How to handle a conflict with someone who is suffering with Schizophrenia?

[laetitia]

Hi all carers,

Nice to meet you all. As you can already tell I have just recently joined to this forum.

Unfortunately my husband has got Schizophrenia and every now and then he will emotionally attack me and belittle me and emotionally abuse me. I usually do not know how to response to his attacks.

Is there anyone out there who could give me some advice and strategies how to handle a conflict with someone who suffers from Schizophrenia?

Cheers,

Yuki

[Former-Member]

Hello @laetitia

I just found this thread by accident.

I strongly feel the need to apologise to you that you have not had a response yet.

It would have taken great strength and courage to reach out on here and discuss your concerns about your experiences with your husband.

I do not personally live with someone with schizophrenia, however my older son has been given the diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia.

He has just recently resumed contact with myself, his younger brother and his dad. We all live separately.

I can say that I do know how it feels to be verbally abused as I have experienced this with a tone of voice that I do not recognise as my son's. I also witnessed this icy tone when I visited him in the public hospital during his detainment last year.

It is a very frightening experience as we respond carefully, frightened to death that we might upset them and not know the consequences.

Are you able to discuss your concerns with your gp? your gp can then refer you to a psychologist with some experience dealing with schizophrenia covered by medicare.

I myself have done quite a bit of research which has helped me, not my son but helped me in responding to him.

I do hope that others who live with family members suffering from the symptoms of schizophrenia are able to respond to you.

Please keep writing on here you are not alone. Even though there are no easy solutions or even answers to some questions it really does help to be heard as well as put our thoughts on  paper (old school .. now electronic page???)

Have a look at information pages on this website as well.

[Former-Member]

Hello @laetitia

A very warm welcome to the forums from myself also 🙂

That sounds incredibly challenging coping with your husbands mental health symptoms on top of the abuse that he is giving to you, that is in no way okay and I am really sorry you are coping with that on your own.

It would be helpful for you to work on boundaries with him, these are guidelines as to how you accept others to treat you andletting them know what is unacceptable. These are not easy to implement however, so it's helful to get some extra support for that through a Counsellor or Psychologist which you can be referred to from your GP.

There are also some Mental Health Carer Organisations such as;

Mental Health Carers Australia

1300 554 660

http://www.mentalhealthcarersaustralia.org.au/

There is also some extra information here about Boundaries:

Boundary Setting and Mental Illness resource

Also, when your husband is more calm have you tried having a chat to him about when he is abusive towards you and how that makes you feel? Does he have insight to know that he is doing those things to you at all?

Here for you and hoping we can give you some extra support through the forums

Lunar

[Former-Member]

Hello @laetitia

Here is a link to some information that may or may not be useful.

http://www.schizophrenia.com/family/FAQpartner.htm

[laetitia]

Hi @Former-Member,

Thanks for your reply to my post and first of all sorry for my late reply. I have been incredibly busy lately. 

I am myself at the moment seeing a counsellor and she has told me that people in general who suffer from schizophrenia do hear a lot of voices (which is hard for me to understand unfortunately as I don't suffer from any mental disabilities) and that I should just try to be patient with my husband. Unfortunately it is incredibly hard to be patient with him and I tend to react as he emotionally attacks and abuses me. 

I am planning to read more resources on how to deal with people who suffer from schizophrenia in the mean time before I see my counsellor at the end of this week.

Yuki

[laetitia]

Hi @Former-Member,

Sorry for my late reply to your comment but I have been incredibly busy lately and I haven't had the chance to reply to you earlier.

I have actually told him recently and in the past about my boundaries and what I accept and what I don't accept but maybe I need to reach out to my counsellor and ask for some help on how to make my boundaries more clearer to my husband as I feel that my husband and I are going continuously in vicious circles when we are faced with challenges and that I feel that my husband doesn't seem to understand my boundaries.

I do let my husband know after when he has calmed down that he has been abusive towards me, he acknowledges that he has been abusive to me but then I feel that he doesn't learn from his mistakes as the next time he abuses me it is exactly the same attitude that he carries on with from the last time he abused me. Also when I do confront him he will put the blame on either my son or on me for his own attitude and behaviour.

He keeps telling me after every fight that we have had in the past that he does want to change but it seems like its only words and not actually actions.

Yuki

[AshEasy]

Hello, definitely it's hard to handle a conflict who has suffering with Schizophrnia. A love and always with him is way of helping his condition. You can bring him to the doctor for another treatment and show to him that he is not alone instead of hating him because of what he has done. He has a condition that he himself cannot control.

[laetitia]

Thank you for your advice @AshEasy

[Former-Member]

hello @laetitia

I can imagine you must feel that you are living on a gigantic, emotional roller coaster.

It would be extremely draining, and wearing on your compassion being subjected to abuse time after time. The fact that your husband apologises and then probably does not remember, reacts in the same way again.

Abuse at any time is awful, from a loving family member is just unbelievable I know.

I also have read that the delusions or voices in their heads sometimes take on other people who are telling them to be abusive. They can reach a point where they cant tell the difference even though they might have never had aggressive or abusive ways before being unwell.

Is your husband under the care of a psychiatrist or psychologist who specialises in schiophrenia?

Is he on medication? If so I have read that sometimes a change in their behaviour indicates a change in medication.

As I mentioned earlier, I do not live with someone full time so am not the best person to advise you.

I can empathise with you though.

My son has stopped contact with me again and I am concerned that his symptoms might have changed. He is on no medication or under any care from anyone. He believes that he is well and that others are not.

Are you a member of Carers Mental Health Australia?

Tomorrow night there is a discussion on schizophrenia if you have a look at the site, you will see different posts about in relation to that. You might hear of some similar situations even though it is probably the last thing you want to think about.

Please keep writing on here and look around at other threads where parents or partners are living with someone with schizophrenia. There are also threads from people who themselves live with the condition.

Darcy has some very good links. If you click on her posts.

take care