I am really lost trying to help my mom

I need to get my mom on the meds. But how do you do that if the person does not admit that she has a problem and any mentioning of her having a mental issue results in a lot of screaming.

I guess what i am looking for here is success stories, ideas, phone numbers, even dirty tricks that will help me get my mom diagnosed.
I think she’ve been having fears for a long as i remember, but it intensified dramatically ever since we immigrated to the US 15 years ago. And, i somehow, always thought that maybe next year she’ll realize that the government is not after her and that the letter with a credit card offer is not there to frame her and put her in jail. I even kept a log of things that she said would happen and never did. But there is no way to reason with her.

I love my mom, and it’s devastating for me to see how she is killing herself slowly. She has no friends, no work, a lot of other medical problems and , worst of all, she is refusing to even fill out paperwork to continue her medical or visit her regular doctors.

Where do i start? Who do i call?
I consulted with social services and crisis hotline - they all say that if she is not dangerous - she can’t be forcefully admitted. What does it take? Does she need to go into a sugar coma (she has diabetes) or get evicted for not paying the rent? How do you convince, lie, force someone like that?

I am sorry for venting, but i am lost…

  1. Get a copy of this book and read it. Have your family read it, too.
    http://www.amazon.com/Surviving-Schizophrenia-6th-Edition-Family/dp/0062268856

  2. If she needs a professional intervention (to get her to understand her condition), tell me where you live, and I will get back to you with leads to those services.

  3. Get her properly diagnosed by a board-certified psychopharmacologist who specializes in the psychotic disorders. One can find them at…
    Find Psychiatrists, Psychiatric Nurses - Psychology Today

  4. Work with that p-doc to develop a medication formula that stabilizes her symptoms sufficiently so that she can tackle to the psychotherapy that will disentangle her thinking. The best of the therapies for that currently include…
    DBT – What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)? – Behavioral Tech
    MBSR – http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php
    ACT – ACT | Association for Contextual Behavioral Science
    10 StEP – Pair A Docks: The 10 StEPs of Emotion Processing

  5. the even newer somatic psychotherapies like…
    MBBT – An Introduction to Mind-Body Bridging & the I-System – New Harbinger Publications, Inc
    SEPT – Somatic experiencing - Wikipedia
    SMPT – Sensorimotor psychotherapy - Wikipedia

  6. or standard CBTs, like…
    REBT – Rational emotive behavior therapy - Wikipedia
    Schematherapy – Schema therapy - Wikipedia
    Learned Optimism – Learned optimism - Wikipedia
    Standard CBT – http://www.beckinstitute.org/what-is-cognitive-behavioral-therapy/About-CBT/252/

Thank you. I am going to get the book. We are in San Francisco. Unfortunately getting her to a doctor or trying to convince her that she has a problem is impossible. Anyone who approaches her with this topic becomes her enemy. She is truly convinces that the government (i am not sure which one) is trying to kill her or frame her, and only her careful actions have kept he alive over the past 15 years.
Thank you again.

Wow, that is really sad. I am going through a similar situation with my dad. I hope that you figure out how to deal with this.

This is a very hard place to be with your mom. You cannot argue about her delusions-you will not be able to convince her.
There are a few things you could do to get her admitted to the hospital, but it seems very hard these days!
A friend here suggested that you can ask your mom to go with you to the hospital because you are sick with ____.
Get someone to go with both of you. Once you get there, talk to the admitting nurse and tell her what is going on.
OR- tell your mom your going to the store and go to the hospital instead. Call the ER ahead of time.
Not to be negative, but it seems these days, hospitals are refusing to care for anyone with a mental illness–especially if this person is not asking for help themselves.
Good luck!

PS-I would also like to say that you could call the police and ask for a CIT officer to come and take her to the hospital. Tell them what you wrote here. It`s worth a shot!

I would call Langley-Porter Hospital (415) 476-7500 to see if you can set up an intervention. See LPPH Inpatient Program | UCSF Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences.

If all else fails, say she has threatened to kill herself. If the medical community forces us to play hardball, we shall play hardball.