The first time I posted here was back in May when my loved one was hospitalized for the first time (5150). We allowed him to come home after that but he pretty much stopped taking his medication right away and eventually started using meth again.
He is in the hospital again after we had to 5150 him again. This time we are trying to be firm and are saying he cannot come home which is forcing the hospital to actually find him some treatment and they are extending his stay with the hopes of convincing him to go. They say the first step in the process is he needs to do a rehab program. My only concern with that is that he needs to be seeing a psychiatrist even during his period of withdrawal at the rehab. What happens after that I am not sure…his mother is adamant she doesn’t want him living at home anymore, so I am not sure where he would go after the rehab and how much support he and us (his family) would receive in that process. I am sorry to say but I have become very pessimistic towards the health care system and I see many of the nurses at these places treat the patients badly. I do not want him to fall through the cracks and end up on the streets because he has nowhere to go.
How do I feel less afraid? I know coming home would probably just end up with him using drugs again and not taking his medication, and I do not want that for him, but I don’t want him to be chewed up and abused by a broken system. How can we be strong advocates? How do I make sure he is treated well? I wish I had lots of money so we could put him somewhere we know is nice but sadly we have to rely on his insurance. How do I not feel like a monster when he asks me why he can’t come home…this is so hard for me, like I know it must be for countless people.
I am so sorry, this is even harder as you are also dealing with the meth addiction. A dual diagnosis is such a big wall to climb.
You mentioned there is insurance, has disability been applied for? My son’s first psychiatrist urged us to get him established on disability, Medicare/Medicaid and SNAP if applicable. When my son could no longer live with us this is how he was able to live somewhere by himself.
Social workers can help you with the application - now is a good time to apply while you have access to the doctors who will make the evaluation.
I am so sorry this is a tough space to be in I agree with Hopes recommendation about getting the disability in place ,
I to have a sibling that self medicates and has been in rehab multiple times it shouldn’t be a problem for him to see a therapist while in rehab most programs go hand in hand .
I to worried about treatment or care while my sibling was in hospitals and treatment one thing I did to cope was visit, call get to know the staff when I could .
I would suggest while you have a chance seeking counseling for yourself or maybe with your wife you have support in this . your therapist may be able to help you set the boundaries in a healthy way for your son.
I wish my parents would have been able to have professional support for themselves because this illness doesn’t just affect the person who has it.
I hope your son will find tools to use at the rehab .
You can ask the clinic what discharge plans are what resources are available to him when he gets and try to help facilitate that .
He has his medical insurance but nothing else. He is still being held at the behavioral health hospital and we were hoping the social worker there could help us set that up or start the process but she said they don’t do that there. I don’t know if he agrees to do an inpatient dual diagnosis program if maybe they could help with that there? I plan to ask tomorrow. It is a very strange system when the hospital can’t connect you with those resources.
My son is currently refuses to see any doctor as he is in continual active psychosis and delusional. We can’t interact with him because he is angry and in his own world of voices. I am wondering if he will continue to get his SSI and Medicare if he has no doctor documentation. To make matters worse his psychiatrist he was using past 5 years is retiring this month and I hope he will give me his medical files so I at least have something with his diagnosis and past medical history. Uggg, so much worry over this, as without SSI he will become homeless and he is too delusional to even know to help himself in any way.
I am sorry that the social worker at the behavioral health hospital won’t do what social workers commonly do for patients in regular hospitals. You or his mom will have do the application, you will need the names and addresses of the psychiatrists for the application. When you are filling out the forms that address behaviors remember to write about his worst days. People can have a tendency to describe the better days instead of focusing on the worst days. Supposedly its typical to focus on capabilities - “on a good day he can make a sandwich” instead of describing the days they have no function at all.
Irene, Are you his payee representative for his ssi? I did all of the application paperwork for my son and I did all of the other renewals. I only gave them my phone number - even when they asked for his. I would tell them they had to talk to me because he had auditory hallucinations and could not handle phone calls.
Every now and then one would insist on him giving me permission to talk to them. I would tell them, “please don’t hang up no matter what he says” I will get the phone back from him. Sometimes he would be fine and readily give them permission as he wanted the funds to keep coming, other times he would say horrible things to them and hand me the phone back angrily.
After the first renewal of his ssdi, they never put him up for renewal again.
I do think one of the keys is the psychiatrist filling out the forms correctly.
Well they ended up releasing him because he said he was going to go to some random town, get a job and fine somewhere to live. I asked the doctor if he actually seemed capable of doing that and he said it didn’t matter, that he had a plan so they had to release him. Bunch of bullshit.
