How to Help Husband with Paranoid Personality Disorder

[AnonymousM]

Any tips on how to help someone with paranoid personality disorder ? When the psychotic episode happens, the person is not themselves anymore. They say hurtful things, and always threaten to leave (wife and children)? Difficult for me to always wake up with a feeling of dread and not knowing if something will trigger an episode. 

[therising]

The warmest of welcomes to you at what really does sound like a dreadful, stressfull and exhausting time for you in your life. My heart goes out to you.

I can't help but wonder what their inner dialogue sounds like. The reason I wonder is based on what some people hear in the way of inner dialogue. The 'you' factor can be such a major influence. What I mean by the 'you' factor is some people's inner dialogue can sound like 'I have to leave this job, it's destroying me', whereas other people will hear 'You have got to leave this job, it's destroying you'. It's like something is talking to us, encouraging us to leave that job. Call it 'Intuition', 'The sage' in us or something else (that speaks to us). Pretty harmless and even helpful stuff. Next level can take us way too far into our imagination. It's not imagined as simple 'intuition' or 'the sage', it can be imagined as other things like 'The absolute truth' or 'The divine word of God' or whatever else. Any hope of competing with the absolute truth or the divine word of god goes out the door. How could we compete with such things? Grounding someone out of their imagination can be key in some cases.

Beyond or besides inner dialogue, there can also be a 'major shift of consciousness' factor at play. While it's natural and even healthy to become more conscious and suspicious of certain things or people on occasions, hyper consciousness and suspicion is a whole other story. Bringing inner dialogue back into play, if the suspicious part of us is 100% fully conscious (which leaves no room for the reasonable part of us to have a say), it could sound like 'You can't trust anyone. Remember what happened the last time you trusted someone or believed someone and they proved to be untrustworthy. Do not trust anyone, especially anyone who tells you to trust them'. Hope it makes sense when I say that this kind of creates a loop. Hyper suspicion fuels the inner dialogue which fuels hyper suspicion and hyper vigilance. The person can be stuck in the loop of an altered state of consciousness. Leading them to become fully conscious of something completely unrelated can break the loop in some cases. Grounding them through a significant shift in consciousness.

While I know it's very different circumstances, my husband's drinking alters his state of consciousness. When he's drunk a certain amount, he becomes more conscious of some things and far less conscious of other things that he should be aware of. I manage the 2 states and therefor him very differently depending on which state he's in. My grown kids and I have even given his altered state a name, 'Ian'. The name popped into my daughter's head one day. 'Ian' is unreasonable, lacks a filter at times, has limited abilities (aka 'intellectual disabilities'), threatens to leave the marriage because I'm a horrible person and so on. My kids and I acknowledge, through our unusual and occasionally humorous way of managing, my husband/their father cannot recall anything 'Ian' has been told and 'Ian' cannot recall much of anything my husband has been told when he's sober. For my husband, the altered states are brought on by chemical shifts through alcohol. For the person you speak of, do you know what proves to be mind altering for them? What is their trigger or what are their triggers? What shifts their mind state and chemistry? Btw, my 22yo daughter has actually recorded her father in the past, to prove to him that he is a different person at times. Without proof, he just doesn't believe it or flat out refuses to believe it. Wondering if you've ever recorded this person you speak of, to prove to them that their altered state is a serious problem in your life and you're not just making it up.

[Croix]

Dear AnonymousM~

Welcome. I'm very sorry to hear you are in this position, never knowing what is going to happen and how hurtful or extreme your husbands actions will be. I'm sure you have thought of the effect on your children too.

Its difficult. Ideally your husband should have therapy with a psychologist or other clinician to assist his coping skills and steer him towards more realistic reactions.

Unfortunatly as I have seen in my life the person concerned thinks they are in the right, there is no problem and medical assistance is not called for. Feelings of great distrust and suspicion, even wiht those close, that they will try to harm or persecute them in some way. In the end when the became to extreme an ambulance was called.

They may be unable to accept any criticism, be prone to jealously, and not fare well in relationships and not want to confide or open up

This paces a great strain on you, and wihtout your husband seeking help would seem to be a permanent state.

Can I suggest you need to look after yourself first, get your own support and lean on a friend or family member or clinician if you can?

I'm not sure it is a good thing to reinforce paranoid thoughts, so one needs to walk a fine line between acknowledging their thoughts but try to ease fears, arguing I think would make things worse, such thoughts are not open to logic.

It helps to always say what you want to say in everyday life very clearly without ambiguity, so dark thoughts are not set off.

Having said all that I've not asked what your thoughts and plans are. I'd be pretty sure you would think things cannot continue on this way for ever.

I'd look forward to it if you felt like talking some more.

Croix