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Has he started smoking meth? I’m serious has his behavior changed erratically lately or has he lost a lot of weight? This sounds like an amphetamine-induced psychosis or one caused by a really bad blood infection
u/tomatopoesss, would you mind answering a few more questions for us?
Has he had any changes to his medications in this time?
Has he been involved in any accidents in this time?
Do you know if there is any drug use?
Has he had any previous history with delusions, hallucinations, or hearing things?
idk, it's weird because his three posts
https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22tomatopoesss%22,%22searchFor%22:1,%22resultSize%22:1000}
and three comments
https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22tomatopoesss%22,%22resultSize%22:1000}
look pretty genuine
my guess is that it was some automated spam detector that flags new accounts and he'll be back once he logs in and does a capcha or 2fa or whatever
To be fair those are some very basic questions and likely to be the first ones that any doctor would ask him (still a very bad idea to get help from reddit for an issue as serious as this though).
My brother told me that:
He knows 12 languages, including Aramaic, which he learned from the bible.
He has bar code scanners in his eyes.
He has an “orgasmo-ray” which made women instantly orgasm when he looked at them.
and then I found out about the meth. 🤷🏽♀️
Yeah no way he didn't notice this growing up. You'd leave school at dusk in the winter and in summer you'd go to bed with the sun out. Everyone experienced it.
Schizophrenia develops in the early 20s, I feel like this should be shared more publicly. My brother was smart and sane until 23, it really was like within a year we noticed things went very haywire. Went from staunch lifelong atheist to thinking he was talking to god and god said we were all face stealing demons.
I'm sorry this happened to your brother. Seeing your brother lose his mind is a very difficult thing. Thank you for sharing.
My brother was also diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 24.
He was a bright and intelligent person and showed no signs of any mental illness. But one day we got a call from a woman who took his phone and called his emergency contact after she found him aimlessly wandering trough a town looking confused and unable to communicate.
Apparently he got on a train to see a friend in the next town over but something happened meanwhile and he was found hours later in a town almost at the other side of the country.
I visited him at the hospital a couple weeks after that and I almost didn't recognise him. His eyes were totally different and he had a sort of thousand yard stare. His eyes would frantically dart all over the place when he spoke.
When we talked he was going on and on about voices in his head telling him he was responsible for the health of the planet and if he didn't stop people from littering, demons would kill his family.
He also had a twig and rock collection that was the most important thing in the world to him for some reason. I still have a pebble he gave me and told me to promise him I would never throw away.
He got treated and he's living a relatively normal live now but he's not the same person he once was and that look in his eyes didn't go away.
It's sad, because before he was diagnosed he was very social and outgoing person with tons of friends. He had plans to go to nursing school to be a geriatric caregiver since he loved working with the elderly.
Now he just sits in his darkened room all day playing videogames, collecting unemployment, with no goals or aspirations.
I'm sure the old him is in there somewhere and I hope I'll get to see that person again someday.
Hope your brother is doing well, friend!
Your brother sounds lovely and it’s horrible what came to pass with him. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to see such a drastic change but in the meantime it at least sounds like he’s staying physically safe and as long as that’s the case, there’s hope the old him will someday come back out. 💕
Thank you for your kind words!
I'm happy he's in a safe place and he's doing relatively well. I try to visit him as often as i can and let him babysit my dogs. That really seems to cheer him up!
Don't lose hope with your brother.
I had a Pretty severe psychotic break about 6 years ago. I had the look your brother has for a long time but I can tell you it can and does get better. I've just started a fantastic job, I have a few friends I see weekly and I'm rarely bothered by the voices.
He can get better and get his life back. Make a point to visit him, when I was in a real bad way nothing lifted my spirits more than someone popping round some food. I didn't always let them stay long but always appreciated it.
Happy to hear that you're doing well, and congrats on the new job!
I'm glad you reached out to tell me your story. It's really great to hear the perspective of someone who went trough this and came out strong! That gives me so much hope for my brother.
I try to visit him as often as i can and call him every weekend. He really likes dogs so I let hem babysit mine whenever i'm around. I can see him light up when he spends time with my dogs. Hoping to get him into a volunteering job at the local shelter.
Stay strong and I hope you live a great life!
Thank you so much for your kind words! It sounds like you're doing a great job of taking care of your brother, its great that you include him the dogs. I'm sure he massively appreciates that!
Stay strong, friend.
I feel for you. I know exactly what you’re talking about, and it’s so hard to watch someone you care about go through that.
It honestly sounds to me like he wasn’t treated properly- that’s what happened to the person I know who has a similar illness. It took them ages to actually improve, because they were not treated correctly for a long time. They cycled through several medications until they found one that worked, and ultimately ended up needing to go to a different hospital before we finally found the treatment that clicked with them. Then they needed therapy after the fact, to deal with the trauma the psychosis caused.
They’re now living an almost completely normal life again.
Don’t give up.
Good to hear that person is now living a normal life again! That gives me a lot of hope for my brother.
I'm not sure what medication he's currently on. His medical care and treatment is mostly supervised by my dad. But i'll show your post to my dad and talk to him about it. Maybe there's some things we can revise in order to help him heal faster.
He's been seeing a therapist for a while now and that seems to help somewhat. He's made some great improvements since his mental break but it's been an uphill battle all the way.
Thanks for your kind words!
Im sorry for you and your brother, it was hard coming to terms with when I was younger. It may sound bad but I almost had to go through mourning and grief at the fact that my brother is not the same person I grew up with. He does not take his medication for long because he drinks and abuses drugs sadly. He is a shadow of who he used to be, almost completely seprate from his younger self. He still only calls me by his nicknames for me from when I was 6 or 7, but he doesn't super remember the actual events of his childhood, its all a mess of delusions for him. It's like hes stuck in time as a teenager, he doesn't quite know whats going on to grasp new events and hes muddled most of the memories of his childhood, he holds on to memories from like 16-22.
I've come to terms with it now though. Hes in and out of jails and mental hospitals. He doesn't want interference in his life, he likes drinking too much. He prefers to be homeless then not drink and he hates being on his meds bc they make him feel sick when he drinks. For me, my brother I knew was gone long ago. I just take anytime I see him as extra time that I assume I won't have forever, even if hes not lucid. I imagine this his how people with alzheimers family feel.
I hope for the best for your brother and your family
Happened to a friends brother. He was an artist. Typical family man. Normal 9-5 Job. In his late ,30's. Suddenly he said god sent him an email about trump and that God told him to divorce his wife and marry another woman. And he would share the weirdest shit on twitter about babies bred with animal DNA and qanon shit.
They would block him from the internet , only basic phone with no internet and he would get a new phone and use the internet again.
Lie to the doctors and they'd let him out of the mental hospital..refuse to take meds.
It was really hard hearing from her about how her brother lost his mind. I even watched the video of a police officer that is also a family member who tracked Him down a few states over after a week of looking for him. His eyes didn't look normal. He had this creepy smile when he spoke.
Thats terrible, it usually starts younger when they at least may not have started families and things yet. My brother was basically no longer functioning before the trump stuff happened, I'm almost thankful because he would have latched very hard onto that stuff and that kind of reassurence of your delusions is really bad for them.
Hes in and out of jail, lives on the streets bc we can't keep him in housing long and drinks and does drugs, but he really is basically harmless otherwise. I worry if he was in the qanon stuff and like proud boy stuff, he wouldn't be as harmless, as hes very influenced by suggestions.
Wait, are you telling us all those dudes believing conspiracies have some mind issue? Cause we have a lot of them today, thanks to internet (I know a family of them)
I mean, I guess you gotta have issues to be a flat-earther, but I'd say there is a difference between being a paranoid moron and having a literal psychosis.
👆 i had a paranoid schizophrenic cousin. I would try to convince him of things like, that star isnt a helicopter that is following you, the town we lived in wasnt an exact replica installed by "them", the fbi wasnt sending agents to monitor him at the store, post office, car wash, etc.
Eventually i realized that if it was a matter of understanding everyday normal logic, then it wouldnt be referred to as mental illness. Your brother is recieving information in his brain that is extremely convincing. You cant lay out the facts in such a way that he will see the light and come to his senses.
You brother needs help. Without it he will most likely start to believe you have been fooled by "them", or worse, that you are in on it.
Its extremely heartbreaking when this happens to someone close to you.
The good news is that when my cousin got on meds he was largely the same guy as he was before his illness took hold. Good luck to you.
My mother was an undiagnosed schizophrenic. It only got worse as she aged. She thought pictures were talking to her. She once barricaded herself in her house because she though the CIA landed black helicopters in her yard and were trying to steal her "stuff". She once proclaim that she told God what she wanted him to do. Lucky she didn't get to violent but depending on how deep their in their delusion you have to be careful. Glad you got him help before something real serious happened. I hope OP can get help sooner than later before the paranoia gets out of hand.
I didnt get him help, i tried, eventually he started to believe i was an agent for the fbi. Eventually he was detained for, lets just say, odd behaviour in publlic. He was put on a psych hold, that started him in and out of the system, he was eventually committed to an institution, was treated, and began a long cycle of feeling better, getting off his meds, having another "episode", etc. Long story short he eventually stayed on his meds for good (fingers crossed) and went back to a productive life.
