Good Grief! The hell you have been and are going through! I am so sorry that you and we all have to go through this mess! Your story in a way makes me feel better by not being alone in this nightmare, but it also makes me think that I may have a similar story coming soon. Thankfully, my son hasn’t started stealing or pawning off his things…yet. Since he came home, we aren’t giving him an allowance cuz’ we don’t want to be the ones paying for his bad choices. He likes junk called Kratom and also, we have learned that he likes to “robo trip”?!! Which he takes a lot of anti diarrheal mixed with nasal spray! As if the disease wasn’t enough to deal with! We are trying to get him on disability and am making an appointment with an attorney to start with that. Once that is in place, hopefully we can work on him living somewhere else. I sure would like to know what it feels like to relax at home again. Thanks again for sharing your story. Hope you can see the sunshine again.
Hello @Tippy, what I do if my son has not signed a release of information form for myself or husband yet while he is in the hospital, is call and leave a long detailed message on the social workers and prescribers voice mail. They may not tell you anything right away, but you can surely tell them something. I am through being polite. Advocate and give them information, tell them what you want to happen for your son. Also, take notes as to what information you have told them. What messages, to whom and when.
Also, be firm about the conditions for your sone coming home. As others have said. Use any leverage you have.
Wow! @Robin So sorry about all this that happened to your son and your family. This is all so difficult and to have the added component of Cocaine, when you tried to do the right thing.
Thank you for your advice. In my situation, I wasn’t able to even find out if I was phoning the right facility. The police took him to one hospital ER and due to COVID the psych unit was turned into a COVID unit. My son was shipped over an hour away to a different facility. When he finally phoned us to let us know (after several days), the social worker was gone for the weekend. He was basically with baby sitters. BTW, he didn’t do cocaine, it was anti diarrhea meds and nasal spray along with his meds. (still a very bad thing, but to my sons mind “legal”) I am now trying to see about getting him on disability, but apparently the fact that he worked this year (barely), he won’t qualify? Somehow, I have got to get him out of my house without making him homeless.
Oh, Sorry! I didn’t fully understand the situation. Thank you for clarifying. Ant diarrheal with nasal spray! What they come up with! Gosh, yes this last round when our son left the hospital the social worker called us and told us where he would be transported. Your story also brings up another case for people getting vaccinated for covid. Our hospitals are just filling up with covid cases and putting them where ever they can. I guess that even means taking over the psych ward.
Good luck with getting your son on disability. And you can get him into his own place.
Yes, There is no relaxing at home anymore. Since my son has one more week at the Behavioral Health Center, I’m going to visit a friend in a neighboring state for a couple of days. I actually spent the night in a hotel by myself last night. It is a small reprieve. Take care!
Robin, I’m sorry you are going through this. I know it is cold comfort to know you are not alone. My 35-year old son is also a drug addict, and SZ. His father is dead and he has alienated everyone else in his extended family. He has destroyed my house, stolen from me, cursed me in the most vile terms imaginable, thrown things at me, broken into my home, terrorized me and threatened to kill me on numerous occasions. I got a protective order, but he regularly violates it. I can’t count how many private rehabs he has been to, including one court ordered 6 month stay. He walked out after three days, barricaded himself in my house and with guns drawn, the police used a battering ram to get him out. He is now in a lockdown dual diagnosis residential treatment program run by the county, but he refuses his meds because he is convinced his delusions are real. He is still floridly psychotic even though he has been off illegal drugs for some time.
I think people who have mentally ill/and or drug addicted loved ones are remarkable and under-researched. We are traumatized on almost a daily basis. There is no effective cure or treatment in most cases, no one can help, even if they wanted to, and there is no real hope that the nightmare will ever end. How do we manage that stress and what effect does it have on our physical and mental health? This interests me on both a very personal and intellectual level. I have been so depressed at times that I have contemplated suicide, so it truly is a life or death issue for me. I chose life, but I struggle everyday to find joy and purpose in it. For me, yoga (especially Kundalini yoga) and the study of Buddhist philosophy has helped tremendously. The turning point for me was from reading a short book called The Untethered Soul by Michael Singer. The issues he talks about in the short book are child’s play compared to what we deal with, but the principles for dealing with it are the same.
