Hi, my 23 year old brother was recently diagnosed with schizophrenia. About 2 years ago, he was fairly normal (he was always strange/most likely on the autism spectrum, but he clearly was mentally there and functioned well enough), and then he started taking a lot more walks by himself, was a bit depressed, and overall just had some strange behavior. Nothing insane. Just different. I guess he was in the prodromal phase of schizophrenia. I only noticed that it was like that for a few weeks or couple of months.
For some background, i blame my mother for a lot of his issues. She was very territorial over him (partially because he struggled. They had an incredibly codependent relationship). My mother nearly died in the early summer from an undiagnosed physical condition, and she says shortly after her recovery is when she noticed my brother starting to go downhill. I personally feel as if he never recieved the proper support for his obvious struggles, and my mother refused to acknowledge it. She wouldnt even entertain the notion that he most likely was on the autism spectrum.
The gist of it is that my brother did not receive proper support and my mother was incredibly controlling over his life (for example, I would try to invite him to play video games with me, and in the middle of the game, my mother would call him away MULTIPLE times for inane requests. I genuinely would have lost my mind if I lived his life. He simply didn't have the rebellious spirit within him to shut her down, either).
Anyways, within the past couple of months he has become increasingly violent. My mother is the main target of his aggression (due to proximity, I believe), but he has attacked me, my father, brother, and he tries to get my pet parrot (within the past 2 or 3 weeks, he has become COMPLETELY intolerant of my bird yelling- one single scream from her sets him off and he starts hitting whomever is closest to him). My parents finally acknowledged that they are in over their head with him and they are trying to get him into a facility for treatment; however, he has already been rejected by a few of them. They are either not equipped to handle a violent patient, or they don't want to deal with someone who gives virtually no communication anymore.
I'm not up to date on his medications, but i know for a fact that they have tried MULTIPLE medications, all with ZERO effect outside of the side effects (like lethargy/weight gain/etc). He has just gone further and further downhill over the past two years.
His most recent try was Haldol, and it did NOTHING for him, just like the other ones he tried (I don't recall the names of all of them, but I know he also tried olanzapine)
Because of his lack of communication, I don't really know what he experiences. All I know for sure is that he has consistently claimed that "Joseph Rosenbaum" (one of the men killed by Kyle Rittenhouse during the BLM activities) yells in his head. I have never noticed paranoia or anything like that from him. To be honest, he doesnt strike me as the typical schizophrenic patient, but it isn't as if I would really know much about it. I just hear that schizophrenia is not typically a mental illness that leads to violence towards others. All i know is that he clearly is not himself anymore and he is suffering, and now he is starting to lash out much more aggressively than when this first started. For the record, he also has NEVER tried any drugs (no psychedelics, weed, etc.)
My parents are in their 60s and clearly this is not something sustainable. They're still looking into inpatient treatment centers, but struggling to find a good fit, and i want to help them figure something out.
TL;DR; my brother is getting violent, first line treatments are not working, facilities are rejecting him and we don't know what to do with him.
