In my last blog post I spoke about my concern that my son may not be on the right or right dose of medications. I didn't speak about his vaporizer. I know that when he chews snuff or chewing tobacco that this seems to trigger his symptoms somewhat. Nicotine stimulates dopamine which as we know can cause/contribute to psychosis. The E-liquid that my son is currently smoking is non-nicotine. Does that mean that it isn't stimulating the pleasure/reward (dopamine) parts of his brain? I think that it is.
Saturday he used his vaporizer a lot. So this may be what is contributing to my son's current hiccup in experiencing voices and/or symptoms. The amount of medications that he is on may or may not be enough depending on what he is doing to counteract what the medications are trying to do. Still I have to remind myself that it has only been three months since he 'broke his brain' in a manner of speaking. It takes time to heal and as I said to his Nana: He is limping. :)
He still has voices... Not to hard to tell that he is 'listening' as he responds to either his voices or thoughts by laughing out loud and sometimes he is way to content to just lie there with a big smile on his face. They are entertaining ;)
The last couple of nights he has started to slip a bit and is staying up late again and therefor sleeping in. This morning I refused to go in and turn off his cell phone alarm that is set for 10 AM. He finally got up and turned it off at 10:45...
A little add in about myself... I think I may have Misophonia. Also known as Selective Sound Sensitivity Syndrome. Basically hatred of sound(s). Thankfully I don' t have it to the extend of outside heavy machinery bothering me... Not usually anyways. However the irrational anger at certain types of noises that I consider to be unnecessary like wheezing, chewing and other mouth noises including grunting and groaning to name a few. I can honestly say they make me want to.... So yah! I actually brought it up to my hubby's doctor yesterday if he had heard of it. Yes he has. Treatment can be CBT or cognitive behavioral therapy. I do use this to a certain degree as so far I have not physically lashed out at my hubby (and sometimes my son), even though there are times I want to hurt them, because I love them and know they aren't doing it on purpose. There have been several times sitting between them when I felt like losing it. Hubby grunting, groaning and crumpling things and my son wheezing... Fun times!
So back to the alarm going off for 45 minutes... Yes it was driving me crazy. He got up and came out and went back to sleep on the sofa. We all know how much I'm against that... however I didn't say anything even with his snoring! 1:20 PM I tell him he needs to get up and do something... anything. His response was: Is there something wrong with me just lying here? And do what?
Right or wrong has nothing to do with it. He is slowly getting his nights and days messed up again and spending that much time just lying there in his own 'head space' is not good for him. As for doing what... I don't care what. Play a game, watch his tablet, do laundry, tidy his room... I told him I was going out for a cigarette and I wanted him up by the time I came back. He was heading out for a smoke when I came back in!
He was playing a game for bit. Star Wars... Which he can play for free! Remind me of this the next time he asks me to pay for it so he can have better items. Now his room is quiet.
He did do the dishes on Wednesday. He commented that we should be doing them every day. I do... Shows how much he pays attention. I don't have a dishwasher and only one sink so letting dishes pile up for days is not an option. It was actually a nice feeling. Him doing the dishes, me making a loaf of bread and us just being together doing 'normal' stuff.
Yesterday he came with hubby and I for hubby's doctors appointment. It was a good opportunity to get him in clean track pants and have him do some basic hygiene. We went to Burger King (fast food restaurant) for dinner. I don't mind missing cooking sometimes...
I have a new disorder to learn a bit about! Aspergers. I think hubby is... and his doctor thinks I may be right. There are things that ADHD just doesn't cover and a lot of the Aspergers traits seems to be what I'm seeing. I assured hubby that I wasn't looking to have him on another medication. I wanted his doctor to give us some good resources or reading material like his other two books. He will in the future. For right now we are keeping things as they are with his two medications as decreasing the Ciprelax hasn't been easy on him. I assured his doctor, despite hubby's complaints, that he was doing awesome! I have been impressed! I guess I need to tell hubby that. Hubby and doctor where happy to hear it. ;)
I almost forget to mention disability. In case you follow me on Twitter and saw my murphy's law comment. That letter I previously mentioned that his case worker had received from his old disability office... had incorrect dates/facts on it. It stated that his file was opened January 2013 and closed December 2014. No mention of the dates in between where it had been closed and re-opened. So yes they are looking into processing his file HOWEVER the payments that he received out here from August to September 2014 are now considered an over-payment as he was according to this letter receiving income assistance out there and you can't 'double dip'. Peachy isn't it?
