Posted on 02/20/2022 6:52:47 AM PST by LibWhacker
Does anyone have any experience in getting help for a seriously disturbed friend or relative? In this case, the seriously disturbed person is our nephew, aged 38, and we're really beginning to worry about what is going to happen to him in the not-too-distant future.
He dropped out of high school in the 9th or 10th grade. I don't think he's ever read a book. He cannot hold a job: there is almost NO chance of that. In fact, I'd guess he's never held a job more than a month or two, tops.
I once caught him bringing marijuana into our house and told him it could cost his beloved aunt (my wife), who I believe he really does love, the house she worked so hard for, IF the feds found drugs in the house and decided to prosecute. He told me marijuana was now legal in Caifornia and that that could never happen. This expertise based on his experience working two weeks as a file clerk in a law firm, before they fired him for being an obnoxious so-and-so (he tried to tell them how to organize their filing system, and that the way they were doing it was beyond dumb).
When I told him he didn't know anything about the law he said, "Uncle Joe (not my real name), I know everything about the law." That based on two weeks as a file clerk in a law office!
And so it's been with every job he's ever held... He knows how to do things better than they do and always gets fired within a month or so. This has been going on for over 20 years.
His own mother can't stand him and will not allow him to come around. His father is the only person who helps him, but is old and won't be able to do that much longer.
His sister's only child is embarrassed to have him around (that niece decided he was too much of an embarrassment when she was all of seven years old) and so he can't go there anymore.
He mutters and talks and shouts to himself and erupts in scary outbursts for no apparent reason, in private and in public.
When he was young he was quite cute and went through a series of puppies he'd carry around, or lead around on a leash, to attract girls and get them in bed. But he's not cute anymore. He's scary.
Recently, doctors have prescribed anti-psychotic meds and I understand those meds help a lot. But he doesn't like them won't take them as prescribed, or at all, if you're not standing over him with a whip and forcing him to take them, which his dad is pretty much incapable of doing anymore.
I told my wife I thought he needs to be institutionalized. But she says there is no institutionalizing people like that anymore, "thanks to your hero Reagan."
Uh, WHAT???
So what to do? Any ideas? I really do want to help him but don't have a clue what to do. He's not moving in with us, that's for sure. Google, Duck Duck Go, etc., aren't much help.
When his father dies, that's when it's going to hit the fan.
Any advice is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
“Marijuana, and all the THC concentrates now available from it, are particularly bad for borderline psychotics. They make you go off into a fantasy world of how experimental vaccines are good for you.”
Really?? LOL
Take and drop him off at his new home. The streets of LA. He will fit right in.
Thanks. Actually a clinic in Boston around 1800 figured out that proper nutrition, exercise, and regular hours worked wonders for many of the mentally ill referred to them. Nutrition, especially is something that is often overlooked today.
Before forewarned that most long time drug addicts will steal from you, cash, valuables, credit cards, etc. Anything not nailed down may be taken to pay for their next bottle, pill, baggy, needle.
Time for tough love.
There are many positives here.
1) You didn’t mention any actual trouble with the law.
If he was indeed mentally unstable, it is extremly likely by the age of 38 he would have been in trouble with the law many times by now.
2) If just weed, that should not cause a relative to lose their home. Unless of course, growing acres of it on the property in a state that does not allow it’s possesion. But even so, most states have eased up on weed.
3)Many of our so-called adults are just coming into their responsible adult hoods in middle age. It takes a series of hard-knock lessons in real life. Because of being social and adhd drug experiements in schools and society. They don’t have the social skills to be successful in work, family, or on their own.
4) Prayer is powerful. Praying for your nephew. Suggest the family also continue heavily in prayer for him. He needs all he can get. Do not give up on him.
OF course, you don’t have to extend money, etc. But do not abandon completely. Try to remember that People lash out when really just angry and depressed with their own failures. And also as reaction of rejection. Rejection through the years also causes very deep scarring too. The pain is talking. IT is deep and scarring. But there is always Hope. Keep praying. And let him know he is loved.
Have a friend who has been diagnosed as bipolar, on lithium but with his use of alcohol and drugs has been involuntarily committed several times. It is near impossib!e to get committed unless he is a danger to others or himself. Most recent incident happen after holidays he was detained for some time. On day of release he told the nurse he had to go home and find his guns ( guns have long since been removed) She asked him why he said to come back and shoot you. That got him another 10 days in care. Suggest you talk with mental health center and see what your options are. Might be necessary to do things you don’t want to.
This is a serious response.
Some people are just lost and unrecoverable. I agree that Reagan and all others who closed the mental institutions created a disaster. This is why there are so many homeless. In the absense of a place that can control him, there are no options unless someone wants to give up their life to protect his life.
Probably the best thing. Too bad we can't go back in time. It was easier to institutionalize people like this guy. So he gets help he needs at a facility and then get him sorted out with meds he needs. Maybe he'll come out as a functioning adult. But yeah, we can't do that anymore. That's a shame.
We can offer our sympathies and prayers to the OP.
If he’s still in California, he should just become “unhoused”...in LA they’ll set him up with a $500K living space and happily accommodate his drug use.
I’ve often wondered if there is a limit to “compassion”, and if so what is it?
At what point does it become pathological, where it does more harm than good to both the person you’re trying to help and to yourself.
Sounds like long standing mental illness.
There is no treatment or options for the unwilling unless they are an immediate da German to self or others or u able to care for themselves. Look on the streets and you will see it is a very high bar.
Never happen. Need compelling evidence. Not what is prese Ted here
It goes both ways. Mentally ill use drugs to address their symptoms short term and drug use can cause mental illness
Actually you can go to court and have him 1013ed. Claim he is a danger to himself and others
That's sad right there. Reading books have been a passion of my life. At least four per week since I was about 7.
Music as well. Soothes the soul.
Without literature and music, what's the reason for living?
Run away! Your other relatives are setting an example of what you must do.
The military won’t take malfunctioning people, and rightly so.
“What can you do: Nothing. There are no ‘prisons’ to hold the mentally ill unless they commit serious crimes and are actually imprisoned.”
Nowdays even prisons for serious crimes are disappearing.
At 38, who is feeding and housing him, and why?
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