Son involuntarily committed

I hope that this hospitalization and medication goes well for your son. It took several involuntary hospitalizations to get my daughter (now 36) stabilized on a long acting injection that she’s stayed on for almost 2 years now. There is no way she would have gone to the hospital or stayed on medicine without being forced. The hallucinations and delusions started in 2016 and ruined her life, and mine, for years. But perseverance and management on my part to get her stable on medication have her leading a pretty normal life now, with me overseeing her (she still lives with me). Only once was she kept past the 10 day mark, usually it was only a week. The first hospitalizations she refused to continue on meds once released. Even today, I don’t think she understand she has a serious mental illness, but she takes her injection monthly and her symptoms are mostly gone. Only a monthly injection worked out for her to agree to take meds and stay on them. Please do NOT feel guilty about getting your son hospitalized. Now use every bit of your energy to get and keep him successfully medicated. I wish you all the best keeping him on meds in the future.

1 Like

@oldladyblue, thanks for sharing about your daughter. So many people here have stories about multiple involuntary hospitalizations. One person wrote that if the relative has Sz it’s always involuntary, and I suppose they’re right. I’ll have to see if they are going to recommend a monthly injection and if he will agree. He had been medication compliant up until a week before being committed. No doubt the voices had broken through and were behind it.

We know what to look for now when he is relapsing: increasing presence of voices and him not being “there” while he’s listening to them, less talking, changed behaviors that are extreme and,most of all, medicine non-compliance.

1 Like

Sorry you’re going through this. I have a similar story with my son. CLOZARIL/CLOZAPINE saved my son and INVEGA 30 day injectable. My son lives in residential care only for people with schizophrenia. Lifesaving for all involved!!!

2 Likes

Where do you find a residential home with only schizophrenic residents?

My son was discharged yesterday after 3 days in the ER and 9 days in a psychiatric ward of a general hospital.

He was released with 20 mg of olanzapine and 900 mg of lithium. The doctor at the hospital took him off of oxcarbazepine (600 mg) and clonazepam (1 mg). The latter 2 were prescribed by his private doctor for the bipolar part of schizoaffective disorder, which is his diagnosis.

My wife and I and our son have a conference call with his shrink today. I hope he stays off the drugs he was taken off of since oxcarbazepine isn’t all that evidence-based from what I’ve read and clonazepam can result in dependency.

I don’t think the voices have been reduced all that much, but his mood is much better. He’s compliant with his meds and helping out around the house. Whereas he used to go walking for hours outside the house now he wants someone to accompany him, as if he is afraid. Probably he’s been traumatized by the involuntary commitment. I REALLY don’t want this to happen again!

1 Like

This seems like a more sensible drug regimen. Was the private doctor a psychiatrist, or some other specialty?

My experience is Olanzapine (Zyprexa) is pretty effective with positive symptoms, but everyone is different. You may have to give the drug some time to work. You have to watch for weight gain and binge eating, as many people (myself included) get cravings when they first start it, but they tend to wane over time. I’d also get him into a physician for baseline and continued lipid, blood glucose and blood pressure screening. They generally need to draw blood for lithium levels, so the others could get tested at the same time. Consider some sort of indoor exercise activity, or a daily communal walk considering his fears to counteract possible weight gain.

@Maggotbrane. Thanks. Everything you said is right on target. His private doctor is a psychiatrist. What the hospital released my son with is lot simpler and less polypharmacy than what he’d had before which I like.

For some reason, his discharge papers listed as “ongoing”: “At risk of venous thromboembolus”.

We had a conference call today with his psychiatrist, and he noticed this too and said he would contact the hospital psychiatrist to find out what that’s about. For good measure he suggested we schedule an appt. with a cardiologist, which we did. We didn’t get to talk about blood work in the conference call, but will next week. He was getting that done regularly the last time he was on olanzapine.