It is a very personal journey and no one thing works for all people, but I would encourage both you and your husband to start thinking about taking care of yourselves rather than staying constantly focused on your son’s issues and behavior. Easier said than done, I know, but as Rumi said, “the wound is where the light enters.” Sometimes a tragedy opens our minds and hearts and forces us to grow as human beings and learn all kinds of things (like humility and compassion with boundaries) we otherwise wouldn’t have to. On the other hand, sometimes it breaks us. We are all just doing the best we can. Wishing you the best.
Wow! You have been and are going through so much. I really wish there was a safe living environment for our children that are suffering from this disease. I really don’t want to release his anger on unsuspecting people, but to keep my son in my house is not something that I can continue to do. I have to find some other arrangement. Somehow! I just want some peace!
I know this gets redundant for those who are trying so hard, but I truly believe the only hope for someone who cannot acknowledge his need for help is communication tools such as in the book “I Am Not Sick; I Don’t Need Help”. Even on another post here recently, someone used the phrase with their loved one “You deserve a break…” to convince their person to go along with the plan at hand. When rational conversation becomes useless, we have to think in ways that our loved one might be thinking. I know this is not easy. But it HAS worked for many. Another example is that I told my son he could not live with us and that I would take him to a homeless shelter. He apparently wasn’t fond of the homeless shelter idea so he instead cooperated at that moment with the plan at hand. Even still, it wasn’t a linear path, but it got us started on the road to recovery.
I am glad that this approach has worked for you. I wish it could for my situation. I have read the book “I am not sick, I don’t need help”. While it did help in some ways and I continue to try to use the tools that it advised, it doesn’t always work. My son seems to always be in the throws of a psychosis. There is no “down time”. We might find him for a minute or 2, but that is all. He is so angry all the time. He is always blaming his father and I for “doing something to his brain”, “plotting against him”. There are no rational thoughts. I wanted to Baker Act him this past weekend, just to give us a break. I recently had a fall and should really get an xray for my shoulder and I tried to go, but my son was having yet another episode and we have a fear about leaving him alone. He was talking about destroying our home. I am going to try to leave work early sometime this week, not to get the xray, but to make more phone calls about my son. I need to get him on SSDI and I need to get him health insurance and leave some more messages for NAMI to see if they will return my calls this time so I can find some answers. Why does this have to be so hard? I’m sorry, I am venting. I am pooped out!
My heart breaks for you and so many others in situations like this. It is perfectly appropriate to VENT!
We all need that from time to time! What has worked for me, certainly won’t work for everyone, but I know the LEAP approach has a reasonably good track record. Understandably, a person who is psychotic cannot respond well to any attempted conversation. For persons with SZ who are behaving in ways that are intolerable because of the illness, it is my opinion, that getting that person hospitalized in the hope that he can get a bit more stable is crucial, to get to a place where LEAP can be used, where other options for help post hospitalization can happen. And I know… getting a person “Baker Acted” is often not easy.
There are no guarantees. It might not work this time, but it might work the next. There ARE no “answers” except to learn and use any available tools, to find resources that can help us “manage” through this. This IS a terrible illness and it IS hard. NAMI does not exist to solve our problems (because it really can’t). It is there for SUPPORT and EDUCATION. It also does a lot of advocacy work with our legislators and other organizations to promote better access to care, end criminalization of mental illness, ensure parity of care (equal coverage by insurance companies for mental health as they offer for medical), etc. etc. By attending a NAMI support group, I continue to learn from others about what I can do, what other resources exist, and ideas for help. NAMI is people like us. It is also a place where I can be open with my struggles and be understood. It also encourages me to take care of myself, and helps me make decisions about boundaries. I cannot solve all problems, but I CAN expect a better future in a realistic way.
What county are you in?
I am in Palm Beach County