assigned Psychiatrist overseeing his care. And so I ride the tide with him, my son.
Then after an hour or so, after I can finally calm him down and get him to take his Klonopin.
After the Klonopin kicks in, Joey will compose himself a bit and will begin his trying to convince me how he is not sick at all, that the doctors (4 Psychiatrist) have it all wrong. He says they gave him label cuz it looks like schizophrenia but it’s not. But he goes along with it because the medicines they give him help until they wear off.
Joey says he had these tortuous voices inside him because of what he did last Year. He tells me again how these voices, (His brother and some friends), came to hang out and play with him one night and how they all hung out together inside his head. He explains that they played games, he talked with them and laughed with them until he was tired. When he was done “hanging out” they refused to leave. And now they don’t want to leave him ever he says. He says not only that, they invited the “Whole World” to come stay in his head and they completely took over his body and they refuse to leave because they want to make sure he’s not happy and eventually they want to kill him. Note: the brother he mentions “hanging out with in his head” has been locked up in a Prison hundreds of miles away for the past (8) years! Joey hasn’t seen or spoken to him whatsoever since the year 2010.
As for Noah, it’s been weekly meets with his therapist and monthly with his Psychiatrist. Hallucinations are persistent; 6 months long and counting. As the matter of fact, the last time I got him to talk about them on Halloween, he describes them as being more realistic than before meds. Noah said “My mind is playing tricks on me again”, then he said, “Or maybe someone’s pranking me”.
I noticed that some of what I will call brain fog, has seemed to have lifted a hit, as Noah now has a new awareness about his illness and symptoms. I know this because he is now reluctant to share any details of his symptoms, or experiences, as the doctors and therapist call them. When asked about the voices or shadow sightings, he now gets agitated and rudely says he doesn’t want to talk about it. Of course we all need to know for medication purposes!
Noah claims the meds; Abilify, and Zyprexa have not done anything for him, he feels no differences, and reports no changes because he still has all day every day visual hallucinations and anxiety. He has loudly shared that his Anxiety has to do with People. He reports his anxiety is higher than before the meds. He says it’s very difficult to go to his new job and work with people.
As his observing mother, I see some changes and improvements. I am extremely pleased that he no longer has overpowering voices commanding him to go out and hurt people and commit violent crimes. The safety of the community was my initial main priority for condoning medication therapy for my young son.
I am pleased to see that during the day, Noah is, physically more relaxed, no more nervous leg tapping, profuse sweating, and his appetite has returned to normal. And finally the boy sleeps all night.
With some improvement and some stability, I now know that it is a longer road lies ahead for Noah. His dangerous symptoms have been lassoed but still other bothersome symptoms hold him back from having a normal response in the cruel world that he must survive in.
This concerned started when he started a new job 3 months ago and since his start date, he’s only been able to actually show up inconsistently for a cumulative total of about 4 weeks in the whole 12 weeks! He tells me it’s hard, extremely hard, mentally and physically. Lately he even stopped calling in sick. He just doesn’t go. He tells me that he’s not feeling well and that there is no way he can go to work. I anticipate he’ll get fired from his first job soon. He says he doesn’t care.
I fear lately that Noah is slipping back into a Manic phase because he has been walking around wearing a large wooden cross necklace around his neck. When he starts wearing religious jewelry or rosaries, it is my indicator that he’s back in Manic mode. The one thing in common during his last two crimes was that he was wearing Rosaries around his neck when he disappeared and committed seriously dangerous crimes!
His Doctor increased the Zyprexa to take along with his Abilify, I’m praying and crossing my fingers and toes that this combination acts quickly to bring him back to a safe baseline and will also help give him some relief soon.
Prayers please
House of Mirrors 