Hi Hope, I have had two renewals for him since 2015, one he just had several months ago. I have heard from parents in my NAMI group that if he doesn’t regularly see a psychiatrist that he will lose his SSI, which would render him homeless. At this point it appears that he will never see a doctor again. His mind is not thinking rationally about getting the SSI so he is not homeless. He used to care about that when he was taking his meds somewhat regularly. I worry about him becoming homeless a lot. Ugh
I’m sorry that’s beyond Frustrating ! And so common
Once my sibling was released with just a bus pass it wasn’t even a day pass just a few hrs.
I got a call at work from him he had no where to go No money ,This was after I had written and pleaded for the facility not to discharge without a plan
Do you know where he actually is now ?
I heard the same thing from my NAMI group years ago. I have no idea if it’s true or not, they just did the one renewal on Mike and he was seeing a psychiatrist at that time. He didn’t see a psychiatrist again - but they never did a second renewal.
I dont know…the medical.system sucks , i was told if i got my son i. Jail they would get him treatment goeced by parol.which is a joke and not true…and the hospitals let them.out in 3 days…good places cost like.30.tp.50.k a month, who.can afford that…movie stars.oy
Hi Hope, Thanks for your reply. Things are still going awful with my son,he is still refusing to see a doctor and is actively psychotic most of the time from what I can tell. I get tapes from his neighbors that they have on camera of him screaming swear words and then going in his place. He is destroying the townhome that I own and he lives in. I have not been seeing him much, as I blocked him to try to get him to go see doctor as his behavior is threatening and dangerous. He had vandalized garages in the neighborhood, pulling off keypads. He did walk over to my townhome today, only two blocks from his place. He begged me to unblock him and I did and then a little while later called me screaming swear words at me and saying I stole his money. I am his payee and he wants money for alcohol and weed. He has been wearing the same clothes for a month now, and his hair is a knotted mess. It was heartbreaking to see him like this,I don t feel like he will ever come back. I have called police many times and they say they can t take him until he breaks the law. It is just a heartbreaking disaster that is only getting worse. He has been off meds since April 2024, 6 months. I feel helpless and scared of him and for him. So hard right now.
Hi Irene, The last 6-8 months when Mike was still living in the detached garage apartment we built for him, his actions were similar. We couldn’t go outside without risking him screaming at us. He would pound on our windows screaming at all hours of the night and day. Each night the outside yard would be wrecked by him overturning lawn furniture, plants and decor. He began setting off his car alarm at all hours of the day.
We tried to record what he was saying as we were hoping if we could record him threatening us that maybe the sheriff’s department would help. He never threatened us, his rants were about things he was accusing us of doing to him.
His psychiatrist had contacted us to let us know she was very concerned about his thoughts regarding his dad. This did not help our state of mind.
The worst night when he was so wild we were trying to figure out how to escape from our house with our dogs. His behavior was so extreme we were sure he was going to break through the door glass to get inside. We shut off our inside lights so we could load the dogs into the car.
I was the lookout by one of the doors while my husband was gathering our stuff and the dogs - we planned to sneak the dogs into the car (attached garage with a garage door opener) and make our escape. I moved my phone (!) and my son saw the flash of light. He immediately picked up a large piece of landscaping granite and threw it at me. Luckily the granite was so heavy so it didn’t make it to the door glass.
We called the sheriff, we thought throwing the rock would be enough - the deputy who showed up didn’t think so. Once again we got “being mentally ill isn’t against the law”.
In Denton Texas a woman dealing with a similar situation with her son, called for help several times, her son’s friends called for help for her as they could see the escalating behaviors. Her son killed her and cut off her head in a psychotic episode.
We were initiated early into the possible danger when a couple from our Family to Family class died at the hands of their son who was wielding a sledge hammer. Psychotic episode combined with a meth addiction.
You must keep yourself safe and keep calling the police. Encourage the neighbors to keep calling the police.
Thank you Hope, it is so scary to be around someone in psychosis. I am afraid every day because he lives in the town house I own several blocks from me. I carry pepper spray and will continue to call police. I am thinking of evicting him, winter is coming here in Illinois and I hate to think of him being homeless in the freezing cold. I am hoping he gets taken to hospital soon from some bizaar behavior.Your stories are frightening, but a good reality check on what I am dealing with here. Uggg
I wish I didn’t have to be the reminder of such possibilities. While it’s rare that our medicated family members commit violent acts, Dr Torrey reminds us it’s not rare for our unmedicated family members, and as Dr Torrey also reminds us - unfortunately we family members are overwhelmingly the victims of the violence.
