This gave me much hope, as after I had read them myself and asked him what he thought, he answered that the notes supported what I and the other doctors had been stating.

He still doesn’t believe he is paranoid… kind of like that line : “Just because you’re paranoid, don’t mean there not after you… “ . He still 100% believes that his experiences are real; that the only way he’ll ever take meds is if we drag him away in a straight jacket.

Regardless the drama, we do have an appointment with a Psychologist for next Thursday…this is step 2 among who knows how many, towards an official diagnosis and hopefully a plan of action.

Tonight, despite the tantrums and blaming and finger pointing past (or yet to come), I feel hopeful.

Today was a good day!

He refuses to hear reason, and this is no shocker as his reason is malfunctioning at the moment. I’ve told myself a billion times to bite my tongue and not to fall into that argument trap, but let’s face it! Anyone who has ever known us understands that to debate and argue and banter is part of who we are. I remember fondly the hours spent arguing over mundane issues, just competing on whose facts, knowledge or even BSing abilities were superior. Lovely times!  

Useless now of course, as the paths of our respective realities have diverged.

He is now convinced that his first Psychologist, seen a while back and for 5 short weeks (whom at the time he claimed was very unsupportive and even uninterested in helping him) was the only professional who actually “listened” to him. I’ve mentioned before how he has an intense need to express his perception of persecution, without question or interruption. The new Psychiatrist did not give off that aura of patient, passive listener; the earlier Psychologist had.

My issue of course is that I felt that that particular person never took his symptoms as seriously as he should have. Having paranoia severe enough to cause you to quit your job and stop you from being able to get a new one is not something that you should  chat about and dissect from every angle and orifice for weeks on end.

Hubby should have been referred to Psychiatric clinic the minute he mentioned the “great conspiracy” and his house being bugged and his voice being broadcast via podcast!!!

I think that’s Abnormal Psychology 101…

But back to Hubby, who feels that this one person “understood” that what he was experiencing is real, and that I will see, contained within these notes of absolution, that nowhere in them does it state that he shows symptoms of psychotic break, episodes or delusions. He is sure that those piles of notes taken during the sessions will vindicate him. I’ve flat out told him I don’t care if they say all words uttered by Hubby are Truth incarnate and his every thought genius, righteous and exact, I don’t believe it, I know it’s not right, I feel it in my core and that he is going to continue along the path to proper diagnosis and treatment, wherever that leads us, PERIOD!

*deep breath*

I feel much better now.

So tomorrow is the day he get’s to go pick up his notes, those that will deliver unto him.. what? Vindication? Proof, evidence, exoneration… “

You see? One Doc in 3 didn’t think I was ill! So there!” 

But using the rational that a GP would NOT refer you for a psychiatric assessment, just for the Hell of it, and that a Psychiatrist at a Psychiatric wing of a hospital would NOT out-and-out say you were having paranoid delusions if this were NOT the case, well that’s just completely outrageous now in his book!

Either way, whatever those notes say, whether they support my point of view or his (if such a thing is possible), I am making that appointment with the hospital Psychologist, and we will go there together and that is where I draw the line. the clock is ticking.

He cannot call the shots for us anymore. From this point on, I will take on that role of cruel dictator, control freak, of pretentious b$#&h , whatever he christens me; all for the “greater good”, for HIS, our, everyones greater good… and in so doing I now play into his paranoia perfectly… that “we” are out to manipulate and coerce him for his own good.

His great conspiracy made concrete and real… delusions solidified by delusions…

I certainly agree that I have moments of denial, but I know that he needs help, wake up every morning with the hope that this day will be the one when I convince him to see the Psychologist, and I am doing my best to get him to understand that. I am in contact with community organizations and have devoted the last months towards pleading, begging, screaming, arguing, and threatening… whatever I could think of to get him to the next step. And we do move forward, though we tend to hit major hurdles on the way.

The process is nowhere near as straight forward as it ought to be  : )

It’s not going very well now, because he does appear to think “rationally” on so many other levels, that he uses that as ammunition.

For example, he asks how someone who is ill could re-build the deck; renovate our basement, and record new music and songs, etc… All this is proof that he is perfectly normal, and all would be absolute paradise in our lives if the “others” would leave him alone. He never brings the “others” up unless prompted. Pointing out that thinking that there are “others” in the first place is what makes him ill is rebuffed.

I guess my question is more about degenerative properties of the illness. Is it possible that he stays at this level of “lucidity” for a long period of time? I realize that it will inevitably get worse and he more and more caught up in his paranoia, but he now claims that things are getting better. That “people are finally leaving him alone”..  

