Has anyone successfully applied in Texas for guardianship of their adult child with schizophrenia? If so, how difficult was the process and what evidence did you show that helped you get your petition granted? We’ve consulted with an attorney and are considering initiating the process, but it will cost a lot and I’m hesitant to spend the money with no guarantee of success. Our daughter is not violent and has never been hospitalized or arrested, but she’s completely incapable of managing any aspect of life. She is uncooperative as far as applying for disability benefits or doing anything at all. We’d like to be able to apply for benefits on her behalf and do other things to help her have some kind of life, which is why we want the guardianship. If anyone has experience with this in Texas, I’d love to hear about it.
If you haven’t already contacted your local NAMI that’s exactly where I would start oftentimes they will know exactly how this process works especially if you get in contact with your local Nami affiliate
Not Texas but I have been through it with my loved one.
I suggest conservatorship but don’t know if that is an option in your state. Power of attorney will also work but they must do that voluntary and it must be notarized.
The process starts with an attorney. You pay a retainer and they give you a form which one sometimes two doctors must fill out stating they are mentally unable to care for themselves. This is usually done when they are in the hospital involuntarily. I have no idea how you could get it completed any other way.
Next the court will assign them an attorney who will explain what is going on. You are trying to obtain guardianship which will remove their civil liberties. With this illness where they often, usually to some degree already suspect someone is against them this just does not go well at all. Expect lots of anxiety and stress here.
Next is court. Either their attorney agrees they need a guardian it’s obvious or their attorney will argue why they don’t.
Thank you both. We are on the fence about whether to try to do this or not. I appreciate your responses.
Hi, I know this is an old thread. My family was (not seriously) joking asking if I wrote that question from the initial individual.
Did you have any resolution? We are right where you were as well, now.
@Aaire_E, I’m sorry to hear you’re in the same place, because it’s a tough place to be. We had a consultation with an attorney who told us that we need to get our daughter examined by a forensic psychiatrist and then include that doctor’s medical report with our application for guardianship. However, our daughter (now age 23) adamantly refuses to see a psychiatrist. She will not do it. (She saw one 2 years ago who diagnosed her with schizophrenia, and she vehemently disagreed with the diagnosis and since that time refuses to see any psychiatrist.) The attorney said that if we filed an application for guardianship without including a doctor’s examination/report, then the court would order a medical examination. She said this would be accomplished by the sheriff’s office showing up at our door and forcibly dragging our daughter, kicking and screaming, to the doctor’s office. This would cause such a setback in our relationship with our daughter that we decided not to proceed. If things get worse in the future, we may go ahead and do it, but for now we just don’t want to subject her to that. I’d love to hear more about your situation if you want to share any details. I guess misery loves company because somehow it does help me to hear other people’s stories. Best wishes to you.
Hi there @KBella - Wall of text incoming 
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I can certainly empathize fully with what you just described. Our daughter is 30 years old, and we suspected something was going on with her for a few years, just not this. Mainly because she has been a quirky kiddo since she was about 18. It truly was only in the last 4-6 months that we figured out that things were not okay for her and that it wasn’t just a bunch of other happenstances coming together to create a difficult situation (examples)-
- She was always “working” but never being paid… well, when you pick what you profess is a difficult industry to break into (entertainment/music), that is plausible, creative fields are so competitive and difficult.
- It’s not unusual for people’s social lives to be highly virtual, including relationships.
- Life is tough out there, and living at home into your 20s and beyond, while not ideal, is understandable with how expensive the world has become.
It finally came to a head with a situation over multiple weeks when I made a very concerted effort to connect with her (she was usually in her room, up at odd hours when we aren’t, etc.). That’s when it became clear that her reality was completely disconnected from the rest of us.
At that point, it was what to do… the insurance I had her covered under, I learned very quickly, would not cover in any adequate way inpatient mental healthcare for her. We knew she would be resistant, and so after much effort locating a new plan (that wouldn’t bankrupt us) and getting her enrolled, we had a month to come up with a plan to get her to agree to go to a facility, hoping that from that she would see there was something up.
She was becoming more and more paranoid, thinking her mother was going to poison her, thinking that she was a hostage in our home (to the extent we had police show up, we had no idea she had called, nor did they). She thinks any/every man, including myself, her grandfather, our neighbors, our son’s friends, etc., is trying to pursue her physically or romantically. Very difficult and painful for everyone to go through dealing with (I can only imagine how it feels in her head).
We are in Houston, where the Menninger Clinic is located. My psychiatrist suggested she be placed there once her new insurance kicked in. The only thing about Menninger is that they are FAR too liberal with the “you are here optionally, you can leave whenever you like”. So, although we were able to convince her to go, she thought it would be like some sort of health spa; she was 100% resistant to medication and to treatment. She would only say to us that any illness or symptoms were related to her having a low vitamin D level (because she sits in her room in the dark).
She was in that place for 2 weeks and was ultimately released because they could not do anything with her- she would not take any medication. Thankfully, she did get a diagnosis, and although she wouldn’t share that information with us, she did allow her younger brother access to verbal information and did allow her mother to see most of her discharge paperwork.
Once we heard she was medication resistant I began to look into the guardianship route… have reached out to a lawyer who said she needs to consent to the medical examination which I am not confident she will do (how someone who is out of their mind can consent to something that is designed to help them is beyond me).
