[Thevet]

Just had to chime in because my story is similar (and I rarely get the chance to talk about this stuff because, frankly, no one really enjoys talking about it). My younger brother also developed symptoms of schizophrenia about four years ago, and was recently diagnosed with it. Unfortunately he basically hasn't left my parents' house for the past 18 months or so (he had a psychotic episode that resulted in arrest/hospitalization and was forced to drop out of the Ivy League graduate program he had been in). We can't get him on any kind of medication because his religious mania causes him to reject western psychiatry.

My parents also recently started attending a NAMI course and it seems to be helping. I recommend it to anyone going through a similarly painful situation. The hardest thing for me is the lack of insight in my brother (in the psychiatric sense of the term) - how to convince someone they're insane? I have to assume that it'll come from him rather than us if it does, but he seems to be losing grip on reality more and more with each year. I'm curious if you or anyone else in a similar situation can talk about how that breakthrough happened and if there's anything to be done to encourage it.