I of course called BC disability... Sat on hold for well over 20 minutes and no surprise got disconnected like I always do. Called his case worker at PACT and left her a message stating the issue.
Just waiting to confirm if we can book the moving truck and if we can then we are moving on the 21st! Yes!
Mom
BarbieBF
© BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey, 2014 - 2015. All rights reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blogs author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Links to blog posts and/or pages as a whole (in there entirety) may be used provided that full and clear credit is given to BarbieBF and Schizophrenia - Mom's Journey with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
Showing posts with label CBT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label CBT. Show all posts
Friday, February 6, 2015
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Building Blocks, Things I Need to Work On.
Building blocks went through my mind the other day as I was talking to my son about money and cigarettes. I asked a leading question: Why do you not have any cigarettes? I knew the answer but I wanted to see if he was able to put two and two together and understand that consequences of his own actions. His response: Because I sold my carton of cigarettes. He sold ten packs of cigarettes and didn't even get enough money to buy two packs. Then ended up going back to the person he sold them too and getting back one of the packs. I ended up giving him some of my husbands. I explained to my son that the responsibility of this is on him and his choices. He would still have half a carton of cigarettes if he had not done what he did.
My son's 21st birthday is coming up. I know this may sound harsh however I agreed to purchase him cigarettes but he is to pay me back from the birthday money that he will be receiving from other family members. It will be his choice if he wants to buy expensive ones and be left with less money or learn to be responsible and buy the cheaper ones that he can afford (or quit). He actually bought even cheaper ones than he used to get! Impressive right?
Like I said I know it sounds a little harsh to do this regarding his birthday money however there is always something... Christmas and hospitalizations are two of them. Always reasons to not help my son learn responsibility and consequences for his own actions. Reasons that I can no longer afford or support.
Through no fault of his own and admittedly with my help my son has not learned some of the basic building blocks of being responsible or mature. For too many years he has been sheltered from the consequences of his own actions because he has schizophrenia. No it's not his fault... Still I'm beginning to see the error in not holding my son accountable for the choices that he sometimes make. Yes he has schizophrenia but he is not without the capability of understanding the consequences of those choices. Choices that everyone else, including myself, shoulder the responsibility for. Choices that I'm really beginning to see have very little to do with my son's schizophrenia.
A saying I like to use with my son is: The proof is in the pudding. When my son is not being given the opportunity to run away from his life here... The change in him and his attitude is night and day. Although his birthday is coming up so I could be mis-reading all of this...
Wednesday night things could have gone pretty badly. We were quickly heading to a repeat of September and a shelter. He was doing what he has been taught that he can do and get away with which was lying and manipulating. Thankfully it did not come to that again...
Since Thursday morning... Like I said night and day. My son's schizophrenia symptoms have not changed but his attitude has. Mom I have decided that I want to stay here and deal with... Really the choice was made for him but still it's the thought... Due to his symptoms he has not been doing too much. Still staying up late most nights and over all lying around. The difference is how he is going about it. He seems more willing to accept the idea that what he is experiencing is schizophrenia symptoms. He seems more willing to at least for right now be medication compliant. I have told him that he can't run from himself or schizophrenia. All this will follow him until he can learn to manage it. Perhaps by not being able to run from one thing he is also not running from other things as well?
He is back to doing things for himself. Not a lot but he is trying. Mom can you do...? No but I can show you how. And that is what I do. The other day I showed him how to make a tuna sandwich since he likes how I spice the tuna. A tuna sandwich may not sound like much but when my son has gone long periods without lifting a finger to do anything for himself, it's more then a start. If he only picks up some of the garbage when I'm tidying up his room, it's better then not helping at all. If he misses items while picking up after himself in the living room, he is picking up after himself. He did a load of laundry on Friday with little prompting from me. He still has another load to do and maybe today I can get him to tackle it.