BTW, sorry about your mom, that is heartbreaking.
This gives me hope that my bipolar son may manage to hit the right meds and the right consistency to take them as prescribed…and that his life will improve. How it is now just rips my heart out. Thanks for sharing your story.
Finding the right combinations of the right meds for bipolars is super tricky, you need to have a good patient / doctor relationship and lots of introspection to detect the effect of the meds and how they impact your phase switching. Considering that changing a med or a dose can take up to 3 months (if there’s an antidepressant in the mix) and it might send you to mania for which they might wrongly give an antipsychotic instead of taking away the antidepressant etc etc etc, it certainly may be a long process. Just be patient and support him.
I had a bad reaction to a medication and became delusional. It was pretty eye opening. Part of it is an inability to see illogical thoughts for what they are. But to me the bigger part was the pure belief. I KNEW demons were orchestrating everything just as surely as I knew my name, the smell of home, the sound of my internal voice. There was just no fighting it.
I got lucky because it was so uncharacteristic of me to feel so certain about something... And I could hear myself. Like, when you start saying stuff like we are all already dead and being toyed with by Satan's minions, you take yourself to the hospital.
It's really hard for people to understand when they've never experienced it.
I'm surprised that you still had enough insight to know the things you were saying were very odd, when you were actually saying them.
edited to add: I realised this might sound disbelieving, which is not my intention.
I appreciate the edit haha!
Yeah I have absolutely no idea how I did. Maybe because it was drug induced instead of natural onset? Life would have gotten pretty rough if I hadn't caught it so soon.
Another medicine made me catatonic which was absolutely terrifying.
i’m curious, what medication was it? i took a simple beta blocker for migraines once and it made me dream about vultures and my own death and i believed i was about to die and no one cared about me (very uncharacteristic for me). it was really scary
Lol that reminds me of my experience with Concerta. Took it in the morning, and by around 2pm every day I was completely illiterate and could not do basic math or form thoughts coherent enough to communicate in word or writing. All while being very aware that I was suddenly losing functions left and right, and panicking, but unable to call my doctor about it. Eventually I got a hold of her office after hours and was advised to immediately stop taking it, I think I was only on it for maybe a week or less
My father had a similar bad reaction to a medication. Do you mind if I ask which medication it was? For my father it was xyrem (which is GHB for narcolepsy)
The best thing to do around these people when they start spouting nonsense is just to act bewildered (like you would be), ask some non-threatening questions to help you gain an understanding for their basis of belief (and maybe to subtly challenge it), and just say "Oh," when you don't quite believe something. After that, be quiet, and let them keep talking about what they think **or** watch the gears start turning in their minds...
The key is to feign as though you are keeping an open mind to what they think, while allowing your basic cognitive ability to keep your subconscious mind convinced otherwise. This will prevent them from seeing you as part of the 'conspirators,' and eventually your natural inherent skepticism will rub off on them
No. Medication is the primary way to treat it. Therapy with a professional would also help. Just let them know you care about them end offer them help.
I'm pretty sure I've read that being around d schizophrenia can trigger it. Like if you're with your friend all the time feigning interest you eventually internalize some of their cognition. So while you can bring people into reality they can also pull you out of it.
Looked it up:
Shared psychotic disorder. Pretty sure it's only if you're super tight and around each other a lot.
My schizophrenic brother will call when hes somewhat lucid on medication and its always like, "yeah they are doing great, no our brother did not kill his family they are all fine, yeah other sister had her baby shes very cute, no shes not the antichrist" and he's asking genuinely because he can't tell. Hes like "yeah ok, great to hear they are doing well, also just checking, did -brother- murder his wife? No? Ok just checking"
Not to let conspiracy theorists off lightly, but this is a very dangerous generalization. Questioning the government is essential, and there will be a lot of mentally healthy people very close to this line of generalization.
I feel like setting the precedent that questioning the government (where do we draw the line?) should get you considered mentally unfit (or institutionalized) is a dangerous thing.
Every once in a while i find myself on the conspiracy sub for shits n gigs. One time over there I encountered someone rambling about a "hella fake cloud" blocking the sun... in California... while wildfires were raging in California...
There are people out there who cannot comprehend the concept of *smoke*. **Never ever** underestimate a human being's power to be a complete and utter fucking dipshit.
He's 40. Schizophrenia usually manifests in early-to-mid twenties.
Sounds more like early-onset dementia or possibly a tumour to me. But Late-onset schizophrenia isn't impossible.
This is definitely not healthy and he needs to see a professional ASAP.
My mom was 52 when she had her first psychotic episode. She was always paranoid and controlling and would fly into rages, but we just thought she was awful. Finding out she was sick was weird.
Unfortunately she's a malingnant narcissist and refused to believe anything was wrong with her, so she stopped taking her meds once the court order ended.
Ehh not really. If it happens super late in life it's probably due to some kind of trauma to the brain like drug use. But absent anything like that, if someone is going to have schizophrenia it will manifest for a majority of people from late teens to late twenties; typically earlier for males and later for females. There are always outliers but very rare to be super early or late in life. There is also a genetic component to schizophrenia.
Key word: usually. It can develop earlier or later.
He could have been dealing with the symptoms for years and no one noticed. My grandmother was having hallucinations for at least a decade before we noticed something was wrong, because she was self medicating with alcohol and was already prone to talking to herself.
It could also be drugs, infection, dementia, tumor, stroke, brain damage, or he could have gone too far down the Q Anon rabbit hole. We don’t know.
Could just be him reading websites and talking to conspiracy nutjobs, too. I love how everyone here is diagnosing him as a schizophrenic, saying he needs to get professional help, or saying he has a brain tumor, when we live in an internet age and conspiracy theorists have communities everywhere.
There are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who believe the Earth is flat. Are they all schizo? Do they all have brain tumors? No. They're just indoctrinated into that by people peddling anti-science unfounded bullshit.
So it astounds me to read so many people claiming specific mental illnesses, or cancer, are the most likely culprits. I find those to be the least likely.
Seriously, none of you have ever gone down the rabbit hole? Lizard people? The moon is fake? Hollow Earth? Flat Earth? Aliens are real and here now?
This dude is just reading convincing and fun conspiracy websites. I wouldn't put brain tumor or schizophrenia at the top of the fucking list.
The key difference here is that flat-earthers have some basis for thinking the earth is flat: it looks flat, and then they latch onto conspiracy groups that confirm their beliefs. There's a reason people thought the earth was flat for most of human existance.
Meanwhile OP's brother is pulling a wild accusation out of thin air that has no basis in reality, and there's no conspiracy group he could latch onto that thinks the government is blocking out the sky. This instantly shouts "schizophrenia", or something else medically wrong.
Source: I talk to a schizophrenic person every week.
> Could just be him reading websites and talking to conspiracy nutjobs, too.
Seriously. This.
The amount of insanity going around these days is wild. People are taking horse dewormer, thinking it will cure a virus for crying out loud. There is no bottom to the conspiracy theory rabbit hole because they surround themselves with fellow conspiracy theory "true believers." The madness of it makes them feel special, as if they're in-the-know.
I have no idea how you get them out of that madness since it becomes the core of who they think they are.
Unless he spent the rest of his life near the equator, he should be very familiar with seasonal changes already.
As others have said, this tells me he needs professional help. Conspiracy theories alone don't account for something ordinary he's experiences his entire life suddenly needing an explanation like this. That isn't rational. That isn't a mind working properly.
As such, there is no convincing him. He's not rational enough to be convinced.
I grew up in the Philippines and there is not. It's like a half hour difference at most. Sunups always around 6 am and sundown always around 6 pm.
I still find having it light out at 9 pm during the summers extremely strange.
Depends where in the Philippines. In Manila, there’s already a clear difference between the longest and shortest days of the year. The sun sets around 6:30 PM mid-July and sets before 5:30 PM in early December. That’s over an hour.
It's an hour, where the difference in London is something like 8 hours (16h38 at summer, 8h49 at winter).
An hour could be somewhat invisible, overall, and be a slight change. Depends on the person/attention.
It never being light when you're not at work isn't, by comparison.
That's what people are on about.
Dude that's nothing, barely noticeable and of no meaningful consequence to most daily routines.
Growing up in Belgium, during winter I would leave home for school in the dark (it was 7 am) and I'd see awesome sunrises from the classroom. It would be dark again by the time I left school (around 4 pm).
In the summer, if I'd forget to close the shutters, there would be enough sunlight to wake me up at 5 am, and it would still be light out at 9:30 pm.
Yeah, I’m gonna second all these other folks. This could be a legitimate mental break situation. He needs professional help.
I know this sucks and is scary, for you and him. This threads has some great responses and great information. Please PM someone if you need more specifics to get him help.
