Facebook hacking or has my cousin lost his mind??

My cousin had a brain tumor 6 years ago and underwent 2 operations that left him with some physical and mental health issues. He's been on anti-depressants and seeing a psychiatrist and psychologist. Other than having some up and down moods, and periodically losing motivation, he's been doing a lot better.

He called me in the middle of the night 3 days ago, panicking that his Facebook had been hacked. He claimed that someone has "broken into his system" and when he logs into Facebook, everyone's pages have been replaced with clever forgeries designed to mock him and his friends and family. He claimed all of the status updates, comments, etc. were all fake, but he refused to read me any of them because he said they were very personal and embarrassing. The next morning, he called me in a panic that they'd "infiltrated the television" and were now replacing the news ticker at the bottom with subtle mockery designed to be innocuous to everyone but him.

I called in sick to work and drove over, because I was becoming concerned. He had print-outs of Wikipedia and Facebook pages he said had been hoaxed, but I couldn't find anything unusual about them. He made me watch MSNBC, but the ticker was totally normal. To him, a ticker headline like "Obama to appoint Secretary of Agriculture" was thehackers mocking his interest in organic farming. I took him to see his psychiatrist, where he admitted he hadn't slept in 48 hours and had smoked some marijuana a few hours before this started. The doctor felt that those were the reasons for this, and prescribed some Ativan to help him sleep for a few days. It's now been two days, and my cousin is still talking about this hack and how sophisticated it is. He's been covering up nail holes and cracks in his house to prevent "those assholes from watching him".

I'm really concerned that this is not an acute paranoid delusion, but the onset of something more permanent and serious, like schizophrenia.

What I'm curious about is if there even is a way to hack and replace someone's Facebook news feed and friends' pages with fake information. Is that even posible?

It is hard to see people we care about go through things like this. For some reason, at least for me, seeing someone I know struggle mentally is heart wrenching. Makes me feel so helpless and powerless.

I hope things turn out okay and that he is doing somewhat better. Hopefully he has a followup appointment very soon?

As far as somebody being able to hack facebook, why would anybody go through that much effort just to prank someone? Sounds very time consuming, posing as a whole friend's list worth of people and making cleverly thought out subtle little mockeries. And it would take a very special sort of person to do that sort of thing to someone suffering from post-craniotomy mental disorders.

Thanks for the reply, AntcuFaalb.

He is not very computer-savvy, and I found out yesterday he doesn't even have virus or firewall protection. He ran with a bad crowd in high school, petty criminals, drug abusers, etc. He's convinced that a couple of these guys are perpetrating this attack against him to ruin him. It is, at least theoretically, possible that someone has gotten access to his computer through a virus or trojan (although I've yet to see any evidence of this). But it seems like a lot more work than just typing some mean stuff about a person. We're talking about creating an entirely fake Facebook with all the image and status displaying technology of Facebook. Seems as unlikely as someone hacking the MSNBC news feed.

I've spoken with his doctor, and he thinks it's more likely that we're seeing an underlying delusional disorder coming to the surface. The next step will be prescribing an anti-psychotic for a few days to see if that helps.

CP3S said:

It is hard to see people we care about go through things like this. For some reason, at least for me, seeing someone I know struggle mentally is heart wrenching. Makes me feel so helpless and powerless.

I hope things turn out okay and that he is doing somewhat better. Hopefully he has a followup appointment very soon?

 

As far as somebody being able to hack facebook, why would anybody go through that much effort just to prank someone? Sounds very time consuming, posing as a whole friend's list worth of people and making cleverly thought out subtle little mockeries. And it would take a very special sort of person to do that sort of thing to someone suffering from post-craniotomy mental disorders.

Thanks, CP3S. I agree, it is really hard. His parents are no help at all, his mom is too fragile, and his dad's attitude is, "Aw, you're fine, you've been doing so good lately, just stay strong and get some good sleep!" Neither of them are any help. I'm literally the only person this guy has in the world who knows how to handle this. It was so hard to stay calm and not freak out seeing my cousin having such bizarre and impossible waking hallucinations. I ended up laying in bed Tuesday night shaking and crying when I finally was able to let go of all the tension from dealing with this all day. It's extremely scary.

He has a follow-up appointment today, which is why I called the doctor, because I know my cousin will try to minimize it and act in the appointment like he's doing better. I believe the best course is to admit him to the hospital for a few days so he can be monitored. But his parents are against that, because they're in total denial that this is serious.