I have been thinking about my part to play in all this. How I can help to build the right foundation with the right building blocks. He has missed out on so much including a reasonably normal child and parent relationship which includes arguments and butting heads over responsibilities and boundaries. Both of my kids have... I think I blogged a little while ago that I'm pretty fed up with schizophrenia. I have allowed it to control almost every aspect of our lives when it doesn't need to. Schizophrenia like any disease or disorder is not all of who my son is. He is a person outside of that and that person is not always Mr. Sunshine. Neither am I for that matter ;)
As a child grows and learns the boundaries of what s/he can or cannot do... My son has never learned those boundaries. Instead he has run from parent to parent to grandparent which we allowed. Each of us in turn contributing to what I can now see is probably more behavioral issues then mental illness.
I have been trying to think through and decide what to do about my son living with me long-term or being in the group home. I do believe that the group home is the best choice for him. Not the easy choice but the best choice. Currently we are experiencing a calm time... It never lasts though. And in the end my son can't live at home forever. He needs to take those steps out into adulthood.
What can I do? I think I need to reread how to discipline ADHD and ODD children and how to set appropriate boundaries and not be drawn into stupid arguments. This is a big one as I'm pretty sure my son tried to draw me into one last night. He again wanted a ride over to his friend's house or partner in instability is what I've given to calling him in my head. I of course said no to giving him a ride. I didn't say no to him going, I'm just not going to contribute to or enable the choice of drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. Like I have referenced before (I think), I wouldn't drive him to a crack house so why would I drive him to a marijuana house... The reality is that right now alcohol and marijuana are as dangerous to my son as crack-cocaine is to me (a recovering addict) perhaps even more so as using will make him psychotic.
I blogged about ODD here: Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Anger
The harder part in all this may be the age appropriate boundaries... How to tell what is age appropriate for someone recovering from psychosis. I guess I will have to wing it... I know that he is capable of doing much much more then he is willing to do. Control myself, pick my battles, resist rescuing him from consequences and build on the positives! Bless him as he even makes building on the positives a hard one. It's like praising him gives him the idea that he can stop trying...
When I said that I wasn't taking him and that I wasn't going to discuss it further he asked me: What can we discuss then!? Ironically watching my husband refrain from saying anything even though I could see it pissing him off, helped me to not respond. It was obvious by my son's tone that he was looking for an argument. Piss me off and I would be more willing to have him out of the home and therefore give him a ride. I'm learning from my husband! Yes pick me up off the floor ;). It's a good learning curve for me though and I need to spend some time reading the books he is reading as I know that I'm not above learning and I really don't know everything... ;)
I blogged about these books here: Hello 2015! CBT and Mindfullness
I think I'm finally over that god awful cold! Now that I'm feeling better I can start putting myself in a better frame of mind and start taking care of things again. I sometimes mentally shake my head at myself as I let things slide entirely too far. I stopped doing all or most of the things that I tell other caregivers to do for themselves. Shame on me! I don't know where she went but my normal upbeat self got lost there for a little bit. I'm glad I'm coming back :) I need to take care of me too and that means not missing vitamins and supplements, doing my stretches and taking some time away from schizophrenia and mental health related things.
We are moving! So I need to start getting organized. I can't do much yet as we don't have an exact moving date but I can start clearing out things as I get back into the routine of doing more then the bare minimum around here. A little or lot of housework will do me some good!
To my sister if you are still reading: Thank you for the tablet for my son! He is enjoying it very much!
Mom
BarbieBF
My son's 21st birthday is coming up. I know this may sound harsh however I agreed to purchase him cigarettes but he is to pay me back from the birthday money that he will be receiving from other family members. It will be his choice if he wants to buy expensive ones and be left with less money or learn to be responsible and buy the cheaper ones that he can afford (or quit). He actually bought even cheaper ones than he used to get! Impressive right?