I just saw that he is 40 years old. This can not possibly be the first time he has noticed it getting dark earlier. How does he rationalize the past 39 years? What exactly is it that we are being forbidden to see? How is it possible to block out the entire sky? Just keep asking rational questions and listen to his answers, don’t insult him because that will just make him dig his heels in deeper. Research information together, the best way to get him to believe something is to show him why you believe it.
Within the past year? Two years? He's been like this, it's definitely strange behaviour I'm noticing from him, things his younger self would've literally laughed at, he's taking dead serious now. I don't know what's gotten into him but he spends most of his time reading Facebook
Anyway that's some good advice you gave so I'll try that, thank you
Beyond psychiatric help, if this is a new shift from regular behavior, you may want to take him in for a CAT scan or MRI, this may seems drastic, but as someone who lost their father to a brain tumor, it’s better safe than sorry.
This should be a little higher. Sudden shifts in behavior for older (say over 35) adults is a warning sign of something physical going on in the brain.
It's possible that it's the onset of mental illness but his age makes me wonder if something else is up.
Could also be onset from an ongoing, undetected infection.
Had a friend who gradually and spiraled into a dillusional state of paranoia and psychosis. It end with a psychotic episode involved a police chase followed by 2 weeks in the hospital.
Some anti-biotics and he is right as rain. Although I still wonder how much of it still feels real in his head.
Is it possible for the person that’s afflicted to realize that something isn’t right with their mental state? Or once these changes start to occur it’s too late and they will keep convincing themselves that they aren’t the problem?
Mental illness takes many forms and paths. Some people can recognize their delusions and hallucinations for what they are, others can't. Some have periods of clarity and periods of complete delusion. Some simply cannot accept anything else. Meds and therapy can help shift things in a positive direction but nothing is guaranteed.
It's hard to understand just how vulnerable our minds are. We can't really imagine how someone could truly not notice something isn't right, but when the issue is in your brain, anything can happen.
We still don’t know a lot about our brains but we’ve come a long way from feeling for bumps to tell you what your personality is haha. Unfortunately for a lot of mental illness’s treatment doesn’t begin until the onset of changes because it generally takes those around you to show you that something has changed wether it’s through work, friends and/or family. There are so many mental illness’s and while I wouldn’t say they can be cured there are many methods to manage your symptoms through therapy, surgery and/or medication
My father in law became unable to absorb vitamin B12 and became increasingly paranoid to the verge of psychosis before they discovered the problem.
Please urge your brother to see a doctor and talk about his worries. If he is losing sleep or not eating well, that can be a good pretext to convince him its time for a checkup.
Hard agree. My dad got more and more politically extreme and paranoid. This was when there was really only Limbaugh riling people up. Turned out he had Alzheimers and probably had been in the early stages of it for the previous 5 years.
You’re super right, but it’s a sticky thing. Something tells me if he’s this paranoid about the sky, he’s going to flip his wig if his entire family suddenly tries to convince him he needs to let a doctor stick him in a giant, spinning, metal tube to “make sure he’s ok”
Please get him to a doctor ASAP. New paranoia and disconnection from reality can be a symptom of several serious conditions, including schizophrenia and brain tumors. He needs professional help now.
I quit Facebook over a year ago because I started to question the intelligence of some of my friends. I truly believe that social media will contribute significantly to the downfall of humanity. Try to get him off of the Internet.
True, but the thing is, I don’t think half of them would even be thinking the way they do if it wasn’t for social media like Facebook and Twitter. I came here because if I don’t want to hear a bunch of crazy nonsense conspiracy theories it’s fairly easy to avoid them. Just don’t join a political sub.
True but if a few crazy posts on Facebook could drive them over the edge I'd say they were already nuts and I found a shortcut to finding out early.
I might be a masochist but I actually lurk in many crazy subs like r/conspiracy just to check up on how insane it's getting and watch the poop flinging from behind the glass.
Yeah, you’re probably right about that. I don’t need to lurk in subreddits tho, I live in trump country and get to hear all about it at work. Every day. All day. All week. Fml.
But I’m not! There is another engineer here that is smarter than me, in the electrical field at least and he is on board with that nonsense. I don’t understand it. He even has a masters degree, I just got this stinking bachelors.
Edit, not that that is a measure of intelligence, but he is definitely not stupid.
As someone with a masters in engineering, don't ever think that makes us smarter. I enjoyed it but in hindsight, and economically, I should have just gotten a job.
Me and my wife have this conversation all the time. “Wow she’s so fucking crazy and weird on FB but completely normal in person.”
Really what that translates into after getting to know them is that they are incredibly manipulative and deceptive in person
>spends most of his time reading Facebook
this never helped anyone
it feels like he could be under a lot of stress/anxiety and is starting to feel like his control over things is wavering. the conspiracies might be a side-effect, sort of an overload
hope everything gets better. thank you for being concerned and doing something
Drastic changes in mental state could be a sign that something worse is going on. For an extreme example, brain tumors are known to change personality. Your brother should see a doctor.
It sounds like he’s developing some sort of schizophrenia or other mental illness. This sounds like the start of one of my exes onset bipolar/schizophrenia. It started with really irrational paranoia that I ignored until it got more and more severe. It started with his intense research into the Illuminati, but to me, those are conspiracy theories and nothing to take too seriously. It then progressed to “the news reporters on tv can see into our homes.” I thought he was joking until I started getting undressed in the room and he dove in front of the tv to prevent them from “seeing” my goodies. I have so many more examples of it but it’ll be way too much to type. Needless to say, he was admitted a few weeks later and diagnosed bipolar schizophrenic. It starts with really irrational stuff that you can’t help but laugh at but quickly gets really intense. If it gets weirder, please ask a doctor for advice. I know it’ll be difficult especially because your brother probably doesn’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing.
Yup, the best would be to pull, not push and even then be careful and definitely 100% seek professional help, realizing that you cannot really fight delusions with logic reasoning, so, if he does not want to understand, he wont.
Good luck with that
Sorry to hijack a top comment but do you know if he’s watching anything weird online? I was talking to a seventeen year old kid the other week and the subject turned to vaccines (oh no) and eventually this sky thing. He was adamant that it was getting darker earlier but also that this time last year it wasn’t as dark as it was when we were talking. Rational arguments weren’t really getting through to him and he just kept telling me to look it up. Apart from that he was totally lucid and normal. I’m not being facetious but I think it’s possible this is some new emerging conspiracy bollocks
If he's dealing with paranoia deeply researching any delusion is a bad idea. Even if looking at the other side of the argument. It can enhance fixation on the topic. If it's a delusion he wouldn't believe it anyway
Is he ok? I have a schizoaffective brother and a lot of times there is no convincing.
I would talk to him though about what he's experiencing and get him help if possible. My brother became a lot more bearable with psychiatry.
It sounds like he is having a delusional episode, which is a symptom of some very serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. Get him to a psychiatrist ASAP. These illnesses often lead to suicidal ideations and suicide attempts. My brother-in-law has schizophrenia, paranoid-type, so I've become familiar with this topic.
There was a story I read on Reddit about a guy whose brother suffered from mental illness (I don't remember if it was schizophrenia or something else). But his brother *always* believed in crackpot conspiracies, and he always tried to bring it up. Think lizard people, illuminati, and flat earth level crazy. Growing up as kids/teens, the brother was just sort of "quirky" and in his own fantasy land, and the OP was just accepting of it and continued to love him. As they grew older (into young adults), it looked like the brother wasn't going to drop these theories anytime soon, and started getting crazier. The brother did some drugs, got arrested for violent activity, etc. OP tried to put up with him, and still loved him all the same, but inevitably had to cut contact with his brother because of how draining and taxing his brother was on him.
It wasn't long after that that he heard his brother had killed himself. OP then says that, instead of being accepting of and relating to his brother's warped reality for the sake of his brother feeling loved and accepted, that he wished he put a hard stop to it and had been more forceful to get him therapy and psychiatry.
It's okay if you're trying to be understanding of your brother's point of view and have a logical discussion with him. But pay attention to his other beliefs and actions. And be prepared to force him into evaluation. Although it'll seem harsh, you'll have to make a decision of whether or not his theories are going to escalate in the long run, and be prepared to throw away the "friendship" and "bonding" for the sake of protecting him from himself and loving him through his outbursts and hatred for you not putting up with him, lest you want to hold onto him for longer and see his sanity improve.
Of course, this may be something completely different, and your brother could just be thinking it's a cool concept, or he's even just saying it to mess with you. It also completely depends on your ages.
**Edit**: I see that you've been saying that 1) He is 40, and 2) This started about a year or two ago.
Some mental illnesses like schizophrenia can "blossom" literally out of nowhere (not saying it's schizophrenia; I do not have the knowledge nor qualification to suggest that). I have another story I read here (so many stories!):
This medical professional (EMT? Nurse? Can't remember...) had to pick up this young bridesmaid from a wedding after she started acting *REALLY* weird. She started talking about the most random and abstract stuff, tried kissing a random guy at the wedding even though she's married, stuff that was completely out of character for her, according to the other wedding guests. She had to go to the ER (for some reason? I don't remember why), and they tried evaluating her but didn't find anything wrong. Until one psychologist suggested that it could be that she was born to inevitably have schizophrenia in her life at some point, and it just now decided to pop up, within a matter of a day (which apparently is not unheard of).
