Our son is 28 yrs old and has been experiencing symptoms of mental illness for over 10 years. He has lived with all of his family members on and off for this whole time. He has only recently showed signs of a complete mental break and has been in a terrible cycle of episodes of obsession and violence. My husband and I had him Baker acted on 9/29. He has been deemed incompetent by two medical professionals and tomorrow 10/4 the facility is supposed to petition the court for involuntary treatment. My husband and I want to get full guardianship now because it may be our only time to do this. He has no place to go after discharge as none of his family including us will take him in. We are concerned because he has not shown his terrible side during hospitalization even though they declared him incompetent and gave him a “mood disorder” diagnosis. We feel the only way to get this under control and for him to be safe is to petition for guardianship. Does anyone have experience in this area? Also we are pretty sure based on his symptoms he has schizo affective disorder with bipolar
I have been diagnosed as schizoaffective. I have been thrown in the hospital more times than I can count. But I’m not violent and never have been. If your son is violent, he needs to be committed. I am glad you’re doing what you’re doing. I don’t know how to get it all done, but I just wanted to say you’re doing the right thing
Our son is 44 with schizoaffective. I just had to file an emergency petition on 9/10/21. He was admitted to psych unit. I am rep payee but t not guardianship bc haven’t had to use that option so far. Ours is on disability. He so far has provided us to be on his list if people to be included in medical process
Thank you Zannah! We are quickly learning that the system does not work very timely. Still waiting since Friday afternoon for the Doctor who did our son’s second evaluation to complete the paperwork necessary to have our son involuntarily admitted. Once we know for sure if the Doctor’s have deemed him incompetent, then we can follow through with the attorney for guardianship. The waiting is so hard! Our son has spoken to his Mother several times since the weekend. He does indeed sound much better than he was, which is not hard, but he is also very good at lying and is very convincing. We are praying for an incompetent decision so we can get some accountability for him. We know that his best chance for a good life is if he can remain on his medications and stay off the drugs (pot) which only make things so much worse!
Thanks Liz K! We feel guardianship is our only option, because our son has literally NO insight into his disease. He really does live in his own reality and does not believe there is anything wrong. He is extremely paranoid of doctors, medication, or really any authority figure telling him what to do. I would also love to get his SSDI application started because I know that if they release him and don’t declare incompetency that he will never do it on his own. He will end up homeless and hungry because he cannot hold a job.
Most def apply for SSDI or disability. I totally understand. My son has never had any insight. He only knew he could not live with us with no meds . It always end up to court and to psych ward for us
So sorry Liz K. I really pray that our son can be helped before he starts this slippery slope of readmissions to the hospital.
Oh, so do I.Always try I wished we could have gotten him help with out having to do that.
Yeah, pot causes a lot of paranoia, and can even cause hallucinations. I really hope you get him admitted etc. Good luck!
If you get him Baker acted then try to get him on a long acting injection to assure he get his meds. I’ve been on the lifesaving depo Clopixol for 25 years. I’ve no long terms problems with this depo.