Like I said I know it sounds a little harsh to do this regarding his birthday money however there is always something... Christmas and hospitalizations are two of them. Always reasons to not help my son learn responsibility and consequences for his own actions. Reasons that I can no longer afford or support.
Through no fault of his own and admittedly with my help my son has not learned some of the basic building blocks of being responsible or mature. For too many years he has been sheltered from the consequences of his own actions because he has schizophrenia. No it's not his fault... Still I'm beginning to see the error in not holding my son accountable for the choices that he sometimes make. Yes he has schizophrenia but he is not without the capability of understanding the consequences of those choices. Choices that everyone else, including myself, shoulder the responsibility for. Choices that I'm really beginning to see have very little to do with my son's schizophrenia.
A saying I like to use with my son is: The proof is in the pudding. When my son is not being given the opportunity to run away from his life here... The change in him and his attitude is night and day. Although his birthday is coming up so I could be mis-reading all of this...
Wednesday night things could have gone pretty badly. We were quickly heading to a repeat of September and a shelter. He was doing what he has been taught that he can do and get away with which was lying and manipulating. Thankfully it did not come to that again...
Since Thursday morning... Like I said night and day. My son's schizophrenia symptoms have not changed but his attitude has. Mom I have decided that I want to stay here and deal with... Really the choice was made for him but still it's the thought... Due to his symptoms he has not been doing too much. Still staying up late most nights and over all lying around. The difference is how he is going about it. He seems more willing to accept the idea that what he is experiencing is schizophrenia symptoms. He seems more willing to at least for right now be medication compliant. I have told him that he can't run from himself or schizophrenia. All this will follow him until he can learn to manage it. Perhaps by not being able to run from one thing he is also not running from other things as well?
He is back to doing things for himself. Not a lot but he is trying. Mom can you do...? No but I can show you how. And that is what I do. The other day I showed him how to make a tuna sandwich since he likes how I spice the tuna. A tuna sandwich may not sound like much but when my son has gone long periods without lifting a finger to do anything for himself, it's more then a start. If he only picks up some of the garbage when I'm tidying up his room, it's better then not helping at all. If he misses items while picking up after himself in the living room, he is picking up after himself. He did a load of laundry on Friday with little prompting from me. He still has another load to do and maybe today I can get him to tackle it.
I have been thinking about my part to play in all this. How I can help to build the right foundation with the right building blocks. He has missed out on so much including a reasonably normal child and parent relationship which includes arguments and butting heads over responsibilities and boundaries. Both of my kids have... I think I blogged a little while ago that I'm pretty fed up with schizophrenia. I have allowed it to control almost every aspect of our lives when it doesn't need to. Schizophrenia like any disease or disorder is not all of who my son is. He is a person outside of that and that person is not always Mr. Sunshine. Neither am I for that matter ;)
As a child grows and learns the boundaries of what s/he can or cannot do... My son has never learned those boundaries. Instead he has run from parent to parent to grandparent which we allowed. Each of us in turn contributing to what I can now see is probably more behavioral issues then mental illness.
I have been trying to think through and decide what to do about my son living with me long-term or being in the group home. I do believe that the group home is the best choice for him. Not the easy choice but the best choice. Currently we are experiencing a calm time... It never lasts though. And in the end my son can't live at home forever. He needs to take those steps out into adulthood.
What can I do? I think I need to reread how to discipline ADHD and ODD children and how to set appropriate boundaries and not be drawn into stupid arguments. This is a big one as I'm pretty sure my son tried to draw me into one last night. He again wanted a ride over to his friend's house or partner in instability is what I've given to calling him in my head. I of course said no to giving him a ride. I didn't say no to him going, I'm just not going to contribute to or enable the choice of drinking alcohol and smoking marijuana. Like I have referenced before (I think), I wouldn't drive him to a crack house so why would I drive him to a marijuana house... The reality is that right now alcohol and marijuana are as dangerous to my son as crack-cocaine is to me (a recovering addict) perhaps even more so as using will make him psychotic.