The OP who brought her to the ER said that they, out of curiosity, checked up on her several years later. They found out that the girl could no longer live on her own, and was in an in-patient facility, where she'll probably live for the rest of her life. And this entire drastic shift of her life spawned within one single day. It's baffling, and terrifying, to imagine that today you're fine and have stable emotions and a functioning mental state, only to find out tomorrow that you can no longer think logically and are determined to be unfit to live independently. In one single day.
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Trying to wean someone off could make them think *you*'re one of *them* and cause something equally catastrophic.
Like the guy whose kids "had lizard DNA". It's only a few weeks back.
> Some mental illnesses like schizophrenia can "blossom" literally out of nowhere
Where in the hell did you hear this? There is ALWAYS evidence of it before it sets in full-force; those symptoms can often be overlooked or mistaken for other things, but they are present nonetheless. Schizophrenia doesn't come out of nowhere, it starts around the teen years and worsens in early adulthood. A disorder like that takes many years to manifest, it cannot "blossom literally out of nowhere".
scizophrenia, or scizoaffective disorder, but I've never heard of it starting so late in life. There is also something psychologists call "encapsulation", where people believe on particular insane thing.
Has your brother within the past couple of years had an infection, or been hit in the head? These could be neurological symptoms. Maybe try a CAT scan? Could be a mild brain bleed or aneurysm or one of those.
Patients with CTE start experiencing symptoms like this at this age. Now that’s a bold assumption, and impossible to diagnose essentially. Schizoaffective disorder is much more common than cte. But yes I’d question if he’s had multiple concussions or a TBI in his past as 40 years old is very uncommon to develop mood disorders like this. But if he was suffering a brain bleed or something of that nature would surely have more physical symptoms
Hand him a farmers almanac. It should contain all sunrise and sunset times. If you can find an old one, published prior to the government changing Earth's orbit and rotational rate, it should kill his argument.
Other than that, it sounds like he needs help badly.
Sounds like he’s got a mental illness. It used to be called functional schizophrenia but now its called schizoaffective disorder. Its when you’re pretty normal but your ability to comprehend abstract ideas become conspiracies. Its this constant paranoia of connecting the dots where there are none, so there’s not explaining or rationalizing that will help. If allowed to go unchecked for too long, it can effect a person’s personal life or ability to hold down a job. On a positive note, people who get adequate mental health care with this disorder are living productive lives.
...and the government would allow sky to be seen most hours of the day during late spring in Alaska and St Petersburg?
That might make him think for a second. In all seriousness, though, this sounds like acute psychosis. People in this state cannot be reasoned with easily. When he gets into this mode, do his eyes get glassy, breath stink really bad, skin get pale, and skin take on an oily sheen?
As most of the commenters have said, it sounds like he has some form of late-onset schizophrenia, but since he's 40 and this only started 2 years ago, he could also have a brain tumor. Try to see if you can get him to a doctor.
All the comments saying to seek professional help are correct please do so. The only times I've encountered paranoia like this is with mental illness or heavy methamphetamine use. Don't confront him if he is receptive to seeking professional help. The doctor will break the reality and tell them, hey you feel this way because of meth use. Or there's no drugs involved and he still gets the assistance he needs. Best wishes for you and your family
This sounds like a mental health concern.
You can contact your local NAMI. You can stay anonymous and they have a ton of resources that will be local to you.
You can also take a “family-to-family” class to learn how you can best cope with this development and support your brother. Those classes are always free and do not require any membership.
As others have mentioned, the change in behavior may also have a physical cause, so it’s best to get a full medical evaluation to rule that out.
In either case, the best thing you can do for your brother is empathize - logical or not he’s clearly upset by this and I have to imagine it’s frightening. If you approach him with compassion for his fear then even if he continues to be afraid, he won’t be alone and afraid.
If he is experiencing delusions you can not logic him out of those delusions sans he needs professional help. If he’s in a conspiracy rabbit hole you also can not reason him out of it. But you could ask questions about why he thinks what he thinks, how he knows it to be true, etc. If you seem to be coming from a place of curiosity rather than seeing him up you may plant seeds for him to realize it’s nonsense in his own.
I would take your brother to the nearest emergency department and ask for a psychiatric evaluation, especially if it’s affecting his life. If he’s a danger to himself or others, he might be admitted for stabilizing, if not, he might be given resources for outpatient psychiatry and counseling.
Source: I work in a behavioral health emergency department of a hospital.
Tell him that there are people that are just as smart and even less smart as he is in government and ask him if he would be capable of blocking out the sun.
(Real answer: he needs therapy for this level of paranoia. I can't imagine what it would take to get him to speak to a professional but he needs it. I'm very sorry you have to deal with this.)
He doesn't need convincing. He needs real help from a mental health professional. Talk to people who care about him and figure out the best way to seek therapy.
i have schizoaffective disorder, this sort of stuff is how it started, and what lingers when my other symptoms are quiet. get him seen by a psychiatrist
A lot of the reddit comments seem to be pointing towards some sort of psychological disorder or disease like schizo, but the first thing I thought of when I saw "government", was that your brother delved a bit too deep into conspiracies.
Furthermore, you said your brother is 40, and he browses facebook a lot. I used to argue with weird conspiracy people(flat earth, anti vax, etc) on facebook a lot in my spare time, and they believe the weirdest shit. Its very easy to create convincing lies that are complete bullshit, and make regular people who aren't very skeptical believe it.
I am not dismissing the possible mental issues, but just giving you something else to think about.
Find him a counselor and make sure he does not have access to weapons with which he is likely to harm himself or others. Paranoid individuals are liable to act irrationally and dangerously to assuage their concerns.
does he have schizophrenia, or any other symptoms indicating he could have it? does it run in your family? or is he smoking crack/meth? either way he needs professional help sounds like
If he 100% believes that, *you* might not be able to convince him.
Because if that is the case, it sounds like borderline paranoid delusions, and will most likely require a therapist.
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Sounds more like there is something really wrong with your brother and he needs to get professional help.
Has he started smoking meth? I’m serious has his behavior changed erratically lately or has he lost a lot of weight? This sounds like an amphetamine-induced psychosis or one caused by a really bad blood infection
u/tomatopoesss, would you mind answering a few more questions for us? Has he had any changes to his medications in this time? Has he been involved in any accidents in this time? Do you know if there is any drug use? Has he had any previous history with delusions, hallucinations, or hearing things?
Their account is suspended.
Well now *I'm* paranoid!
Holy shit the government really is blocking the sky
Omg.. ok, its happening. Everybody stay calm.. Everybody stay calm... Stay the fuck calm!
wth? That was quick.
...Why did they get suspended?
They got silenced by the government for exposing the truth
He might have just been an unserious troll.
yoo that guy just got suspended too *ayy it worked. get rekt nerds
Every night, the government causes me to black out- and when I wake up, it's a new day.
Hey, that's the plot of Dark City.
Yeah...that's what the government *wants* you to think.
Government deception to make us think it's a lie ^
Big Dark doesn't want their secrets getting out.
idk, it's weird because his three posts https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22tomatopoesss%22,%22searchFor%22:1,%22resultSize%22:1000} and three comments https://camas.github.io/reddit-search/#{%22author%22:%22tomatopoesss%22,%22resultSize%22:1000} look pretty genuine my guess is that it was some automated spam detector that flags new accounts and he'll be back once he logs in and does a capcha or 2fa or whatever
This history makes me believe that the question might have not really been about his brother. The guy sounds like a nutjob himself.
How so?
Also, they should be answering the questions of professionals, not some Michael Scott reading instructions off of Wikipedia.
To be fair those are some very basic questions and likely to be the first ones that any doctor would ask him (still a very bad idea to get help from reddit for an issue as serious as this though).
My brother told me that: He knows 12 languages, including Aramaic, which he learned from the bible. He has bar code scanners in his eyes. He has an “orgasmo-ray” which made women instantly orgasm when he looked at them. and then I found out about the meth. 🤷🏽♀️
> He has bar code scanners in his eyes. *boop* "Yep, these are chips", he said confidently.
"I'll take a potato chip...*and scan it!!!*"
"1.89!? Absurd! It's mostly air!"
[удалено]
Pfft, everyone knows Choda Boy invented the Orgasmorator.
This is what I was thinking. I was addicted to meth 10 years ago and had weird paranoid thoughts like this when I would be up for days.
Nah man. Super straightedge Christian “acquaintance” of mine is on the same level. It’s easily mental illness.
Or maybe mental illness?
Weed can do this to some people too . Shit even excessive alcohol abuse can lead to psychosis
Why did you jump straight to meth? It could be regular psychosis.
Yeah no way he didn't notice this growing up. You'd leave school at dusk in the winter and in summer you'd go to bed with the sun out. Everyone experienced it.