She is not a danger to herself in the sense of self-harm. She isn’t a danger to others in that she isn’t violent… but if you were to expand danger to oneself to include the fact that she thinks she has all these people who she can go to who she can stay with and that she can just up and Uber everywhere (she has no job, no income, etc.) that is a form of self-harm and risk… Human trafficking, drugs, abuse, crime, who knows what people would do to her out there, even if she thinks she is smarter than everyone else.
So, we can’t do anything with police involuntarily… we don’t want to traumatize her, as we know it isn’t “her” doing this. But we are in such a bind… Texas is apparently a very difficult state to obtain guardianship in. This lawyer I have met with several times has said that even if she does consent to the medical exam, if she is good at convincing her lawyer she is fine it could drag on, and become very costly (you pay for their lawyer too, plus any testing, etc., he tells me).
She came home with a prescription for antipsychotic medicine and has already said to me that she doesn’t think all the meds are necessary. Outside of the thousands of pages of writing she has in her room, we found letters to neighbors about her being a hostage in our home and how she needs to be rescued, etc. She told her brother she would come home, lie low for a bit, and then leave. It’s like, HOW can this be okay in the eyes of the law?
We want to get this guardianship for her own sake, we want to get her on disability so she has some sort of financial support outside of us, as well as healthcare outside of us, but these systems make it so very difficult unless the person is trying to kill you or themselves. Very sad.
So I guess we are kind of in the same bind, but from a slightly different angle. I only wish when she were 23, we would have known this was going on… but a person can sure be good at hiding things when they are deeply ill and think they are fine.
@Aaire_E, thank you so much for sharing. Almost all of the posts I’ve seen on this board are about loved ones who are cycling in and out of being violent, hospitalized, and/or arrested. My daughter, like yours, is doing none of these things, which seems to make it even more difficult to get any kind of help. It’s exactly as you said – in the eyes of the law she’s not a danger to herself, but in my eyes she is certainly in danger when she is constantly out roaming the city at all hours of the night, a petite 23-yr-old girl – I hate to think of what could befall her. She doesn’t drive anymore so she takes the bus everywhere, including unsafe areas of town. It’s not unusual for her to stay out all night and well into the next day. She doesn’t stay at home in her room – she seems to have a restless urge to constantly roam around. We too looked into the Menninger Clinic, and aside from the astronomical cost, the problem (as you said) is that they require the patients to go there voluntarily. They wouldn’t let me make an appointment for an assessment – they said she would have to call and do it. There is absolutely no chance she would do that, as she has anosognosia and thinks there is nothing wrong with her. Of course it’s impossible to talk logically to her or reason with her. Everyone says the LEAP method is the answer, but I and my other family members have read Dr. Amador’s book, and it hasn’t helped any of us get through to my daughter. And her absolute refusal to see any kind of doctor means we can’t proceed with a guardianship application, since Texas makes it so difficult. Anyway, I appreciate you sharing your daughter’s story. So many parts of it sounded familiar, including the thousands of pages of writing in her room. Same thing here! Best of luck to you and I’d love to hear updates if anything changes.
I’m currently supporting my adult son who has schizophrenia, and I understand how overwhelming it can be to navigate both guardianship and daily caregiving responsibilities. While our case is based in Texas, I’ve been researching broader support options that may help others in similar situations.
One useful resource I came across is related to Government Assistance for Family Caregivers in Philadelphia, which outlines financial and support programs that might exist in other states as well. Even though it’s specific to Philadelphia, the structure of support described there (like stipends or respite care) gave me ideas on what to look for in Texas. If you’re supporting a loved one and balancing work or personal life, these kinds of programs can be game-changers — see details to understand how eligibility and applications work.
Sharing this in case it helps someone else exploring guardianship and long-term care options. You’re not alone in this journey.
Thank you @Barry. I appreciate you sharing this.
Thank you so much for this suggestion, Barry.
Hello Barry, I live in Ft. Worth, TX and have a 29 year old son living with me who suffers from Schizophrenia. He is on medication and is very compliant, which has not always been the case. I am not necessarily looking for financial help, although I would certainly accept it, I am looking for resources such as care for him when I need to be away from home. He is perfectly capable of taking care of himself, he just needs somebody to sit in the house with him so he doesn’t get tempted to wander off. I work from home, but there are days that it is necessary for me to leave and meet with clients and those are the days I really would like for someone to be at my house with my son. Or, if there were programs I could take him to, I would do that as well. I just haven’t had much success finding resources in the DFW area. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Tim
While I’m based in a different area, I’ve come across some helpful resources in my own search for support that might be useful to you, or at least give you some ideas. For example, when I was researching caregiver options, I found a lot of programs under Government Assistance for Family Caregivers in Philadelphia — and while that’s not your city, it opened my eyes to how many local and state-level programs might exist, even if they’re not always easy to find. You might want to check your local Area Agency on Aging or county mental health services — they often have respite care programs, or can connect you with trained companions who can stay with your son for short periods.
Also, be sure to check with local non-profits that support families dealing with mental illness. Organizations like NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness) sometimes offer or can point you to drop-in centers or day programs that could be a good fit.
You can also see details on websites like Mental Health America or even community Facebook groups — I’ve had surprisingly good luck there getting real recommendations from others in similar situations.