I swear I’m going straight to h*ll, but I can’t help but be a little jealous of people with ID children. Especially the ones you see who seem so happy, and I think I’m going to start throwing bricks at the TV every time “I was Born this Way” commercials come on.
Well, this lovely program is here, but that’s the problem I have with my son. He doesn’t need pills, he doesn’t need help, why does he need someone to take him somewhere? I should just give him the keys & let him go on his own.
A little over a year ago, he was begging for help. He went to county mental health because we weren’t having any luck with therapy outside of it & someone recommended it. They put him in substance abuse because he was also in a suboxone program, he got a crush on the therapist & became very delusional about her (still is), and downhill he went. If they had only put him in this program from the start, he’d have worked with them.
I keep thinking about how everyone says we’re running a marathon & not a sprint, but I don’t feel that way at all. I think I continue to lose windows of opportunity over & over & over again.
I read the unmedicated thread but resist my urge to comment.
The parent in me sort of enjoyed having the conversation I wrote about in the unmedicated thread. While its the scz talking, not my son and while the conversation is all delusional, he was clear and articulate, not garbled at all.
I have wondered if my son’s willingness to keep seeing this therapist is along the same line as your son’s experience. He has never gone so eagerly and regularly to therapy before.
I missed a big window of opportunity years ago when my son called the police about his neighbor trying to kill him and they arrested my son. I didn’t know anything and I bailed him out immediately. If only I had known.
I think you did the right thing if you don’t live in a place where they would have transferred him to the hospital.
Jails are hit and miss for getting someone treatment. I know enough people without a MI who have went into jail for doing stupid things and seen how people there get treated.
Sadly, you might be right that if he had stayed in jail, he might have been assessed there. In fact, his attorney could request a mental health evaluation…
But he also missed out on possible beatings and other assaults and a bunch of guaranteed trauma, so…
The only way for someone with severe mental illness and lack of insight to receive treatment for any period of time is by court order. Some state laws allow people to petition the court for a mental health exam; the person will be picked up for this and screened. This court order for examination cannot be overridden by local police. The way it works depends on which state you live in. If there is a crisis or mental health center attached to your local department of health and welfare, they could walk you through it, IF your state has this process. Or find out your state’s treatment laws: Browse By State - Treatment Advocacy Center
Being charged with a crime is a way to get into the court system, but there is zero control once there. A person could go to prison, be deprived of treatment and placed in solitary confinement, get new charges while in jail, etc. So IMO never press charges against your family member, but don’t bail him out until after you talk to his lawyer who can try to get a court ordered mental health evaluation. Also try to get him in Mental Health Court if he ever gets another charge (each state has different criteria).
Only the courts can provide and enforce treatment orders for people this ill.
TO OP: Off topic, but I’m glad OP’s daughter is doing so well with excellent services in the UK
I believe this is the process in the UK. If you think somebody has mi, the nearest relative has the right, under the Mental Health Act, to apply to a GP or local social government service, for a Mental Health Assessment by a psychiatrist. There must be strong evidence to support the application, they won’t just do it on a whim.
If the psychiatrist, after weighing everything up, agrees with your concerns, then he/she will need to see the person suspected with mi to conduct a Mental Health Assessment. Normally you would bring the person to see the psychiatrist, but for anosognosia you would take the psychiatrist to the person.
After the assessment, if the psychiatrist concludes (may take a while or could happen there and then) that the person is unwell then he/she decides whether to treat the person in the community, or whether they need to go to hospital, possibly by force and detained. This is called sectioning and they have to meet the criteria described by a section in the Mental Health Act, things like whether the person has anosognosia, and if there is a danger to their own (or another person’s) life, whether they are causing a social disturbance, whether they are coping with their life, job, relationships etc. There are strict rules that determine how long a person can be detained, and there are also appeal procedures.
In some cases, the person with mi commits a criminal act or social disturbance, and the police get involved. They are trained to recognise whether somebody may have mi and would enlist the on-call psychiatrist to conduct a Mental Health Assessment. Of course, there are rare occasions where, due to lack of close relatives or friends, a person with a new mi and/or with anosognosia, commits a criminal act involving loss of life, these are the ones the media love.
Thanks for the explanation. Laws are changing in our country, faster in some parts than others. Very nice that your laws make them consider the role of anosognosia.
Our media does the same thing here. Too frequently when a person with mi commits a horrendous crime, their trials become public spectacles and social media calls them “evil”.
As the WHO recognized years ago, the mentally ill are the most disenfranchised people on the planet.
We are in the uk and same position my son is on a cto, he was hospitalised in 2015 for three weeks and let out refusing treatment or follow ups, after 7 months we had to call the crisis team he was the hospitalised for 5 months and he had to take the meds i.e. Depot after discharge which was 10 months ago.
My county doesn’t have a crisis team. We have one officer trained in crisis intervention. When the sheriff called me to ask me to ask my son to stop calling 911, I asked if the CI officer was available, he was not.
Some day he might qualify for court ordered meds, currently, he does not.
My son was diagnosed a year ago, but was experiencing problems a year before that. My advice would be to find a NAMI chapter and attend some classes…get some support. Just call them and they can tell you what you have available near to you.
Second, I would read…read…and then read some more about this horrible thief of an illness. It is a marathon, not a sprint, so understanding this illness and in what form it displays itself in your son will help you better navigate these hard moments.
Also…use this forum. The wonderful, loving, and kind extension of time, advice, and guidance here was all I had for a long time. There are many experienced caregivers that are willing to chime in when you don’t know where to turn for advice.
Make sure you have a crisis plan upon discharge…and if you don’t believe he is healthy enough to d/c to your home, or if you are not prepared to take him in for whatever reason, say so to the d/c plan team. When they are hospitalized, and before discharge, I felt that is when I had the most control in the outcome.
Wishing you strength, stamina, and healing for your son!
That’s great advice from jmarie1067, couldn’t have put it better myself. We don’t have NAMI here in the UK but both Mind and Rethink have lots of material and help on their websites, and both have centres in towns and cities all around the country. They’re probably the biggest organisations but there is also SANE, Heads Together to name a couple of others
It is a marathon, but we’re all running there right alongside you, supporting you as you’ll be supporting us. This illness seems to manifest itself in many different ways but you can be sure that however it manifests itself in your son, somebody on this great website will have seen it before and be able to share their experiences.