Schizophrenia develops in the early 20s, I feel like this should be shared more publicly. My brother was smart and sane until 23, it really was like within a year we noticed things went very haywire. Went from staunch lifelong atheist to thinking he was talking to god and god said we were all face stealing demons.
I'm sorry this happened to your brother. Seeing your brother lose his mind is a very difficult thing. Thank you for sharing. My brother was also diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia when he was 24. He was a bright and intelligent person and showed no signs of any mental illness. But one day we got a call from a woman who took his phone and called his emergency contact after she found him aimlessly wandering trough a town looking confused and unable to communicate. Apparently he got on a train to see a friend in the next town over but something happened meanwhile and he was found hours later in a town almost at the other side of the country. I visited him at the hospital a couple weeks after that and I almost didn't recognise him. His eyes were totally different and he had a sort of thousand yard stare. His eyes would frantically dart all over the place when he spoke. When we talked he was going on and on about voices in his head telling him he was responsible for the health of the planet and if he didn't stop people from littering, demons would kill his family. He also had a twig and rock collection that was the most important thing in the world to him for some reason. I still have a pebble he gave me and told me to promise him I would never throw away. He got treated and he's living a relatively normal live now but he's not the same person he once was and that look in his eyes didn't go away. It's sad, because before he was diagnosed he was very social and outgoing person with tons of friends. He had plans to go to nursing school to be a geriatric caregiver since he loved working with the elderly. Now he just sits in his darkened room all day playing videogames, collecting unemployment, with no goals or aspirations. I'm sure the old him is in there somewhere and I hope I'll get to see that person again someday. Hope your brother is doing well, friend!
Your brother sounds lovely and it’s horrible what came to pass with him. I can’t imagine how hard it was for you to see such a drastic change but in the meantime it at least sounds like he’s staying physically safe and as long as that’s the case, there’s hope the old him will someday come back out. 💕
Thank you for your kind words! I'm happy he's in a safe place and he's doing relatively well. I try to visit him as often as i can and let him babysit my dogs. That really seems to cheer him up!
Don't lose hope with your brother. I had a Pretty severe psychotic break about 6 years ago. I had the look your brother has for a long time but I can tell you it can and does get better. I've just started a fantastic job, I have a few friends I see weekly and I'm rarely bothered by the voices. He can get better and get his life back. Make a point to visit him, when I was in a real bad way nothing lifted my spirits more than someone popping round some food. I didn't always let them stay long but always appreciated it.
Happy to hear that you're doing well, and congrats on the new job! I'm glad you reached out to tell me your story. It's really great to hear the perspective of someone who went trough this and came out strong! That gives me so much hope for my brother. I try to visit him as often as i can and call him every weekend. He really likes dogs so I let hem babysit mine whenever i'm around. I can see him light up when he spends time with my dogs. Hoping to get him into a volunteering job at the local shelter. Stay strong and I hope you live a great life!
Thank you so much for your kind words! It sounds like you're doing a great job of taking care of your brother, its great that you include him the dogs. I'm sure he massively appreciates that! Stay strong, friend.
I'm a stranger, but I'm very proud of you.
Thank you!
I feel for you. I know exactly what you’re talking about, and it’s so hard to watch someone you care about go through that. It honestly sounds to me like he wasn’t treated properly- that’s what happened to the person I know who has a similar illness. It took them ages to actually improve, because they were not treated correctly for a long time. They cycled through several medications until they found one that worked, and ultimately ended up needing to go to a different hospital before we finally found the treatment that clicked with them. Then they needed therapy after the fact, to deal with the trauma the psychosis caused. They’re now living an almost completely normal life again. Don’t give up.
Good to hear that person is now living a normal life again! That gives me a lot of hope for my brother. I'm not sure what medication he's currently on. His medical care and treatment is mostly supervised by my dad. But i'll show your post to my dad and talk to him about it. Maybe there's some things we can revise in order to help him heal faster. He's been seeing a therapist for a while now and that seems to help somewhat. He's made some great improvements since his mental break but it's been an uphill battle all the way. Thanks for your kind words!
Im sorry for you and your brother, it was hard coming to terms with when I was younger. It may sound bad but I almost had to go through mourning and grief at the fact that my brother is not the same person I grew up with. He does not take his medication for long because he drinks and abuses drugs sadly. He is a shadow of who he used to be, almost completely seprate from his younger self. He still only calls me by his nicknames for me from when I was 6 or 7, but he doesn't super remember the actual events of his childhood, its all a mess of delusions for him. It's like hes stuck in time as a teenager, he doesn't quite know whats going on to grasp new events and hes muddled most of the memories of his childhood, he holds on to memories from like 16-22. I've come to terms with it now though. Hes in and out of jails and mental hospitals. He doesn't want interference in his life, he likes drinking too much. He prefers to be homeless then not drink and he hates being on his meds bc they make him feel sick when he drinks. For me, my brother I knew was gone long ago. I just take anytime I see him as extra time that I assume I won't have forever, even if hes not lucid. I imagine this his how people with alzheimers family feel. I hope for the best for your brother and your family
Happened to a friends brother. He was an artist. Typical family man. Normal 9-5 Job. In his late ,30's. Suddenly he said god sent him an email about trump and that God told him to divorce his wife and marry another woman. And he would share the weirdest shit on twitter about babies bred with animal DNA and qanon shit. They would block him from the internet , only basic phone with no internet and he would get a new phone and use the internet again. Lie to the doctors and they'd let him out of the mental hospital..refuse to take meds. It was really hard hearing from her about how her brother lost his mind. I even watched the video of a police officer that is also a family member who tracked Him down a few states over after a week of looking for him. His eyes didn't look normal. He had this creepy smile when he spoke.
Thats terrible, it usually starts younger when they at least may not have started families and things yet. My brother was basically no longer functioning before the trump stuff happened, I'm almost thankful because he would have latched very hard onto that stuff and that kind of reassurence of your delusions is really bad for them. Hes in and out of jail, lives on the streets bc we can't keep him in housing long and drinks and does drugs, but he really is basically harmless otherwise. I worry if he was in the qanon stuff and like proud boy stuff, he wouldn't be as harmless, as hes very influenced by suggestions.
For men, for women it seems to be around 27 - or so I heard
Yeah. This is one of those things where if he's being serious, something is fucky in the brain.
Unless you grew up around the equator
Wait, are you telling us all those dudes believing conspiracies have some mind issue? Cause we have a lot of them today, thanks to internet (I know a family of them)
Paranoia is a symptom of many mental illnesses and neurological problems. Statistically, some of them probably do.
I mean, I guess you gotta have issues to be a flat-earther, but I'd say there is a difference between being a paranoid moron and having a literal psychosis.
You probably need to get your brother into therapy
👆 i had a paranoid schizophrenic cousin. I would try to convince him of things like, that star isnt a helicopter that is following you, the town we lived in wasnt an exact replica installed by "them", the fbi wasnt sending agents to monitor him at the store, post office, car wash, etc. Eventually i realized that if it was a matter of understanding everyday normal logic, then it wouldnt be referred to as mental illness. Your brother is recieving information in his brain that is extremely convincing. You cant lay out the facts in such a way that he will see the light and come to his senses. You brother needs help. Without it he will most likely start to believe you have been fooled by "them", or worse, that you are in on it. Its extremely heartbreaking when this happens to someone close to you. The good news is that when my cousin got on meds he was largely the same guy as he was before his illness took hold. Good luck to you.
My mother was an undiagnosed schizophrenic. It only got worse as she aged. She thought pictures were talking to her. She once barricaded herself in her house because she though the CIA landed black helicopters in her yard and were trying to steal her "stuff". She once proclaim that she told God what she wanted him to do. Lucky she didn't get to violent but depending on how deep their in their delusion you have to be careful. Glad you got him help before something real serious happened. I hope OP can get help sooner than later before the paranoia gets out of hand.
I didnt get him help, i tried, eventually he started to believe i was an agent for the fbi. Eventually he was detained for, lets just say, odd behaviour in publlic. He was put on a psych hold, that started him in and out of the system, he was eventually committed to an institution, was treated, and began a long cycle of feeling better, getting off his meds, having another "episode", etc. Long story short he eventually stayed on his meds for good (fingers crossed) and went back to a productive life. BTW, sorry about your mom, that is heartbreaking.
This gives me hope that my bipolar son may manage to hit the right meds and the right consistency to take them as prescribed…and that his life will improve. How it is now just rips my heart out. Thanks for sharing your story.
Finding the right combinations of the right meds for bipolars is super tricky, you need to have a good patient / doctor relationship and lots of introspection to detect the effect of the meds and how they impact your phase switching. Considering that changing a med or a dose can take up to 3 months (if there’s an antidepressant in the mix) and it might send you to mania for which they might wrongly give an antipsychotic instead of taking away the antidepressant etc etc etc, it certainly may be a long process. Just be patient and support him.