My son now does not want to leave the house, but will go out sometimes with his mother or I for a short walk. His voices are telling him he might be kidnapped. He says he doesn’t remember anything about the 19th, when the police handcuffed him and he was put into an ambulance strapped to a gurney. His psychiatrist pointed out to him that is what he’s associating with being kidnapped, but what happened was for his own good since the voices had become overpowering and he was delusional.

Sorry you are going through this experience now.

we all understand the trauma of hospitalization and it’s impact on the individual with schizophrenia and his family. Hang in there.

I have learned after many years of dealing with my daughter, that symptoms can be managed, but not cured. I have learned to have zero expectations, and small steps are huge victories.

Be well and take care of your son.

2 Likes

Things went rapidly downhill this morning, about 36 hours after discharge. He was pacing this morning about 5 am, which woke me and my wife up. He was almost totally unresponsive to me and my wife and in his own world with his voices.

He called 911 and then hung up, saying he thought someone was trying to break in. The police called back and he told them everything was okay.

He then called 911 again and hung up. The 911 activity resulted in the police showing up. My wife told them my son was psychotic and that his psychiatrist had been notified.

There were several struggles over the landline phone and all three cellphones to prevent more 911 calls. Eventually, we secured all of the phones.

All this time, no communicating with me and my wife, apparently only with the voices. I have no idea what specifically he was frightened about. Why he was calling 911. Is it us, I asked. No answer.

His psychiatrist told us to give him 400 mg of Seroquel and 1 mg of clonazepam, which he agreed to take. It amazed me how long this took to quiet him down. He continued to pace and look out the windows and door for another hour before the drugs finally knocked him out.

Don’t have a new med regimen yet, but I’m sure Seroquel is going to get added to the 20 mg of Zyprexa and 900 mg of lithium. I just pray we don’t have another repeat tonight.

When he lived on the same property where we live, my son used to call 911 all the time. The most puzzling time he called 911 was after a pleasant Christmas Eve dinner that had gone really well.

Its not us, its the brain disorder.

1 Like

I’d almost have to laugh if it wasn’t so seriously bad when it happens! :frowning:

Its okay to laugh, I think it helps us to not be serious whenever we can find a chance. :slight_smile:

The 911 call that had me shaking my head the most (and kind of opened up my mind as to how my son felt) came on a different night. My phone rang really late, I was asleep, it was the Sheriff’s office. He asked me my name and the officer told me that my son was calling 911 repeatedly because his dad and I were sexually abusing him through his computer via “Some Online Video Game” I told the officer, “I don’t even know what that is” and clued the officer in regarding my son’s brain disorder. The officer asked if I could please get my son to stop calling 911.

I called my son and told him the sheriff’s office had just called me regarding his report. My son was very pleased that they had called me.

The next morning I thought about his satisfaction and realized he had been pleased because he probably felt he had been heard.

To say the least, we end up in some really unusual situations as caregivers.

1 Like

911 calling can be very difficult to block, because of laws that mandate their universality. Even cellphones without service can make them because of this. About the best you can hope for is locking up or removing power from phones. There are other ways, but they are semi illegal hacks.

Eventually after enough of these calls they threaten to fine you or charge for services. I once helped in an effort at a business to track down someone who repeatedly called 911 and hung up. In these scenarios they have to dispatch the police regardless. Turned out an employee had a sticky ‘1’ key on his phone, so when he dialed ‘9’ to place an outbound call and ‘1‘ he got an unexpectedly early ring back tone, so he hung up. The fix was to change the outbound line number to ‘7’.

And yes, caregiving can lead to interesting times. My experience is largely in forensics trying to decipher events that led to my brother’s hospitalizations and arrests. He rarely tells us the true story, even though he often is aware of things he’s done. His home and past apartments exist somewhere between archeological digs and crime scenes, and it’s taken perseverance and fortitude to slog through them to get to the truth. Sometimes it feels like an episode of Twin Peaks or the X-Files when we go in. Very little surprises my sister and me any more. You have to laugh sometimes or you’ll end up crying.

