Well, this dude is one of the more severe cases so I’m contemplating if we should take him to a psychologist to see if he improves. To illustrate this, a year ago, he started interpreting the sound of people walking around the house with slippers on as voices telling him that person is going to harm him and he started reacting violently so now slippers are banned in the house lol. It’s why I’m not even sure a psychologist will do much but his mother will definitely try anything if I suggest this to her.
We never explored this option because 10-15 years ago, there were no real psychologists in his province in China because even seeing a psychiatrist was “taboo” since you’d have to be severely mentally ill and displaying really overt symptoms. People in the community would shun you if you had something like depression and they out found you went to see one. Since there was no demand and less income potential, few people went and specialized in these 2 professions, with the former being almost non-existent. It’s changed quite a lot lately.
They were just, like I described above, there to take indepth surveys and send in reports to his psychiatrist. I think the rules even prevented them from even speaking to us about his condition. And I have to give his psychiatrists in the government mental institution every time we warded him a couple of hundred USD in a brown envelope like in the fucking movies just so they actually give him the standard of care a normal patient should be expecting. The patients whose caregivers couldn’t afford this received crap treatment and I’m not even talking about the medical part. Blankets, extra food, toiletries etc. Socialism’s great. They are so used to bribes the fuckers just take them nonchalantly and have never even thanked me once over the years lol.
It’s why I even brought him over to my country to see a private psychiatrist but he doesn’t seem to be improving despite almost every psychiatrist telling me his illness normal improves with age and schizos are non-violent. Tell that to his mum. He’s got a pretty good right hook which he will use when you least expect him to because his “triggers” change all the time.
I’m not sure if everyone has once thought that, but the idea that you’ll have MORE flexibility AFTER college is comical to me.
When I was in college, my only obligation was to graduate. I had to study, write papers, and do what it took to do that.
When I graduated, I got a job and a family. My obligation was NOW to work that job, do things to ensure I made continued progress IN said job (which included getting MORE education), AND provide for my family, which includes money AND time.
When I had a kid, it got even MORE restrictive.
I trained martial arts all through college. Hung up my gloves within months of getting married. It was too much of a time sink, and I had to prioritize.
College is the time to try new things. Join a bunch of clubs and activities NOW so you have an idea of what you find interesting when you are in a situation where you have to pick and choose.
Gym, rock crawling, dirt bikes, race cars, rc cars, mountain biking, BMX, kayaking, 4x4 four wheelers, hunting, fishing, skateboarding, drugs, alcohol, competitive shooting, golf, and probably a few more.
Some I miss, some I don’t. You should try anything you think will make you happy!
Haven’t graduated yet, but I imagine I will miss the days when I have time to be at the gym at 6am, 2pm, 4pm and after 6pm the same day or when I have a three day weekend every week because my only “class” is a recitation that goes over stuff I already know
Confession: I have a lot of free time on the weekends but no motivation to go off campus.
The past week was midterms+ midsemester break so literally a 4 day weekend with minimal homework. I went to the grocery store for squash, but spent the rest of the time on research, netflix and working on a useless model
My excuse is that I explore more than my friend
I agree that you should try out lots of stuff to see what you enjoy doing, but yeah…I wouldn’t ever assume that once you are done with college and move into a job that takes up a third or more of the hours you have in a day for the rest of your life that you’ll have more time and be more flexible.
If you’re a college student and college is your ONLY responsibility then that’s an awesome gift. (I personally wouldn’t count lifting and cooking as a responsibility…) The second you have bills to pay, children to take care of, a house to keep up with, and a job to spend most of your day at…college will have seemed like a breeze and you’ll be having to cut out lots of stuff.
Flexibility, most likely yes… a lot more responsibilities that will demand from that flexibility? Most likely, yes. I think the proper word you’re looking for is free time - that one? probably not
Confession: Sometimes I forget how public speaking/presenting is a skill and that I shouldn’t be so hard on myself. I talked about my student org on an online class today. I will be talking in another class on Wednesday as well. Not gonna lie, sometimes my mind hits a blank and I lose my train of thought. Sometimes it’s a little hard to find the right words to explain my thoughts.
Maybe I’m a nutcase for thinking I’m supposed to have a flawless presentation when I haven’t practiced it at all. But regardless I most definitely want to improve on this
I think the better avenue would be to ask on a particularly good day if he thinks it would be of benefit to him. The role of the therapist would be to help him assess the things he’s experiencing and decide what to do, so there needs to be trust. I had a parole-ordered schizophrenic come in and start talking about women and having things implanted and his ex (“the black widow”) worked at the hospital so altered labs so it wouldn’t show that he was being poisoned…I started carrying bear spray to work, and honesty considered a gun. He had a long history of violence against women (and abduction) and I’m supposed to sit for an hour probing at him? NO. So if your relative isn’t onboard, there’s no point. You can’t explain people out of hallucinations and delusions because essentially you’re asking them to disregard what they’re seeing and hearing. So you have to work with. It’s a hand-holding role, helping to manage fear around the slippers noise, how to react when he hears it, for example. Maybe go look, see if anyone is wearing slippers? Okay, if so, maybe the voices are friendly rather than hostile, or misinterpretations altogether? Paranoia is difficult to work with because again you’re in opposition to the things they know.
The benefit would be having someone they come to trust over time. The guy I have coming in was referred by his psychiatrist, and I’m sure I was presented as some variation on “very nice and very smart, and can help you sort through this.” The referral came from a trusted person, but this guy seems to trust medical people in general (hence the emergency room visits when he scares himself).
I’m not sure if that’s helpful, but asking him would probably work best, and that should be done by someone he trusts on a good day. I’m really sorry, for him and for all of you who care. It’s a terrible disease. Schizophrenia, of course, but particularly when paranoia is a feature, because it chips away at everything important in life. Security, love, trust.
I will say that I’ve had a couple of patients who were paranoid, but for whom I somehow slipped into “trusted,” and so managed to be allied. “I really think it’s a bad idea to buy a gun, manic-and-increasingly-delusional-and-paranoid guy. This just isn’t the time.” (And then I notify crisis and they notify the cops, and sure enough, there’s his new gun.)
It was pleasant. I made a double burger with it and a salmon burger. They add a good amount of spices to flavor it. Next time I need to spray the grill down though: it’s so lean that a good chunk got stuck to the grill. But they’re only 90 calories, which means you could just stack a bunch on top of each other and get that “huge burger” impression without being really calorically stupid.
I confess that I’ve been slowly rearranging different grip positions regardless of low it takes me to get used to them, as well as uncomfortableness, because I don’t wanna break a nail.
Note cards! Little three-inch by five-inch note cards with a two or three word bullet point about each main idea with a few following words to remind you of each sub-point for the main points. Practice with them in front of a mirror, watching to see if you’re looking out at the “audience” the majority of the time. If you have time and a friend, classmate, or roommate available, run through the presentation with them next, before presenting in class.
You’re right, public speaking is a skill. The upside is it’s learnable and able to be honed.