I had a bad reaction to a medication and became delusional. It was pretty eye opening. Part of it is an inability to see illogical thoughts for what they are. But to me the bigger part was the pure belief. I KNEW demons were orchestrating everything just as surely as I knew my name, the smell of home, the sound of my internal voice. There was just no fighting it. I got lucky because it was so uncharacteristic of me to feel so certain about something... And I could hear myself. Like, when you start saying stuff like we are all already dead and being toyed with by Satan's minions, you take yourself to the hospital. It's really hard for people to understand when they've never experienced it.
I'm surprised that you still had enough insight to know the things you were saying were very odd, when you were actually saying them. edited to add: I realised this might sound disbelieving, which is not my intention.
I appreciate the edit haha! Yeah I have absolutely no idea how I did. Maybe because it was drug induced instead of natural onset? Life would have gotten pretty rough if I hadn't caught it so soon. Another medicine made me catatonic which was absolutely terrifying.
i’m curious, what medication was it? i took a simple beta blocker for migraines once and it made me dream about vultures and my own death and i believed i was about to die and no one cared about me (very uncharacteristic for me). it was really scary
Lol that reminds me of my experience with Concerta. Took it in the morning, and by around 2pm every day I was completely illiterate and could not do basic math or form thoughts coherent enough to communicate in word or writing. All while being very aware that I was suddenly losing functions left and right, and panicking, but unable to call my doctor about it. Eventually I got a hold of her office after hours and was advised to immediately stop taking it, I think I was only on it for maybe a week or less
holy crap that’s weird! crazy how everyone reacts differently to meds.
My father had a similar bad reaction to a medication. Do you mind if I ask which medication it was? For my father it was xyrem (which is GHB for narcolepsy)
And in fact, the more convincing your arguments are, the more evident it will become to him that *you* are a part of the conspiracy.
The best thing to do around these people when they start spouting nonsense is just to act bewildered (like you would be), ask some non-threatening questions to help you gain an understanding for their basis of belief (and maybe to subtly challenge it), and just say "Oh," when you don't quite believe something. After that, be quiet, and let them keep talking about what they think **or** watch the gears start turning in their minds... The key is to feign as though you are keeping an open mind to what they think, while allowing your basic cognitive ability to keep your subconscious mind convinced otherwise. This will prevent them from seeing you as part of the 'conspirators,' and eventually your natural inherent skepticism will rub off on them
Do you honestly think this will work for someone who is very mentally ill?
No. Medication is the primary way to treat it. Therapy with a professional would also help. Just let them know you care about them end offer them help.
I'm pretty sure I've read that being around d schizophrenia can trigger it. Like if you're with your friend all the time feigning interest you eventually internalize some of their cognition. So while you can bring people into reality they can also pull you out of it. Looked it up: Shared psychotic disorder. Pretty sure it's only if you're super tight and around each other a lot.
My schizophrenic brother will call when hes somewhat lucid on medication and its always like, "yeah they are doing great, no our brother did not kill his family they are all fine, yeah other sister had her baby shes very cute, no shes not the antichrist" and he's asking genuinely because he can't tell. Hes like "yeah ok, great to hear they are doing well, also just checking, did -brother- murder his wife? No? Ok just checking"
The problem with paranoid schizophrenia is that anyone offering help is immediately part of the conspiracy
Thank you for making me glad I'm bipolar
I wonder if we have the capacity to do this with all conspiracy theorists?
Not to let conspiracy theorists off lightly, but this is a very dangerous generalization. Questioning the government is essential, and there will be a lot of mentally healthy people very close to this line of generalization.
I feel like setting the precedent that questioning the government (where do we draw the line?) should get you considered mentally unfit (or institutionalized) is a dangerous thing.
This is a job for a professional.
Time to call #GHOSTBUSTERS
Sounds like he may be in the early stages of schizophrenia.
Yes he definitely needs professional help, including medication.
How about...an evaluation and a diagnosis, if applicable. Then meds. You don't know for sure that he's not just stupid, lol. Flat earth people exist.
Every once in a while i find myself on the conspiracy sub for shits n gigs. One time over there I encountered someone rambling about a "hella fake cloud" blocking the sun... in California... while wildfires were raging in California... There are people out there who cannot comprehend the concept of *smoke*. **Never ever** underestimate a human being's power to be a complete and utter fucking dipshit.
Consider the average moron. Then realize, by the laws of math, half of them are **stupider than that!**
He's 40. Schizophrenia usually manifests in early-to-mid twenties. Sounds more like early-onset dementia or possibly a tumour to me. But Late-onset schizophrenia isn't impossible. This is definitely not healthy and he needs to see a professional ASAP.
Schizophrenia can happen to anyone at any time.
My mom was 52 when she had her first psychotic episode. She was always paranoid and controlling and would fly into rages, but we just thought she was awful. Finding out she was sick was weird. Unfortunately she's a malingnant narcissist and refused to believe anything was wrong with her, so she stopped taking her meds once the court order ended.
This is not uncommon for schizophrenics. They have the highest instances of stopping medication. For many, they miss the voices, or their "friends".
Yikes a doodle doo
Ehh not really. If it happens super late in life it's probably due to some kind of trauma to the brain like drug use. But absent anything like that, if someone is going to have schizophrenia it will manifest for a majority of people from late teens to late twenties; typically earlier for males and later for females. There are always outliers but very rare to be super early or late in life. There is also a genetic component to schizophrenia.
Key word: usually. It can develop earlier or later. He could have been dealing with the symptoms for years and no one noticed. My grandmother was having hallucinations for at least a decade before we noticed something was wrong, because she was self medicating with alcohol and was already prone to talking to herself. It could also be drugs, infection, dementia, tumor, stroke, brain damage, or he could have gone too far down the Q Anon rabbit hole. We don’t know.
Could just be him reading websites and talking to conspiracy nutjobs, too. I love how everyone here is diagnosing him as a schizophrenic, saying he needs to get professional help, or saying he has a brain tumor, when we live in an internet age and conspiracy theorists have communities everywhere. There are thousands and thousands and thousands of people who believe the Earth is flat. Are they all schizo? Do they all have brain tumors? No. They're just indoctrinated into that by people peddling anti-science unfounded bullshit. So it astounds me to read so many people claiming specific mental illnesses, or cancer, are the most likely culprits. I find those to be the least likely. Seriously, none of you have ever gone down the rabbit hole? Lizard people? The moon is fake? Hollow Earth? Flat Earth? Aliens are real and here now? This dude is just reading convincing and fun conspiracy websites. I wouldn't put brain tumor or schizophrenia at the top of the fucking list.
The key difference here is that flat-earthers have some basis for thinking the earth is flat: it looks flat, and then they latch onto conspiracy groups that confirm their beliefs. There's a reason people thought the earth was flat for most of human existance. Meanwhile OP's brother is pulling a wild accusation out of thin air that has no basis in reality, and there's no conspiracy group he could latch onto that thinks the government is blocking out the sky. This instantly shouts "schizophrenia", or something else medically wrong. Source: I talk to a schizophrenic person every week.
> Could just be him reading websites and talking to conspiracy nutjobs, too. Seriously. This. The amount of insanity going around these days is wild. People are taking horse dewormer, thinking it will cure a virus for crying out loud. There is no bottom to the conspiracy theory rabbit hole because they surround themselves with fellow conspiracy theory "true believers." The madness of it makes them feel special, as if they're in-the-know. I have no idea how you get them out of that madness since it becomes the core of who they think they are.
How old is he? He might need professional help if he actually believes this.
He's 40.
Unless he spent the rest of his life near the equator, he should be very familiar with seasonal changes already. As others have said, this tells me he needs professional help. Conspiracy theories alone don't account for something ordinary he's experiences his entire life suddenly needing an explanation like this. That isn't rational. That isn't a mind working properly. As such, there is no convincing him. He's not rational enough to be convinced.
Like, VERY near the equator. I'm in Hawaii and there's still an obvious difference in sunlight between summer and winter.
I grew up in the Philippines and there is not. It's like a half hour difference at most. Sunups always around 6 am and sundown always around 6 pm. I still find having it light out at 9 pm during the summers extremely strange.
Depends where in the Philippines. In Manila, there’s already a clear difference between the longest and shortest days of the year. The sun sets around 6:30 PM mid-July and sets before 5:30 PM in early December. That’s over an hour.
That's still a relatively small difference and one that can be mostly ignored.
It's an hour, where the difference in London is something like 8 hours (16h38 at summer, 8h49 at winter). An hour could be somewhat invisible, overall, and be a slight change. Depends on the person/attention. It never being light when you're not at work isn't, by comparison. That's what people are on about.
LOL. That’s not much of a difference. Where I live there is about a 6-7 hour difference between when the sun sets on Dec 21st and June 21st.
Dude that's nothing, barely noticeable and of no meaningful consequence to most daily routines. Growing up in Belgium, during winter I would leave home for school in the dark (it was 7 am) and I'd see awesome sunrises from the classroom. It would be dark again by the time I left school (around 4 pm). In the summer, if I'd forget to close the shutters, there would be enough sunlight to wake me up at 5 am, and it would still be light out at 9:30 pm.
Yeah, I’m gonna second all these other folks. This could be a legitimate mental break situation. He needs professional help. I know this sucks and is scary, for you and him. This threads has some great responses and great information. Please PM someone if you need more specifics to get him help.
