flashing ticker
To interact with this page you must login.      Signup

How do you deal with someone with undiagnosed delusional schizophrenia?

A friend of mine has what I suspect is undiagnosed delusional schizophrenia. He has been bothering me and a few other friends with his conspiracy theories.

He claims that someone hacked his smartphone (and has switched to a feature phone) and disseminated its contents to many people, and has strongly implied that I and other friends are in league with (or afraid of) the hacker. He thinks this hacker is updating his Facebook and hacked him as a way to teach him a lesson for some minor slight he dealt us.

He thinks everyone is trying to send him subtle messages through our Facebook walls, and interprets normal Facebook posts as subtle, calculated attempts to aggravate him, and sees meaning in everyday actions (e.g. turns out a place we had lunch is near an anonymous HIV testing centre - he didn't say but presumably we are implying he has AIDS).

He doesn't trust email (even sent from a new email account to another new email account) as it "can be intercepted and spoofed".

He thinks I am working with the secret police (FBI-equivalent) and that he's being investigated as a Marxist/Communist who intends to subvert the state.

We have suggested he see a doctor but naturally he refuses to and claims there is nothing wrong with him. Since he is undiagnosed he is not in the medical system where his condition can be managed and treated.

I don't know or have a way to contact his family so they can supervise him more closely and get him help.
spacer
categorylife
typeadvice
tynamite
tynamite's avatar Let's do a simple thought experiment. Let's imagine you and me are walking down the street at 7pm with me and you tell me how shiny the moon is. I look up and say that there is no moon even when you point to it. You would think that I am trying to trick you or are mistaken. Let's imagine you receive suspicious Facebook messages and when you show me, I tell you that the messages are not what you read it to be and that you have nothing to worry about. You would think I was lying.

The fact of the matter is, when someone is hallucinating, it is very hard to convince them that they are, as we trust our brains 100% when we are not hallucinating. The only way you can stop him from hallucinating is via force. Even if someone is hearing voices telling them that you did something even though they're in the same room as you watching you do the opposite, they will still act as if you did it, because that's what the voice is saying even if they can see the opposite. I remember when I deliberately made myself hear voices once. The voice was demonic. That was an enlightening and strange experience.

When your brain is telling you something that is not true, it is very hard to convince yourself that you are hallucinating, because why wouldn't you trust your brain, it's worked for you so far in your life, and what other option do you have?

The only way you can stop this person from having delusions and from hallucinating is by force. It would be great if you could slip in some antipsychotic drugs in his food and watch for side effects, but that's illegal.
Just be lucky this person isn't dangerous or violent. If you force a doctor into his house, he'll jump out the window or try to escape, so think about that. This is why people enter psychiatric wards involuntarily and aren't allowed to escape until the doctors think they're better. There is no perfect system.
report this post permalink
What's an assertion, and what should I type in?

Compesh is a question and answer (and debate) website, so before you make a debate, you better learn what an assertion is. I suppose you already know what a question is, and that you've typed it in the box. ;)

An assertion, is basically a statement you can make, that is either true or false.

Richer people have better health.

The question for that would be, Do richer people have better health?

And don't forget to make your assertion, match your question.

Compesh logo