Friends, Family & Carers Forum

[LightlySparklin]

I've been with my partner for about 6 months on and off, he has already been diagnosed with Generalised Anxiety Disorder that he does not take medications for and due to a violent relationship in the past was recently diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Over the past 2 months he has been experiencing an extremely real delusion that has progressively gotten worse in the past 2 weeks and now has become suicidal.

I have am a qualified nurse with a mental health first aid certificate, I know these delusions are very real to him and I'm being very careful to get him the help he needs. I am just getting overwhelmed with how far his delusions are getting.

His delusions are as follows:

His snapchat was hacked and multiples of fake people were added in order to gather information from him or try implicate him in something illegal. That these same people hacked his Facebook account and email account, they are using the information gathered from there to mock/humiliate/blackmail/ or cause him to commit suicide. That these people could be a pr team for a famous Australian sportsman. That they were "managing him" between a number of people. Now they have changed his Google search, friends and images that contain things about him including his name in all the images or personal information about him. Lastly the media have a hold of this and all the tv shows, newspaper articles, newspaper cartoons and horoscopes are somehow related to him and mocking him. He even believed that my son had been messaged by an outside source to spy on him. He has a real fear for his life.

So far my I have managed to persuade him to delete FB, snapchat. his family and I have been trying urgently to get him into a psychocologist which has been taking a lot of time. I am with him as often as I can be and when I'm not there his family is with him. I also persuaded him to seek a dr tomorrow in hopes of speeding up the process with getting him into a psychologist asap

I know we have done everything we possibly can but I am still very concerned for his well being as his mental health continues to rapidly decline

Any helpful suggestions would be greatly appreciated

[NikNik]

Hi @LightlySparklin

Welcome to the community 🙂

I wanted to share with your a past Topic Tuesday session we had on Psychosis , inwhich some of our community members, such as @Louise and @Linmerc shared their own experience about how psychosis had impacted their loved ones. 

It seems like, as you said, you are doing all you can for your partner. It's great that you're not in this alone and have his family to support you & him.

How did things go yesterday with your partner going to the doctor? Any progress?

[suzanne]

Hi @LightlySparklin, it's been about a week since your post and so I was wondering how things are?  It sounds very frightening to watch this sort of deterioration in someone you love.  You've done really well to get your partner to the point of distancing himself from social media and agreeing to get help.  Many people aren't able to get that far.

One of the best pieces of advice I've ever been given was from some who suffered from schizophrenia for over 20 years.  She said that when someone was in a delusional state, it's pointless to argue fact.  As you say, it's very real for your partner.  But you can keep up the communication flow by focusing on how it feels to be experiencing this.  How worried he must be.  What is feels like to be under 'attack' so to speak. 

You're not agreeing with the delusion, or become complicit with it.  You can still say, 'it doesn't seem that way to me' but then focus more on how the experience is affecting him.  This way of communicating keeps you working together on the problem.

It would be great to hear how you and he are doing.  

[LightlySparklin]

We are still waiting on a psychologist appointment and the doctor has prescribed him an antipsychotic and antidepressant why which he is compliant in taking so far. He is still experiencing delusions but no where to the extreme that he has been. As for me I have been given 6 weeks stress leave and prescribed an antidepressant. My eldest son has been set up with headspace and they are trying to find someone who specialises in ASD and trauma. My youngest son is still waiting on his child psychologist. Things are little bit better now for all of us which is a start

[LightlySparklin]

Sorry the why is a typo

[suzanne]

Hi @LightlySparklin, thanks for the update.  It sounds like you've made some real progress and everyone is heading in the right direction.  Just make sure you include some self-help in your stress leave.  It must be tempting to focus on everyone else but this situation seems to be taking a toll.  Without looking after yourself there will come a time where you can't help others.  It's not selfish, it's strategic 🙂