Are these signs of schizophrenia?

A person I know had a very large number of kids because he believes jews have a plan to destroy the white race and enslave humanity. He even purposely continued having kids through a stretch of unemployment that lasted several years because, according to him, he was not going to let the jews stop him from having kids by causing him to be unemployed.

He also says he sees spirits who communicate with him. He says he sees these spirits the same way that he'd see a live person. He also says he sees visions and gets messages from spirits and god. He also sometimes wonders if the government is bugging his vehicle or home. He says he's going to be famous one day after he invents a spirit communication device that will allow people and spirits to talk to each other.

He is someone I've known since I was a child (he's substantially older than me). I've always thought his views were weird and I couldn't understand why he would waste his time with things like messages and visions. After recently reading up on schizophrenia though I'm afraid he may have that.

Is this schizophrenia, or could there be some other explanation for this?

Dear David,

it sounds awfully lot like schizophrenia. He has many symptoms of it. It may be very hard to do something about it. He doesn't understand that he's sick. If you try to convince him to seek help, he'll turn against you due to his paranoia.

The treatment nowadays is pretty effective, but if he had it for years, it may take quite some time before is starts to work. His delusions will be the hardest to eradicate.

I do hope you'll try to help him. Involuntary commitment may be the best option.

Best of luck,
Mirage

Oh boy. I do want to help him. I suggested to him during our last conversation that he may have this and as you predicted he didn't like it. He thinks it's a gift and said he just isn't going to tell me about this anymore if I'm going to question his mental health.

I'm not really sure how to go about helping him since he's resistant and I happen to live pretty far away from him now. He believes that he's meant to do good so he's never seemed dangerous. Also, he's held down a job for decades. He's a trade worker who makes a decent living. With involuntary commitment, I'm worried that he could lose his job. He's in an industry that's been struggling and has been looking to shed the more expensive older workers. He probably couldn't get a similar one if that happened and his family is financially dependent on him. I'm still thinking over what I should do for him.

Thank you for your response. It helps to have a little more certainty about all this.

-- Wed Jun 29, 2011 9:10 am --

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