Paranoid delusions are not uncommon after that sort of traumatic surgery and illness.

It's not symptomatic of losing one's mind more of having one that has just had a lot of repair work done on it's home.

A qualified specialist will recognise this and will be able to assist if things get worse.

Bingo, that's what I really hope. It's been 6 years since the repair work, though, and he's never had these kinds of delusions ever before.

What's weird is this Manti Te'o thing seems to be a seriously sophisticated scam and it's happening at the same time that my cousin imagines a sophisticated scam being played against him. It's making ME feel crazy!

Tell me about your childhood... no seriously don't, well not in this context.

Maybe a genuine news item has proven to be the trigger for a paranoid event that was just waiting to happen anyway.

The important thing is to get this investigated by a qualified brain mechaniic.

Rule out continuing structural malfunction, rule out a delayed psychological response to the emotional trauma of what happened six years ago (which must of been horrific for him) and then look into the possibility that it's something new.

Forums like this might help you get your head around it but only an expert or a team of them can help your cousin. 

Right. He's seeing a psychiatrist, whom I've met and I like a lot, and a psychologist for weekly couch sessions. The important thing I'm realizing is that he's not being totally honest with them, he's leaving certain things out, which I try to stress is not going to enable him to get any better. He missed his follow-up appt with the psychiatrist yesterday because he stayed up until 4am and then took 2 Ativan, which knocked him out for 14 hours. His parents' attitude is, "We gave him the pills when we went to bed at 9pm, if he didn't take them till 4am, that's his problem."

When I spoke to his mom today on the phone, I told her she needs to give him his Ativan and watch him take it. She had no response except, "I'm done. I can't deal with this anymore. He needs to start looking for his own place." I said, "You can be done with the behavior, but are you done with your son? Really?" She had no response. The woman has checked out. I was so pissed off at her I threw my toast across the room, lol. I said, "If he had lost his leg in a car accident, would you be making him change his own bandages and crawl to the kitchen for water, or would you be sleeping next to his bed and helping him?" No response.

I'm realizing that his parents are the problem. They put off having his CAT scans done 7 years ago when he was complaining about dizziness, headaches, forgetfulness, and blurry vision, and the doctors said if they'd caught the tumor earlier, they could've prevented the mild palsy he has on one side. Instead, now he's deaf in his right ear, has no taste sensation on the right side of his tongue, and can't type, drive, or play the guitar anymore. Now, they're hiding their heads in the sand about this, and I'm so worried he's going to end up being institutionalized due to their chronic slowness to act. I'm about ready to move him in here so I can keep a better eye on him.

It's very easy to be damning of people coping with caring for people with chronic conditions, especially those that effect behaviour.

You have to remember that the person doing the caring is also suffering from the illness.

They have to deal with the often traumatic situation of being in the presence of someone they know acting in a manner that is totally alien, often without warning and often often.

It can wear you down after a while, I've experienced this myself.

You may not be in full possession of the facts when it comes to past history or present conditions. So I would avoid being judgmental about a situation in which you may be a transient participant. How do you know they put off his CAT scan and if so why did they do that? 

He needs to have the brain side of the equation accessed as it appears the mind side is being monitored sufficiently.

You may find taking on the caring role yourself may give you greater insight as to what has already happened.

You should take notes and pass this information on to the appropriate medical professionals.

All good advice.

Believe me when I say, I am not damning his parents, neither am I a "transient participant". I've been close with my cousin since we were babies, I see him 2-3 times a week, and I have been involved in almost every aspect of his treatment since the brain tumor.

At this point, I am the ONLY caring person in his life that hasn't checked out emotionally. This is not a judgment about his parents' characters, this is a fact about their behavior. He has no friends left, his sister moved out of state, so it's his parents and me. I appreciate what you say about what his parents have gone through, but suffice to say their behavior and lack of concern for him is something that goes back a looong ways. They put off his CAT scans because they didn't believe him. They explained away every symptom he had, and repeatedly told him not to worry and get so worked up. It wasn't until he fell walking to class and injured himself that a scan was done and the tumor discovered. This was a year after he first started complaining about bizarre symptoms.

As for myself, I cared for my father - who I was VERY close to - for 2 years in my home while he died of cancer. I've been through therapy myself, and my grandfather was a psychologist, so caring for a sick person, and therapy in general, is not new to me. I have been taking copious notes, and I've been in touch with his psychiatrist. He has a full brain scan every 6 months to determine if there is new growth, so his brain is being monitored.