Hello Arron,

Well, congratulations for posting here. This a great site, that can help not only hoarders but family members of hoarders. There is an online support group(link to the right of the page), Sunday nights, that may be very helpful to you. We meet, and also pop in during other times. This may be helpful to get some insight or just vent. There are also some books that may be helpful, I believe, it's called "Digging out", for family members to read.
Your post has struck a personal note for me. I am sorry your brother suffers from the awful, awful disease of Schizophrenia. My father who just passed away at 63, unexpectedly, last July, was paranoid Schizophrenic. It's a life long battle, it may have been present before his traumatic events, it may not. It typically surfaces during the late teen years. For my father, we'll never know, as he was enlisted to Vietnam during those years.
These are two different issues that he is struggling with. I personally think the first area to start is his mental health, as he would struggle with hoarding anyway (his hoarding is not caused by his disease)but his mental health state can aggravate the hoarding. He has to become stable through trial and error medications. Which from my experience is a very long process, and some of which even if he was compliant, would have to be adjusted, switched, etc. There are injectable psych. meds that help stablize, there are monthly, weekly, etc. My father was non-compliant always. If he is a danger to himself or others, then he can be put into care that will help him. You must find a good Dr. that will help with the process.
This also is my opinion, but I think you need to tell him his son died. The reason you're not, I understand, however, he needs to know. If you are able to get him into care, and he starts to progress, and then you tell him, it can set him backwards, and he will lose his progress. It sounds as if he's already at ground zero currently,and if you tell him now, it may propel the care he needs to have for his safety.
The hoarding and clutter, the bringing things into the home, those are safety mechanisms. He suffered a traumatic event, maybe a few, and often those of us who have, try to overcompensate by surrounding ourselves with materials, instead of people or in addition...Hoarding is a complicated issue. I don't even know all the reasons behind my own, but I know that for me, who is in ok mental health, and others, who tend to be reasonable in other areas of their life, find hoarding to be overwhelming, and depressing. Often I can be protective of my things, not wanting others to help or touch. It makes me feel violated. Sometimes, we can be unrational. Your brother will never, ever be able to make sense of his hoarding, and be able to move forward by himself or with help from others, until his disease of Schizophrenia is addressed and starting to move forward. Hearing voices, seeing things, having the tv talk to you and tell you things, being irrational will not go away. Please find someone that will help him with this lifelong struggle. Hugs to you Arron. Please pop in to group also, for real-time support any time you need it! <3

That is all so very sad and tragic.

My only suggestion is for you to contact an attorney about having your brother placed somewhere where he would get the medical help he so desperately needs.
There they will monitor him and adjust his medications to stabilize him.
From there he should go to a halfway house where he would live with a professional staff and other patients with similar backgrounds.
A place where they learn skills to help keep them on the road to recovery and assimilate back into society.

Best wishes to you all.

Sincerely, Tillie

Hello to anyone that can help,
My name is Arron and this is really hard to type out but neither I nor my siblings know where to turn for help. Our brother suffer from Schizophrenia and maybe other mental issues caused from an emotional situation from about 14 years ago, he was in a Quad accident in the snow in Oregon, which put him in a coma. When he came out he had no memory. Our parents who are divorced brought him home and he stayed in a spare room my Dad made for him in the house that my Dad's family left to my Dad. Our brother slowly regained his memory and his Son while staying in my Dads home. He got a job that had a Day Care System. After a weekend of playing with neighboring children my brothers son had fell playing and bruised his knee and had a little knot on his head. When our brother took him to daycare on his way to work somehow abuse was charged and my brother and my father were going thru an ugly fight which they lost and our nephew was taken from the home. That pushed my brother over the edge, he started seeing things that were not there, talking to himself, bring anything into his room that he would find out in the streets, messing with the wiring in his room, thinking there was people stealing his things things he never owned, arguing with my Dad so much so that my Dad had to restrain him and had to call the police several times. I was active duty in the US Air Force station out of California at the time and my other siblings all had moved out of town so our Dad was dealing with this on his own with his new wife who has a daughter with a child that lives with them. Our brother was so bad my Dad left the house and moved to an apartment. To date our brother has totally taken over the home and the City came out and marked the home condemned. We had to come up with money we did not have to make repairs enough to keep the house. That caused major problems with my Dad and his siblings, my 2 uncles. They started arguing over the home to try and force our brother out but my Dad took over the situation and we saved the house. Our brother got so bad, one day I was in town and my brother was really freaking out he locked himself in his room so me and Dad called the police. We found that our brother was messing with the power box outside the house, the junction box close to the house and in the crawl space in the ceiling we found foil and different stuff he created for aliens. So this was not safe he could have burned down the house. The police came and was able to witness his illness enough to arrest him and 51/50 him. Our brother was locked up and received an evaluation. He was giving medication and was forced to take it. Long story short, they had to let him out but after going back to the county doctor he stopped taking the medicine and is now back to the place he started. Our family started to fix up the home but there is no money and my brother has brought so much junk into the house that my Dad has turned everything off but the electricity and the water.
My Dad needs help or the house will be taken and our brother will be forced to live on the streets. We cannot get into the living room or dining area. You can barely open the refrigerator and we could not finish any repairs so the bathroom only has a toilet, the other 3 rooms are full of stuff and junk and our brother is confined to an area he created that has a pallet that he sleeps on. To top it all off our nephew that was taken after all these years we found he and he came to visit my Sister and on his way home he pulled off the highway to look at his tire and was hit and killed. He has been gone for over 15 years and wanted to get to know his Dad and Grandfather but was taking from us again but this time forever. We have not told our brother because we are afraid of what it will do to our brother that is still inside of this person with Schizophrenia. This is all hurting my Dad and I am afraid for my Dads health. This is financially suffocating my Dad and I fear it is also slowly hurting my Dads health. We are looking for solutions.
Please someone help me save our brother and our father.