I’m 18 years old and my brother is 19 going on 20 in the month of May and is away at college across the country. My family has a history of schizophrenia that has been mostly prevalent in the males, my cousin developed schizophrenia at around this age and one of my other cousins has been battling this mental health condition for as long as I can remember, which is why my sister and I have been keeping a watchful eye on my brother to see if he exhibits any symptoms. 

To start, my brother has adhd and is taking medication for that and he smokes marijuana (it’s legal in our state). Some of the early things I can think back on is his senior year of high school (around the ages of 17 and 18) he stopped hanging around his closest friends, people we’ve known for years and would come over quite often to hang out. We’d always ask him why they didn’t come around or why he didn’t really hang out with anyone anymore and he chalked it up to them moving their separate ways which we felt was valid. He’s very emotional when he’s angry and has social anxiety, he doesn’t like going out or being where a lot of people are. I also noticed that when we were both in high school at the same time that he kept very much to himself and would really only talk to me, but that’s if I made the effort to speak to him in the mornings during breakfast or during passing periods. 

He called me this morning and told me had something important to talk about so of course I dropped what i was doing to listen because he sounded distressed. During this conversation he told me that he thinks that one of his roommates wants to rob him but he didn’t know if he was 100% sure. I asked him what his thought process was so I could get more insight and try my best to help him, but there isn’t much I can do being across the country. He told me that he heard him talking to another one of his roommates “in code” while they were playing the game 2k saying things like “yeah I think I’m gonna (do something) to (x players name)” and the other roommate was like “No no not yet” and the one who he is suspicious about was like “Yeah I think I’m just gonna use this little bit of information that I have and just sit on it”. He’s especially on edge because he recently had a bit of a falling out with another one of his roommates who he considers to be like a brother to him because my brother became interested in filming for the basketball team (which is something his roommate does) and asked my mom for help to buy an expensive camera. He heard that roommate talking bad about him because he got the camera quickly but also has nice things in his room like a bass guitar, a vr headset and other things he doesn’t have because of his financial situation, so he said that he gets fed with a silver spoon (that story is for another time for another subreddit). He also asked me if he should call our biological dad because he grew up a little bit rough and would know this kind of thing and to see if he still had ties so someone can come lookout for him, I don’t know that sounded like some mafia stuff so I told him not to do that and just call our stepdad cause that sounded a little bit outrageous to me. 

I’m not sure if this is something he should be worried about or if he’s just feeling like his roommates are out to get him, but I did offer him solutions, like buying a trunk so he could lock his valuables in it while he’s away and to send back some things of value that he doesn’t use because it’s the end of the semester anyway and it’ll end up coming home at some point. There was another incident when we were on a family trip and we’re doing zip lining and he suddenly didn’t want to do it anymore because he felt like the workers wanted him to get hurt because he was being eager and walked a little bit ahead of my sister and I before they could clip his safety line on the stand, he was also really high, so we don’t know if he was just being paranoid because he was high. He also called my mom a month ago or so saying that he heard one of his roommates friends saying that he was “off” and to watch out for him because you never know what he’s gonna do just because he walks around campus with his hood up and headphones in. I know that it really hurt his feelings and it upset everyone that someone said something about him like that because he’s harmless. 

I don’t want to talk to him about my worries because I, 1.) don’t want to invalidate what he is feeling 2.) don’t want to worry him or make him feel “crazy” or something because I know that he’s not. and 3.) I don’t want him to be angry at me, I know that there is nothing “wrong” with him because mental health doesn’t automatically mean he’s a damaged person, but we have a relationship where we make fun of each other, so I don’t want him to think I’m picking fun at him especially with something so serious or judging him or anything like that. 

I’m not asking for anyone to diagnose him, I just want to be sure that he’s not experiencing anxiety about the situation and I want to know if these are in fact symptoms considering his history and our family history and if I should speak to the rest of my family so we can take the next steps with him.