I blogged about ODD here: Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) and Anger
The harder part in all this may be the age appropriate boundaries... How to tell what is age appropriate for someone recovering from psychosis. I guess I will have to wing it... I know that he is capable of doing much much more then he is willing to do. Control myself, pick my battles, resist rescuing him from consequences and build on the positives! Bless him as he even makes building on the positives a hard one. It's like praising him gives him the idea that he can stop trying...
When I said that I wasn't taking him and that I wasn't going to discuss it further he asked me: What can we discuss then!? Ironically watching my husband refrain from saying anything even though I could see it pissing him off, helped me to not respond. It was obvious by my son's tone that he was looking for an argument. Piss me off and I would be more willing to have him out of the home and therefore give him a ride. I'm learning from my husband! Yes pick me up off the floor ;). It's a good learning curve for me though and I need to spend some time reading the books he is reading as I know that I'm not above learning and I really don't know everything... ;)
I blogged about these books here: Hello 2015! CBT and Mindfullness
I think I'm finally over that god awful cold! Now that I'm feeling better I can start putting myself in a better frame of mind and start taking care of things again. I sometimes mentally shake my head at myself as I let things slide entirely too far. I stopped doing all or most of the things that I tell other caregivers to do for themselves. Shame on me! I don't know where she went but my normal upbeat self got lost there for a little bit. I'm glad I'm coming back :) I need to take care of me too and that means not missing vitamins and supplements, doing my stretches and taking some time away from schizophrenia and mental health related things.
We are moving! So I need to start getting organized. I can't do much yet as we don't have an exact moving date but I can start clearing out things as I get back into the routine of doing more then the bare minimum around here. A little or lot of housework will do me some good!
To my sister if you are still reading: Thank you for the tablet for my son! He is enjoying it very much!
Mom
BarbieBF
Friday, January 2, 2015
Hello 2015! CBT and Mindfullness
Happy New Year!
Above picture credit to: freedesignfile.com
I can't say that 2015 rolled in with a bang... It quietly arrived without a lot of fanfare, bringing with it some old and some new.
I don't recall if I mentioned this before but for Christmas hubby and I decided our present to each other would be our wedding bands. He wanted to get me a new engagement ring and since we are legally common-law I thought: Why not go one step further and get the whole set? I'm sure one day we will say our vows but for right now I wanted a ring on his finger too!
We have managed to get over our disagreement. Actually I would have to say that hubby has managed to surprise me. After a day of us not talking and my son starting to question what was wrong, I started a conversation with my hubby about what happened. Since then my hubby has been doing some reading. One book had been recommended to us as a form of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) at home. Mind Over Mood: Change how you feel by changing the way you think. The other book is one we got awhile ago. Mindfulness for Dummies. He has been reading both of them! I have some catch up reading to do as over the past week I have been hearing a lot of: This is in the book... as he is doing things like cleaning the kitchen and talking to me alone about what is happening with my son instead of putting his foot in his mouth ;) or letting anger guide him.
'Mind Over Mood' I did start to read when we first got it and I was impressed with what I read. One of the first exercises gives you a situation and three different ways to look at it and right away you can see how our thoughts can determine how we feel or respond to something. The situation on the outside doesn't change but if you change how you 'think' then you change how you feel and therefor how you behave in response. I did spend some time discussing this chapter with my hubby and used myself as an example. I think that I have to a certain degree been using CBT for awhile now. I changed how I thought about my own parents. I could continue to blame them for everything that is wrong with me or my life or I could change how I thought about them. By changing this all my anger and resentment fell away. Instead I saw reasons to have compassion and empathy for them. My childhood didn't change... My thoughts did. As each scenario that has shaped you into who you are is looked at just a little differently... without the anger, the resentment, the judgement... Well it can be pretty powerful. I can say that I'm more then pleasantly surprised and impressed with the change that I am seeing in my husband. Reading 'Mindfulness for Dummies' is helping him to get a better understanding of the here and now and what he is currently feeling which will help better understand 'Mind Over Mood'.
He upped his Cipralex back to 20 mg. Yesterday he decided to go back on the Adderall. Even though we think that it caused the hives, the only way to tell for sure is to go back on and see if it happens again. Now that he his reading these books he feels confident in having better coping skills or ways of thinking and is going to drop back to 15 mg of Cipralex. He is doing all this on his own! Aside from the medication changes which I'm not sure how his doctor will react... I'm impressed! He is being pro-active and taking charge of his own feelings and working on changing them.