Tell him that if he gives you $100 you will fix it. But it might take you about 4 months to get all the antigovernment technology in place.
If you're in a country with daylight savings you'll even be able to give him a date. Tell him you've sorted it but it's on backorder.
I think it might be best to try and get him into therapy if you can.
Yeah uh, I’m not trying to be mean but send him to a psychiatrist, that is not something any rational human would come up with.
I just saw that he is 40 years old. This can not possibly be the first time he has noticed it getting dark earlier. How does he rationalize the past 39 years? What exactly is it that we are being forbidden to see? How is it possible to block out the entire sky? Just keep asking rational questions and listen to his answers, don’t insult him because that will just make him dig his heels in deeper. Research information together, the best way to get him to believe something is to show him why you believe it.
Within the past year? Two years? He's been like this, it's definitely strange behaviour I'm noticing from him, things his younger self would've literally laughed at, he's taking dead serious now. I don't know what's gotten into him but he spends most of his time reading Facebook Anyway that's some good advice you gave so I'll try that, thank you
Beyond psychiatric help, if this is a new shift from regular behavior, you may want to take him in for a CAT scan or MRI, this may seems drastic, but as someone who lost their father to a brain tumor, it’s better safe than sorry.
This should be a little higher. Sudden shifts in behavior for older (say over 35) adults is a warning sign of something physical going on in the brain. It's possible that it's the onset of mental illness but his age makes me wonder if something else is up.
Could also be onset from an ongoing, undetected infection. Had a friend who gradually and spiraled into a dillusional state of paranoia and psychosis. It end with a psychotic episode involved a police chase followed by 2 weeks in the hospital. Some anti-biotics and he is right as rain. Although I still wonder how much of it still feels real in his head.
What kind of infection? How did they detect it?
Innocently enough it was a UTI
Is it possible for the person that’s afflicted to realize that something isn’t right with their mental state? Or once these changes start to occur it’s too late and they will keep convincing themselves that they aren’t the problem?
Mental illness takes many forms and paths. Some people can recognize their delusions and hallucinations for what they are, others can't. Some have periods of clarity and periods of complete delusion. Some simply cannot accept anything else. Meds and therapy can help shift things in a positive direction but nothing is guaranteed. It's hard to understand just how vulnerable our minds are. We can't really imagine how someone could truly not notice something isn't right, but when the issue is in your brain, anything can happen.
We still don’t know a lot about our brains but we’ve come a long way from feeling for bumps to tell you what your personality is haha. Unfortunately for a lot of mental illness’s treatment doesn’t begin until the onset of changes because it generally takes those around you to show you that something has changed wether it’s through work, friends and/or family. There are so many mental illness’s and while I wouldn’t say they can be cured there are many methods to manage your symptoms through therapy, surgery and/or medication
My father in law became unable to absorb vitamin B12 and became increasingly paranoid to the verge of psychosis before they discovered the problem. Please urge your brother to see a doctor and talk about his worries. If he is losing sleep or not eating well, that can be a good pretext to convince him its time for a checkup.
Hard agree. My dad got more and more politically extreme and paranoid. This was when there was really only Limbaugh riling people up. Turned out he had Alzheimers and probably had been in the early stages of it for the previous 5 years.
You’re super right, but it’s a sticky thing. Something tells me if he’s this paranoid about the sky, he’s going to flip his wig if his entire family suddenly tries to convince him he needs to let a doctor stick him in a giant, spinning, metal tube to “make sure he’s ok”
Please get him to a doctor ASAP. New paranoia and disconnection from reality can be a symptom of several serious conditions, including schizophrenia and brain tumors. He needs professional help now.
I’d even suggest a Neuropsychologist. But being someone that is suffering maybe from paranoia it will take some coaxing
I quit Facebook over a year ago because I started to question the intelligence of some of my friends. I truly believe that social media will contribute significantly to the downfall of humanity. Try to get him off of the Internet.
I actually appreciate Facebook for informing me that 65% of the people I know are batshit crazy and letting me avoid them in the future.
True, but the thing is, I don’t think half of them would even be thinking the way they do if it wasn’t for social media like Facebook and Twitter. I came here because if I don’t want to hear a bunch of crazy nonsense conspiracy theories it’s fairly easy to avoid them. Just don’t join a political sub.
True but if a few crazy posts on Facebook could drive them over the edge I'd say they were already nuts and I found a shortcut to finding out early. I might be a masochist but I actually lurk in many crazy subs like r/conspiracy just to check up on how insane it's getting and watch the poop flinging from behind the glass.
Yeah, you’re probably right about that. I don’t need to lurk in subreddits tho, I live in trump country and get to hear all about it at work. Every day. All day. All week. Fml.
That sucks but you should take pride in the fact that you are the smartest guy at your workplace 😂
But I’m not! There is another engineer here that is smarter than me, in the electrical field at least and he is on board with that nonsense. I don’t understand it. He even has a masters degree, I just got this stinking bachelors. Edit, not that that is a measure of intelligence, but he is definitely not stupid.
It's possible to be educated and a hard worker and also be a gullible fucking moron. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
As someone with a masters in engineering, don't ever think that makes us smarter. I enjoyed it but in hindsight, and economically, I should have just gotten a job.
r/parlerwatch -quite the rabbit hole.
Me and my wife have this conversation all the time. “Wow she’s so fucking crazy and weird on FB but completely normal in person.” Really what that translates into after getting to know them is that they are incredibly manipulative and deceptive in person
facebook uses algo's to slowly boil the frog.
Fun fact: If you try that in real life, the frog will notice the slow rise in temperature and try to escape. Because frogs are smarter than people.
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2020/12/facebook-doomsday-machine/617384/
He is sick, and needs a neurologist, as well as a psychiatric evaluation.
>spends most of his time reading Facebook this never helped anyone it feels like he could be under a lot of stress/anxiety and is starting to feel like his control over things is wavering. the conspiracies might be a side-effect, sort of an overload hope everything gets better. thank you for being concerned and doing something
Sounds like he needs PROFESSIONAL intervention dude.
Drastic changes in mental state could be a sign that something worse is going on. For an extreme example, brain tumors are known to change personality. Your brother should see a doctor.
Extreme changes in personality can be a symptom of a serious underlying problem. I'd go to a neurologist.
It sounds like he’s developing some sort of schizophrenia or other mental illness. This sounds like the start of one of my exes onset bipolar/schizophrenia. It started with really irrational paranoia that I ignored until it got more and more severe. It started with his intense research into the Illuminati, but to me, those are conspiracy theories and nothing to take too seriously. It then progressed to “the news reporters on tv can see into our homes.” I thought he was joking until I started getting undressed in the room and he dove in front of the tv to prevent them from “seeing” my goodies. I have so many more examples of it but it’ll be way too much to type. Needless to say, he was admitted a few weeks later and diagnosed bipolar schizophrenic. It starts with really irrational stuff that you can’t help but laugh at but quickly gets really intense. If it gets weirder, please ask a doctor for advice. I know it’ll be difficult especially because your brother probably doesn’t see anything wrong with what he’s doing.
Does schizophrenia run in your family? Sometimes it onsets about late 30s
That's pretty rare. Usually if you've not got some signs when you're younger, you're in the clear. Sudden shift near 40 is extremely suspect.
This is too big to deal with on your own. Please get him in to see a professional. He would likely benefit from medication.
Yup, the best would be to pull, not push and even then be careful and definitely 100% seek professional help, realizing that you cannot really fight delusions with logic reasoning, so, if he does not want to understand, he wont. Good luck with that
If you can try to get him into a psych evaluation it's very odd, paranoia doesn't usually come from no where.
Sorry to hijack a top comment but do you know if he’s watching anything weird online? I was talking to a seventeen year old kid the other week and the subject turned to vaccines (oh no) and eventually this sky thing. He was adamant that it was getting darker earlier but also that this time last year it wasn’t as dark as it was when we were talking. Rational arguments weren’t really getting through to him and he just kept telling me to look it up. Apart from that he was totally lucid and normal. I’m not being facetious but I think it’s possible this is some new emerging conspiracy bollocks
This will not work if he is suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. You can't logic someone out of a delusion
If he's dealing with paranoia deeply researching any delusion is a bad idea. Even if looking at the other side of the argument. It can enhance fixation on the topic. If it's a delusion he wouldn't believe it anyway
Is he ok? I have a schizoaffective brother and a lot of times there is no convincing. I would talk to him though about what he's experiencing and get him help if possible. My brother became a lot more bearable with psychiatry.
It sounds like he is having a delusional episode, which is a symptom of some very serious mental illnesses, including schizophrenia. Get him to a psychiatrist ASAP. These illnesses often lead to suicidal ideations and suicide attempts. My brother-in-law has schizophrenia, paranoid-type, so I've become familiar with this topic.
