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.
Get him to join Free Republic.
At least get him to read this thread.
Sensible, good advice, thank you.
“But some stay on their meds. My mom has stayed on her meds for 35 years. She’s 90,”
She would be one of the extreme exceptions. Some lower level mentally ill can stay on meds, but it is still rare. Her age at the time probably played a role in her compliance. She probably had developed a lifestyle and life skills and has been able to maintain her life as it was.
Unfortunately, common mental illnesses like schizophrenia hit in the early 20’s for most affected people, and there is little hope for a life of normalcy for them. Some cycle hard, some not as bad, but they do cycle.
Family support is usually the key differentiator for the compliant patients. The patients still cycle but the family is able to get them into a facility quickly, contain the problem, and get the patient back home all nice and stable.
Hard cycling patients cycle badly no matter what and usually get into hard drugs and crime. The accompanying violence is the key issue where families no longer can help and have to step back.
So hard to do. That’s family. But deep down I know you’re right, thanks.
He’s toxic. You can’t fo a thing for him. The mental health system won’t do a thing unless it’s voluntary or has stated a threat to himself or others or committed a crime. He has to decide to help himself.
He’s 38 and living with you, not his parents? Time to re-evaluate life choices. Enabling the situation makes it worse. Sorry to be so blunt but sometimes tough love is called for. You can’t save every lost soul.
Your best and only option is to intercede with his father to have him use his legal standing to legally become his conservator and then work with County mental heath officials to treat him if possible.
Your personal actions should be to protect the members of your immediate family from him, (especially the women), until treatment mitigates his mental health problems.
He must not have access to any member of your family or property without your immediate, full time supervision.
Good luck and God Bless you all.
You’re not going to like my answer. Don’t let him in your house and forget about him. He’s the only one who can make the changes needed. You can give him everything he needs to make him well but if he doesn’t want to get better there’s nothing anyone can do for him. Let him go. Get on with your life.
Still illegal via federal law.
Happens all the time: Some pot nutburger gets stopped by the fed, like a BP checkpoint, or the feds raid a home for trafficking in mj and some numb-nuts says it’s not illegal in CA, the feds respond by arresting the guy for a violation of federal law.
“ he may be also self medicating besides what he is prescribed.”
Marijuana, and all the THC concentrates now available from it, are particularly bad for borderline psychotics.
Most anti-psychotic prescription drugs work by limiting dopamine in the brain. Marijuana and THC are potent at increasing dopamine.
In addition to that effect, marijuana/THC is well documented to reduce motivation and ambition.
If you and his father could get him working to stay clean of recreational drugs, that would give his body a better chance to heal. It would probably require a formal program (like AA), and a lot of time and effort.
But the mild psychotic symptoms and the lack of holding a job or forming a career are both characteristic of heavy marijuana/THC use.
Addendum per post 71, this minister has degree in psychology and used to run centers for disturbed children.
Nutritional therapy for schizophrenics has been found useful; one study in the 70s found many of them incredibly insufficient in the B-vitamin complex, which has many effects on the brain. Malnutrition affects everything.
tranquilize him and drop him off in the middle of nowhere naked...
“Cut all ties with this guy. You can’t help him; he sounds what homelessness is made for.”
Winner, winner, chicken dinner.
In a homeless camp at least he will be with others just like him.
You can’t fix “crazy”.
I'm all ears, there! I don't think he's all that dangerous, but you never know what's really going on in someone's mind... Another reason not to let him move in with us, thanks.
The important thing is that you not let this guy drag you or other family members down with him.
Based on experience, it’s nearly impossible to determine whether nephew has natural or dope-induced psychosis, since they co-travel. It’s an old saw that you can tell what age someone started substance abuse by their current maturity level. From the facts provided, nephew started up at 10 or 11 and was already a mess; there is no fixing it once the damage is done. Without info, I can only guess that the kid was “difficult” since birth, and the parents were divided, weak, or simply flummoxed on a workable response, leaving the kid to grow up without consistent structure, limits, or consequences. Now he’s a spoiled, intractable, insane adult that daddy keeps afloat. Post-daddy, you can squander your own life carrying him, or let him bottom out (he will anyway, so skip the squandering your life part). Protect yourself and your family as best you can, and don’t feel guilty.
That’s the best advice, I think. Have to plead in earnest with God to intervene!
Check out Teen Challenge.
It worked for our 38 year old nephew.
You owe me a new keyboard! lol
From the NY Times...Closing mental institutions...
In California, for example, the number of patients in state mental hospitals reached a peak of 37,500 in 1959 when Edmund G. Brown was Governor, fell to 22,000 when Ronald Reagan attained that office in 1967, and continued to decline under his administration and that of his successor, Edmund G. Brown Jr. The senior Mr. Brown now expresses regret about the way the policy started and ultimately evolved. ‘’They’ve gone far, too far, in letting people out,’’ he said in an interview.
So, it appears it was supported by Gov Brown, then Reagan, then continued under other Dem governors including Gov Brown Jr.
I believe the movie Titicut Follies had some effect on it.
I also believe the movie ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO’S NEST had an effect on closing even more in 1981.
https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/03/hard-truths-about-deinstitutionalization-then-and-now/
“Ronald Reagan and Jerry Brown, two of the most consequential governors ever in California, led the state during two of the most well intended but poorly executed movements in this state’s history. The first was the de-institutionalization of the mentally ill. The second resulted in fewer prison inmates, and significant increases in homelessness and untreated mental illness.”
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