June 06, 2004

Is It Real?

My son has the full range of schizophrenic symptoms. He hallucinates, hears voices, has delusions, and is extremely paranoid. When he was at an adult treatment center for adults with SZ he was frequently seen talking to no one. He was home for one weekend and his question to me was how do I tell if it’s real or not. It took he and I close to a year before this problem was successfully remedied.

When he hallucinates he sees people from the mafia. To him they are real and were presently in his life. I asked him to take notice of the peoples clothing, their hair and other little details. It wasn’t too long before he noticed that these people he saw never had on different clothing, they never had longer hair and they never looked any older from year to year. He was then able to identify them as people who were really not there in his life.

Dan still experienced these people in his life and he continues to do so as of this present time. One day he was in a bank and he saw the mafia holding up the bank and held Dan at gunpoint. Once the mafia people left, Dan ran home watching them pursue him and trying to shoot him before he arrived home. At this point Dan required a short stay at a psych ward in order to change his meds and stabilize him.

As terrifying as that bank experience was for him it was the first time he noticed that these mafia people never changed in looks. He made note of how each individual looked. The next time he saw them he ignored their presence. He believed that if he interacted with them that another hospital stay might be necessary. To this day he continues to hallucinate in spite on being on very strong anti psychotic meds. He sees mafia people looking in our living room window from time to time. He is now able to recognize that they are not real, which is a monumental step forward for him.

What worked for him was to find a few people he could trust. When he saw something that appeared odd he would ask these people if there was actually someone there or not. Most of the time there was no one present and it was not long before Dan was able to recognize that no one was really there. This was a huge step forward in my son's recovery and we were very excited that he was able to implement this information and able to deduce what was real and what was not. It is my hope that this may be of help to others who are struggling with these types of issues.

Posted by Kathy on June 6, 2004 01:50 AM