We have both discussed some of this in front of my son... You can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink. My husband wants to change and is willing to take steps to make that change... My son is a different story.
While the above changes with my husband gives me a lot of hope for 2015 and is the new that I referred to before. The old... is my son...
Yesterday started what looks like may be the beginning of another relapse. If I can even call it a relapse since really he hasn't, in my opinion, gained the stability that I know is possible. The Olanzapine has been helping however the Invega seems to be leaving his system, again. He is due for his next shot in 3 days, on Monday. I wasn't thinking about this yesterday when my son first started talking about wanting to go off some of his medications. I'm not sure why his Lithium, after being on it for two years, has suddenly become a problem for him. Like I said I wasn't thinking... My initial reaction to him saying that he wanted to go off medications was to remind him that he had signed an agreement with me to be medication compliant as a condition to living here. That I can't force him to take medications, that is his choice however I don't think it's fair to ask me to watch him relapse and go back into psychosis or become depressed by choice from not taking this Lithium. He needs to talk to his treatment team if he wants to make medication changes as coming completely off the Lithium like that without slowly decreasing can cause him to plummet into a depression that doesn't need to happen.
It wasn't until I heard him on the phone with his Nana and while trying to discuss this with him, that signs of what I call psychosis talk became more apparent. He wasn't making sense. Talking about living for 20000 years on medications, that he was manic but didn't have mania and words like sacrament.... He said he will keep taking his Clozapine. He hasn't been on Clozapine since before his last break. He did agree to keep taking his Olanzapine, acknowledging that he needs the antipsychotic, when I reminded him that is what he is on now.
He ended up calling his Nana again and I purposely put the movie hubby and I were watching back on so that I couldn't hear. I know that he needs this outlet and well honestly I didn't want to hear his psychosis talk. Sorry Nana... I just didn't have it in me to listen last night. I didn't bring up or try to talk to him again about his medications instead got them ready like I always do, kissed him good night and went to watch TV in bed with hubby. It appears he took them, at least I hope he did. The dish was empty when I checked around 11. He didn't have an easy time going to sleep though and was awake at 3 when I checked on him. Not a good sign. Either he didn't take all of his medications or psychosis symptoms are getting worse so his medications are not enough to quiet his mind for sleep. I'm guessing it's the psychosis getting worse.
I called PACT today... I was thinking today why I'm having a tough time with my patience with them. Perhaps I want them to step in, take over and fix my son which I know logically is not going to happen. I guess I'm feeling tired. Tired of feeling like the responsibility of keeping my son stable is more on me then on them. So many times on the schizophrenia.com forum I tell family members about the 3 C's. I didn't cause it, I can't control it and I can't cure it. I think I need to take my own advise here. Maybe I need to stop trying to fight battles that are not mine to fight. I can help my son fight if it's what he wants and I will gladly do so. However if he doesn't want to be stable... There's the catch though. If he doesn't have the insight to know what he is fighting? I guess I have to fight for him. Maybe I need to learn a different word then fight... Maybe I need to do some CBT!
Back to PACT. His psychiatrist is still off for the holidays so there is no one around to make a medication change. His case worker is off today and his nurse should be around later. It's Friday... Not sure why this always seems to happen right before the weekend. Not that it makes much different as the results seem to be same either way. Supplement with the Olanzapine. My son did agree to take one this morning so that is good. I'm not sure what they plan to do about his Invega shot on Monday since my son has already stated that he will not take it again.
Today I can tell that he isn't ok. Although the Olanzapine I gave him just over an hour ago seems to be helping. *fingers crossed* we get through the weekend ok and can maybe get something that works better next week. I like the Invega but if he isn't going to be on medicinal dose or even a form of it that he will comply with...
On another note. I gave my notice to terminate our tenancy here on February 28! Wish me luck that we get the townhouse that I have put in an application for! I really, really want it!
Mom
BarbieBF
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)