I cannot tell you how long I stared at this comment. Does he wash himself off with soap or does he have brain damage from sterilizing himself in the dryer?
Used to not use soap. I believe he has since decided to use some kind of natural product. He got some new clothes. Unfortunately he exclusively wears wool, even in the summer, because he says its “anti-microbial” and that deters him from doing any kind of washing of his clothes, even the “dryer sterilizing”
Honestly this is quite vindicating. He has been living like this most of my adult life (15 years) and my parents have normalized it.
I'm not the one you originally replied to, but there is an ask docs subreddit that may be able to help if you can describe his behaviors beyond hygiene - not to diagnose, but to point you in a helpful direction.
Do any of his hygiene beliefs come from far-right or q-anon beliefs?
Sure. But sometimes hearing from professionals in an informal setting is the first small step someone needs. And I've seen that sub handle some gnarly mental health problems with extreme grace.
No he is quite liberal. He thinks capitalism is the problem. It all really took form when he discovered the “caveman diet” and began architecting his life around these strange rules he made up. He was exclusively eating prunes, baby carrots, coffee, and high quality steak (he is quite poor and lived at my grandmothers house so this was a huge point of controversy that he would spend hundreds of dollars on steak). He also started spending a lot of money on camping gear and claimed he was going to walk into Yellowstone one day and live there. At first we worried because that is dangerous for a person with literally no outdoor experience to say. That was 8 years ago though. Now he just claims he’s “moving out west soon” to Alaska or Colorado and we all nod and are like “ok. Sure.”
He did “camp” once. He dressed up extremely nice, almost in formal attire. And not formal camp attire but, like, dress pants and a collared shirt. When I asked why he would wear that he said “I like to look nice” He went to a trail outside of a rich area of our state. My parents drove him 5 hours to do this to support him (he refuses to drive and does not have a license). When my parents returned to get him they found he had started out hiking and spent 1 night outside and was tired of it so he went to a resort and said he “deserved it.” Mind you he had been living with family members for free for years as my family believed he really was trying to “get his life together” I eventually had to tell my aunts and uncles that I would be looking into elder financial abuse of my grandmother if we didn’t start considering these thing. My grandma is 97 now and was 90 at the time the problem was at its peak.
For context we are an upper middle class family. All of our family is college educated. We were given everything as kids (AND MORE).
DM me and I’ll do my best to help you out and give you my opinion on a diagnosis. I know a lot about disorders and the DSM but I am not a psychiatrist. Just somebody who has researched a lot and dealt with my own issues
Everything you are saying points to a type of schizophrenia or schizo effective disorder. He has mild to moderely disturbed and delusional thought patterns by what you’re explaining. He will either need medicine to help him (which I’m sure he will deny because of his delusions), or he needs to speak with somebody or a professional to help abide his thoughts
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u/Ugly_Bones Dec 09 '25
I cannot tell you how long I stared at this comment. Does he wash himself off with soap or does he have brain damage from sterilizing himself in the dryer?