4 Likes

Sigh. I’m sorry things went downhill for you and your son.

911 calls happened from my daughter to the police over and over for about a year and a half. Many (about 40) times the police actually came, sometimes with two cars and an ambulance, depending on what she said to them. I often didn’t know she was calling as she did it from her bedroom. The police were always professional and friendly, although I was sometimes asked to try and stop her from calling if it wasn’t an emergency; but if SHE believed it was an emergency, they were bound to come. There was never any threat of fines to us.

One word of warning: taking someone’s phone from them when they are trying to call 911 is actually a crime here in Florida. I never physically stopped my daughter from calling. One time she tried to stop ME from calling, and when the police came, they actually arrested her (she was obviously psychotic but admitted to the crime) and from the jail she went to a psychiatric hospital. It was only through police interactions that my daughter ended up med compliant is is now doing well. So I am grateful.

Wishing you a good outcome.

2 Likes

@oldladyblue, this is the great thing about this message board: you get to see that other people’s experiences are the same as yours. You and @hope both have written that 911 calls are common in your experiences.

I just wish I knew why he was calling. Maybe when his psychosis dies down a bit he can tell his – if he remembers.

Thanks for the heads up about taking his cell phone away to stop the 911 calls. I’ll tell my wife and we will give it back to him. Seems like the police are used to this.

The 400 mg of Seroquel seems to be doing the trick today and he is acting much less psychotic. Hopefully with another 200 mg tonight he will be able to sleep.

2 Likes

That is a big IF. Honestly, when I stopped trying to “figure out” why my daughter said some of the things she said, my life calmed down a lot. She doesn’t remember at all (18 months on a successful anti-psychotic now) 3 of her hospitalizations, she doesn’t remember correctly being in jail, and she for sure doesn’t remember much about or talk about the things that were delusions or hallucinations to her. I don’t bring them up to her either.

1 Like

I think this is is good advice – not to bring up what was forgotten. If he asks I think I’ll tell him. If not, I won’t tell him.

2 Likes

It has worked for me and my daughter. We pretty much don’t talk about the past, she almost never brings it up.

1 Like

My son has been Baker Acted more than 30 times since the age of 18. Prior to that, he was in residential treatment centers probably five or six times. And I do NOT take a Baker Act lightly. There are probably many other times he should have been taken in but I waded through it until it quieted down. He had a wonderful psychiatrist when he was younger but she ended up retiring and its “here we go again” with each and every new doctor. His list of prior treatment (drugs, social workers, counselors, FACT teams, psychiatrists, etc) is as long as your arm. I have a drawer full of unused drugs, just waiting for the next collection day when the Sheriff’s office will take them off my hands and dispose of them safely. I now sleep with my doors locked at night because I never know what new “friend” he might meet during his nightly bicycle rides to bring home to “chill” with him. He doesn’t understand the concept of his meager Social Security payments which honestly will not cover the cost of the brand of cigarettes he usually likes to smoke. I do believe that my son’s issue began with a head injury but I was told by a CSU doctor that I couldn’t get an MRI for mental health purposes except at a hospital in Miami - but, my insurance (not Medicare) provider tells me otherwise. My son has called 911 in the past and when they showed up, he just laughed because he thought I’d be taken in. They know him but again, he’s usually taller and stronger than they are and it typically goes down hill from there.

On one occasion, he was Baker Acted during a time when the CSU near our house was being renovated. One of the doors was left unlocked so he just walked home. They put out an APB (after we called the facility) and the police arrived to put him in chains, after three of them jumped on him to hold him down. They never apologized, nothing. If you’re ever contemplating on retiring to Florida, DON’T - as long as you have a family member who needs mental health care. Many of the homeless get on a bus and get off in Florida because the weather is more suitable. At least that’s what one of the local homeless guys told me…

@Pookey52, yes, having the police come and handcuff your child is about the worst thing in the world. I cried uncontrollably when it happened a couple of weeks ago and I never cry. They were holding my son down too, one with his knee on his leg.