help for my friend with schizoaffective disorder

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ok..so I have this ex-roommate who has all kinds of issues...
some of them ASish...but he also has schizoaffective disorder http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schizoaffective_disorder

He is on SSI and gets medicare....but he is having trouble managing his stuff.
Over the past several months he has become increasingly erratic and difficult to deal with.
I think he needs more resources than he is getting, but I don't know where he might find them.
He needs a caseworker...or someone with knowledge of his condition who would um..check up on him...help him out...monitor his progress...make sure he is using his mediaction properly...etc...

Recently he was hospitalised for about a week and a half. They put him on three different medications while he was there, but once he was released he stopped taking everything but the depacote.

The thing is, that the Depocote alone does not seem to be working..and it is to the extent that I suspect that he is not taking it...but he gets very angry if I raise the issue with him. Last night he showed me the paperwork from the pharmacy to prove that he has filled his script..and was taking the stuff...
But...
The day before yesterday, he had a meltdown at work (he has a job at a catering company) They are aware of his condition and very tolerant with him...and did not show up the next day...(he did not mention this to us when he came over last night)...another ex-roommate who works with him told us
This morning finds him yelling alone in our middle room where he slept last night...meaning he skipped work again today...

It seems as though he has not been doing any better since his release from the hospital. and I am not sure what to do to help him.

Does anyone here have experience with Depacote and/or schizoaffective disorder?
Any ideas on what we (his friends) can do to help...mind you it is like walking on eggshells with him...and he finds non-existant meaning in everything and...well....you get the idea....

Warning: This is a sad story.

I recently went through a similar experience. I had a friend who had Bipolar I and was on SSI and supposedly took different meds, including lithium. She had been hospitalized several times in the past due to suicide attempts.

About a year ago, she started acting strangely. She called me all the time just to talk about herself. If I said anything, she wouldn't listen. She usually didn't give me a chance to say anything. She was irritable, acting jealous and sadistic. I stopped answering the phone when she called. Then I wrote her an email explaining why I was concerned. I used a lot of specific examples.

That angered her. She started calling me, emailing me, and text messaging me all the time, leaving long, rambling, nonsensical messages. She would do this for a month, then stop, then start again a few months later. I sent her one more email telling her to leave me alone. She wrote back, saying that she deleted it without reading it, and making lots of accusations that didn't make sense, such as blaming me for her mom's breast cancer. I heard from mutual friends that she was randomly screaming at people and acting violent.

She called me more and more frequently. She started threatening me. I called a mental health crisis team, but she evaded them and became more angry at me. I finally called her father and explained the situation. He was nice about it, but he couldn't do anything. She found out and got even more angry.

Then, a week or two later, her landlord found her wandering the appt complex, talking to herself in jibberish and scattering her belongings across the parking lot. She was hospitalized. She's still in the hospital now.

I'm planning to avoid her from now on because even if she returns to normal, she could become psychotic again at any time. I learned that there was little I could do to help her without provoking her and putting myself in danger. She was never violent in the past. I suspect that her bipolar disorder turned into schizoaffective disorder.

So be careful. Maybe you're taking action early enough that it won't become a dangerous situation for either of you. I know that there is no drug for schizoaffective disorder that always works, so he could be telling you the truth about taking the Depakote. I hope that you're successful in helping him.

As you live in Texas, a caseworker probably isn't going to happen. But you can't make yourself the case worker, or you're going to get hurt, either physically, or emotionally, because you aren't trained to help him, and those who are don't know that much either.

This is not a disorder for which there is much outside help.

It doesn't always turn out badly, sometimes the drugs make it better. Sometimes they make it worse. Basically, drugs are an intervention, not a treatment. If you're friend was an in-patient, I assume he's got a psychiatrist. That's the person to handle it.

If it's who I think it is, (from some of your other posts) then you'd better look to your own safety. I'm sorry. That's harsh, but bipolar is the new name for manic-depressive, and sometimes people with that can be dangerous, even when they don't want to be.

A very long time ago, I worked in a mental hospital in California (no, I'm not a doctor). There was a young woman there who was okay a lot of the time, but there were other times when we had to restrain her and drug her to the edge of existence. I always felt awful about that, but I wasn't a doctor. One day, as I was letting her out of the restraints, she said "did I hurt you," and I said no. "Did I hurt Ron?" "No." "Because I'm terrified of hurting you guys when I get in a mood. I see you, and I know who you are, but all of a sudden I don't care if I kill you....and I'd feel really awful if anything ever happened." and I said, "We're just as worried about hurting you." Well, we were all trained, and fortunately, nothing ever did happen, and I'm told that several years later she was released, symptom free, but several years is a long time to try to manage a person. You need to be careful about your own life.....I mean, about taking it up "helping" another person. I don't mean to be cold, but I've seen an awful lot of that. In the long run, I wish I knew what to say to you.

Good luck.

Btdt

Psychotic disorders suck.

The best thing you can do is don't show too much overt emotion around him, a calm environment.

There's not much you can do.

That is kinda pretty much what I do...I try to ground him and attempt to orient him with reality to the best of my ablility

He is not a physically dangerous person.
He does have friends who are used to his verbal tirades.

I have known him for almost 10 years. I used to be in a band with him. It is depressing that his meds don't seem to be working. I spoke to him last night. One never knows how he will react to what one says to him. I am honest with my opinion to him that he seems to be acting manic....he says..."there is no manic...there is no depression..there is just being"...or something
Meanwhile he is franticly calling everyone he knows on the phone over and over again....including my dad...yes he calls my dad....(kind of annoying..but oh well)

Anywhoo...The only thing I can do when he is around is give him calming herbs (that I take), which will relax him for a while...and um...sorta heavily supervise him...

The U.S. medical system sucks...He really needs someone to work with him.
I have a bad feeling that they are gonna toss him back in the looney hut again really soon if he does not calm down.