I don’t know which I am hoping for… the first means he may not accept he is ill for months (years?) and delay getting the crucial help that he needs, while the second might mean involuntary hospitalization and having the police come and take him away…

Maybe I am being naïve, but I would love to figure out a way to get him to “see the light” without it being forced upon him… otherwise it’s like we actually are part of a conspiracy to manipulate him, and it really IS for his own good.

~~~~

My 28 yr old husband of 10 years is exhibiting what appears’ to be psychosis, or more specifically paranoid delusions. He feels there is a large conspiracy out there, of which now everyone he knows (including me) is a part of. The only ones not privy to this plan are our 2 kids (4 & 9) He feels we are all trying to manipulate him into doing things or going in a direction with his career that he doesn’t  want to go in. It’s like we’re all trying to get him to do something that we think is for his own good. He feels that we are trying to help him, but that he does not want this help. He is not afraid of “them”, but simply angry at the invasion of his privacy and the perceived affront on his dignity.

He’s escalated from workplace paranoia, to people on the street, in stores and now his own family. He also thinks that people “know” what he says to himself. He thinks that his words, when spoken to himself out loud (we’ve not yet reached the points of thoughts being read), alone in the house or working out in the yard, are being broadcast to this great secretive society via radio and internet podcasts.

It is clear to me that he is have paranoid delusions, and we have been able to visit a GP and a psychiatrist at the local Psychiatric clinic, but he refuses to follow through and complete the assessment. We are left with no “official” diagnosis.

When I spoke with his psychiatrist, she said that he was having a psychotic episode. However, she refused to give me dx, as the assessment depended on receiving the input of a Psychologist in order to be completed. He won’t go. He thinks nothing is wrong with him. He thinks if I would simply stop listening to “those disgusting and misguided people” and our life would be perfect. It would appear that I hold all the answers for him.

My question those of you on the forum with more experience is: is it possible for someone who most probably is Paranoid Schizophrenic, to be loving, active, communicative, alert, and almost always rational in everyday life? True he cannot hold down a job due to massive paranoia he encounters in the workplace, and feels that even interviews for prospective jobs are fixed, and part of the “greater scheme”, but in every single other aspect of his life, he is fine.

I feel that it would be SO easy for me to slip into denial, as long as I don’t ask certain “instigating” questions, he seems perfectly rational.

Can there by mild forms or paranoia, or is it something that will progressively get worse, if left untreated?

Any insight would be greatly appreciated!

But yet I’ve not confronted him today. Kids were here with us (8 & 4) so not the best scenario.

I am tired… so tired lately. Out of steam, though I’m not allowed to ever run out am I? Not yet, not now…

Tomorrow’s another day.

Tomorrow I make it all happen.

I know they won’t last, that they are illusions I’ve created from sheer desperation for life too quickly past, too easily taken for granted and now departed.

My first impulse is to say it all started a year ago. After 9 years, we had split up for a painfully long spam of 8 months, and were just rediscovering each other; corners of self never explored, new talents and interests born of necessity and personal growth… though one would argue personal growth is a necessity. This we had ignored in the past, too busy raising kids so early had, building a home and a family before we had finished growing in our own right.

But here we were together again, and all was roses and sunshine, light and joy.We were sitting one afternoon in a little café and he told me a story about his work. They were out to push him to do bigger and better things. They wanted him to move in a direction he was interested in. He had made it clear to them repeatedly, but he didn’t think they were getting the picture. So far, so good. Nothing amiss with that. Only the next thing he said was that his coworkers were recruiting some of the customers to help them with their plan, that client meetings were being orchestrated to appear as something other than what it was. He said they would purposely set up a scenario just to test his reactions to them…

I have to say that I have read of the fabled “shivers that run down your spine” and though it a great descriptor in literary works, but nothing that could be experienced first hand.  I was mistaken. I was then hit by 2 realizations:

1) Something wicked, this way comes.

2) Shivers can run up and down your spine, and it’s not pleasant.

I wish I had paid more attention to those first visceral instincts. People, take your shivers seriously! But the night wore on, the days turned into weeks, etc, etc.. all was well and happy again, this little glimpse into the dark abyss long gone and forgotten.We moved back in together, kids were happy; we were happy, family happy….

And then the shivers returned. He began work in a new place with new people, who all inevitably turned out to be part of that first “conspiracy”. Wherever he went, there they were. New faces, seemingly normal, but they would all be in on the “bigger plan”.  He left jobs, got new ones and then left those, until finally, he gave up. The interviewers at new places were actors, hired by “Them” to study him and his reactions, as if the whole world was Lab and he the mouse.

So this is where we are. I am off of work for one week. One week in order to pester him to go, to scream and beg and bully and plead… whatever will work. How do you do it?How can you convince someone who believes they are 100% right, that every fiber of their being is positive that something is going on… someone who feels he has proof to that effect in the way people behave around him… how do you convince them that their mind is lying to them, that their senses are misfiring, that seeing is NOT believing?

1. Any of a group of psychotic disorders usually characterized by withdrawal from reality, illogical patterns of thinking, delusions, and hallucinations, and accompanied in varying degrees by other emotional, behavioral, or intellectual disturbances. Schizophrenia is associated with dopamine imbalances in the brain and may have an underlying genetic cause.
2. A situation or condition that results from the coexistence of disparate or antagonistic qualities, identities, or activities: the national schizophrenia that results from carrying out an unpopular war.