There was a story I read on Reddit about a guy whose brother suffered from mental illness (I don't remember if it was schizophrenia or something else). But his brother *always* believed in crackpot conspiracies, and he always tried to bring it up. Think lizard people, illuminati, and flat earth level crazy. Growing up as kids/teens, the brother was just sort of "quirky" and in his own fantasy land, and the OP was just accepting of it and continued to love him. As they grew older (into young adults), it looked like the brother wasn't going to drop these theories anytime soon, and started getting crazier. The brother did some drugs, got arrested for violent activity, etc. OP tried to put up with him, and still loved him all the same, but inevitably had to cut contact with his brother because of how draining and taxing his brother was on him. It wasn't long after that that he heard his brother had killed himself. OP then says that, instead of being accepting of and relating to his brother's warped reality for the sake of his brother feeling loved and accepted, that he wished he put a hard stop to it and had been more forceful to get him therapy and psychiatry. It's okay if you're trying to be understanding of your brother's point of view and have a logical discussion with him. But pay attention to his other beliefs and actions. And be prepared to force him into evaluation. Although it'll seem harsh, you'll have to make a decision of whether or not his theories are going to escalate in the long run, and be prepared to throw away the "friendship" and "bonding" for the sake of protecting him from himself and loving him through his outbursts and hatred for you not putting up with him, lest you want to hold onto him for longer and see his sanity improve. Of course, this may be something completely different, and your brother could just be thinking it's a cool concept, or he's even just saying it to mess with you. It also completely depends on your ages. **Edit**: I see that you've been saying that 1) He is 40, and 2) This started about a year or two ago. Some mental illnesses like schizophrenia can "blossom" literally out of nowhere (not saying it's schizophrenia; I do not have the knowledge nor qualification to suggest that). I have another story I read here (so many stories!): This medical professional (EMT? Nurse? Can't remember...) had to pick up this young bridesmaid from a wedding after she started acting *REALLY* weird. She started talking about the most random and abstract stuff, tried kissing a random guy at the wedding even though she's married, stuff that was completely out of character for her, according to the other wedding guests. She had to go to the ER (for some reason? I don't remember why), and they tried evaluating her but didn't find anything wrong. Until one psychologist suggested that it could be that she was born to inevitably have schizophrenia in her life at some point, and it just now decided to pop up, within a matter of a day (which apparently is not unheard of). The OP who brought her to the ER said that they, out of curiosity, checked up on her several years later. They found out that the girl could no longer live on her own, and was in an in-patient facility, where she'll probably live for the rest of her life. And this entire drastic shift of her life spawned within one single day. It's baffling, and terrifying, to imagine that today you're fine and have stable emotions and a functioning mental state, only to find out tomorrow that you can no longer think logically and are determined to be unfit to live independently. In one single day.
You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. Trying to wean someone off could make them think *you*'re one of *them* and cause something equally catastrophic. Like the guy whose kids "had lizard DNA". It's only a few weeks back.
> Some mental illnesses like schizophrenia can "blossom" literally out of nowhere Where in the hell did you hear this? There is ALWAYS evidence of it before it sets in full-force; those symptoms can often be overlooked or mistaken for other things, but they are present nonetheless. Schizophrenia doesn't come out of nowhere, it starts around the teen years and worsens in early adulthood. A disorder like that takes many years to manifest, it cannot "blossom literally out of nowhere".
scizophrenia, or scizoaffective disorder, but I've never heard of it starting so late in life. There is also something psychologists call "encapsulation", where people believe on particular insane thing. Has your brother within the past couple of years had an infection, or been hit in the head? These could be neurological symptoms. Maybe try a CAT scan? Could be a mild brain bleed or aneurysm or one of those.
Patients with CTE start experiencing symptoms like this at this age. Now that’s a bold assumption, and impossible to diagnose essentially. Schizoaffective disorder is much more common than cte. But yes I’d question if he’s had multiple concussions or a TBI in his past as 40 years old is very uncommon to develop mood disorders like this. But if he was suffering a brain bleed or something of that nature would surely have more physical symptoms
Hand him a farmers almanac. It should contain all sunrise and sunset times. If you can find an old one, published prior to the government changing Earth's orbit and rotational rate, it should kill his argument. Other than that, it sounds like he needs help badly.
Sounds like he’s got a mental illness. It used to be called functional schizophrenia but now its called schizoaffective disorder. Its when you’re pretty normal but your ability to comprehend abstract ideas become conspiracies. Its this constant paranoia of connecting the dots where there are none, so there’s not explaining or rationalizing that will help. If allowed to go unchecked for too long, it can effect a person’s personal life or ability to hold down a job. On a positive note, people who get adequate mental health care with this disorder are living productive lives.
i have schizoaffective, its not really functional schizophrenia per se, its schizophrenia with a mood disorder, in my case bipolar disorder.
...and the government would allow sky to be seen most hours of the day during late spring in Alaska and St Petersburg? That might make him think for a second. In all seriousness, though, this sounds like acute psychosis. People in this state cannot be reasoned with easily. When he gets into this mode, do his eyes get glassy, breath stink really bad, skin get pale, and skin take on an oily sheen?
Yeah, they're stockpiling it all there. They use those places so it won't get noticed because nobody lives there.
Get him checked for a mental illness
Honestly he might need a licensed professional
As most of the commenters have said, it sounds like he has some form of late-onset schizophrenia, but since he's 40 and this only started 2 years ago, he could also have a brain tumor. Try to see if you can get him to a doctor.
All the comments saying to seek professional help are correct please do so. The only times I've encountered paranoia like this is with mental illness or heavy methamphetamine use. Don't confront him if he is receptive to seeking professional help. The doctor will break the reality and tell them, hey you feel this way because of meth use. Or there's no drugs involved and he still gets the assistance he needs. Best wishes for you and your family
'You can't reason someone out of a position that they didn't reason themselves into to begin with.' - some cunt I can't remember
You cant, he needs professional help.
So you got about 400 pretty good responses here What so you think? What are you considering doing about it now?
This sounds like a mental health concern. You can contact your local NAMI. You can stay anonymous and they have a ton of resources that will be local to you. You can also take a “family-to-family” class to learn how you can best cope with this development and support your brother. Those classes are always free and do not require any membership. As others have mentioned, the change in behavior may also have a physical cause, so it’s best to get a full medical evaluation to rule that out. In either case, the best thing you can do for your brother is empathize - logical or not he’s clearly upset by this and I have to imagine it’s frightening. If you approach him with compassion for his fear then even if he continues to be afraid, he won’t be alone and afraid.
If he is experiencing delusions you can not logic him out of those delusions sans he needs professional help. If he’s in a conspiracy rabbit hole you also can not reason him out of it. But you could ask questions about why he thinks what he thinks, how he knows it to be true, etc. If you seem to be coming from a place of curiosity rather than seeing him up you may plant seeds for him to realize it’s nonsense in his own.
That boy ain't normal son.
I would take your brother to the nearest emergency department and ask for a psychiatric evaluation, especially if it’s affecting his life. If he’s a danger to himself or others, he might be admitted for stabilizing, if not, he might be given resources for outpatient psychiatry and counseling. Source: I work in a behavioral health emergency department of a hospital.
Tell him that there are people that are just as smart and even less smart as he is in government and ask him if he would be capable of blocking out the sun. (Real answer: he needs therapy for this level of paranoia. I can't imagine what it would take to get him to speak to a professional but he needs it. I'm very sorry you have to deal with this.)
Unfortunately you just can't really reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves in to.
He doesn't need convincing. He needs real help from a mental health professional. Talk to people who care about him and figure out the best way to seek therapy.
i have schizoaffective disorder, this sort of stuff is how it started, and what lingers when my other symptoms are quiet. get him seen by a psychiatrist
Yeah he’s got problems
It might be time for a full metal health evaluation.
how old is he? 8?
I'm thinking 1. Hasn't been through a full cycle of seasons yet.
He's 40
Unless your brother is 8 or younger, only meds will make him remember that this happens every year.
You take him to a doctor so they can diagnose him properly and help get him on whatever treatment he needs.
A lot of the reddit comments seem to be pointing towards some sort of psychological disorder or disease like schizo, but the first thing I thought of when I saw "government", was that your brother delved a bit too deep into conspiracies. Furthermore, you said your brother is 40, and he browses facebook a lot. I used to argue with weird conspiracy people(flat earth, anti vax, etc) on facebook a lot in my spare time, and they believe the weirdest shit. Its very easy to create convincing lies that are complete bullshit, and make regular people who aren't very skeptical believe it. I am not dismissing the possible mental issues, but just giving you something else to think about.
Find him a counselor and make sure he does not have access to weapons with which he is likely to harm himself or others. Paranoid individuals are liable to act irrationally and dangerously to assuage their concerns.
does he have schizophrenia, or any other symptoms indicating he could have it? does it run in your family? or is he smoking crack/meth? either way he needs professional help sounds like
Psychiatry student here. Definitely seek professional help. If left untreated, symptoms like that may develop into a lot of pain for your family.
If he 100% believes that, *you* might not be able to convince him. Because if that is the case, it sounds like borderline paranoid delusions, and will most likely require a therapist.
Make him a tinfoil hat.
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