Mental Health... trying to sort this out...

[harleyjo]

Higher repercussions, higher awareness of the consequences to their actions..no consequences..no reason to stop.

Exactly! This is why we want the opportunity to talk with him. I go out on a limb, my relationship with him was ok before I went to his dad about what he might do. My son does this deed that almost cost my ex his job and there was no consequence to his actions. They forgave him and took him to the state fair and all the fun stuff they did before as if nothing happened. Now I apparently am the bad guy because I choose to confront him and want to talk to him about it.​

 

[KlaHaYa Gardens]

Quote:
@Welsummerchicks,

I didn't want to quote and address your entire post, but I did want to say and make clear that this process varies significantly from state to state.


@OP, Borderline Personality Disorder, (BPD), is noted for the chaos and self-destructive behavior. (However, many mental illnesses are noted by self-destructive behavior.) BPD is not diagnosed until adulthood.


The thing I want to suggest you consider, which can go hand-in-hand with mental illness, BPD, or otherwise, is drug abuse. The drug abuse, often considered "self-medicating" for those with undiagnosed/untreated mental health, can be VERY difficult to identify initially. It is also marked by lying, stealing, and manipulation. Individuals who otherwise have tremendously admirable personality traits can be "lost" in mental illness/drug abuse.

Treatment and help is also difficult to find and expensive. Not to mention the difficulty of convincing an adult to seek and follow through with seeking and getting help (this applies to mental health issues and drug abuse issues).

This is an organization that may be of assistance to you. www.nami.org



Good luck to you.

 

[cackydoodledoo]

Quote:
I agree but also your ex needs to get on board with you and you both will need to work together and refuse to let him manipulate you. Once he sees that you two are done playing his pass around game then I bet he quits!!!

 

[harleyjo]

I agree but also your ex needs to get on board with you and you both will need to work together and refuse to let him manipulate you. Once he sees that you two are done playing his pass around game then I bet he quits!!!

That is the problem. My ex and I don't agree on how to handle this. That is why my son feels he can say and do what he does to me. The little bit I have tried to talk to him about this he says "Well dad doesn't have a problem with it anymore."​

 

[ARose4Heaven]

Quote:
That is the problem. My ex and I don't agree on how to handle this. That is why my son feels he can say and do what he does to me. The little bit I have tried to talk to him about this he says "Well dad doesn't have a problem with it anymore."

About the gun... after my boys' dad died, I went against his and the boys' wishes and took the arsenal to the local police station to be disposed of. I took a lot of flack for it...but at that point the deed was done, and I don't have any "accidents" on my conscience.

With all the behavioral problems you describe...why do you want to be in the situation? I know it is heartbreaking to break with a child, even an adult child. There are times when it is best. Once you back away from both the EX and the son for, say...6 months, the dynamics of the situation will change. They will have time to relate to one another without using you as a common "enemy".

I think the best advise any of us could give you has already been given several times. Do not play the game! Step back and let them fight among themselves. You only hurt yourself by trying to fix someone who does not desire to be helped.

 

[KlaHaYa Gardens]

Quote:
The thing is . . . this isn't a game.

 

[welsummerchicks]

Sorry Kla Ha Ya civil commitments as well as 'police pick up person and drive away with him' are very complicated in all states of the USA - much more complicated than the post re: 'if you report the person they aren't likely to stay other than 72 hr and if the police do it the person will have to stay there til they get better'.

It is virtually impossible for an 'ordinary person' (not a psychiatrist etc) to get a relative into a hospital and treated unless the sick person wants treatment. With exceptions, but rare ones, police will generally not take someone in unless they arrive and a crime is in progress. And if a crime is being committed they may be far more likely to go to jail than a hospital.

The ability to easily commit people to psychiatric treatment disappeared many decades ago in the USA. There are many levels of oversight and it is deliberately made as difficult as possible.

In all our states. All the state mental health law language were crafted by basically one author - and the goal of that language was to divest the states of as much legal and financial responsibility for the mentally ill as possible. This meant raising the bar extremely high, so that only the most extreme cases are hospitalized against their will, and even fewer than that are actually treated against their will.

The law was the result of an alliance between social reformers and budgeteers - and has been called 'the most expensive child of a frugal era'.

The doctor in the hospital almost always has the authority to discharge a psychiatric patient unless a court orders him not to - that is, over the person's regular doctor, over the police, over the petitioner/committer/guardian, over the parents. This was intended as a system of checks and balances to prevent people from misusing commitments.

There are numerous problems with 'getting someone treatment'. It is EXTREMELY difficult to get an unwilling adult into psychiatric care in the United States.

The bottom line is that the law, through and through, supports an adult's right to refuse ANY form of treatment if they so choose, and no matter what people think, that principle reigns supreme - even in the face of criminality, threats, assaults, and anything else.

Certainly, 'being mentally ill' carries absolutely no weight in the legal system. No one gets locked up today for 'acting strange' or 'having symptoms'. These are not crimes. While individuals may flaunt the state laws, in general, the state actors set an extremely high bar for 'hospitalizable' and 'committable'. For example, a person running out and screaming at people in the street, no. A person unable to use a toilet or feed themselves, more likely.

And in general the law is designed to not make any 'assumptions' about mental disease, 'requiring' treatment. Very few people today are compelled to accept treatment; it requires a great deal of effort and the permission of the court. That was done very deliberately.

Parents generally have very little ability to get an adult child to accept care - when they do - hallelujia! But most of the time, all the 'info' about mental disorders fails to mention this one single huge gigantic problem.

It is even rather often to get someone a psychiatric hospital bed if they WANT treatment!

And as many families will sadly tell you, the police carting their loved one off to the hospital, generally will result in:

-- No hospitalization or a very brief one

-- No treatment - the person, even if committed by law, is still generally free to refuse all treatment

I am not against hospitalization, quite the contrary. But a great many families will be only too quick to explain to you how very little success the law supports, in getting psychiatric help for an unwilling adult.

People read about it and think it's such a simple, easy matter - just drop him off at the hospital and he'll get medicine and that's the end of that - or they'll keep him there til he 'gets better'....I wish it were so easy. It simply is not.

 

[KlaHaYa Gardens]

Quote:
Yes, it is complicated.

It varies not only from state to state, but within counties, and within departments and hospitals, etc. It is very inconsistent. There is less help, less support these days, not more. In days of old when people were easily committed, that may have been good for some folks (there are those who would benefit from that now rather than being on the streets) but the "treatments" were often brutal and cruel. Medication is the prevailing (not only) treatment these days often combined with behavior therapy, but the effectiveness can be argued.


The difficulty I have with threads like this, is not someone reaching out for help, but the eagerness of posters who "mean well" but have no clue OR, based on their own unique experience, feel they have "the" answer.

I also object to the pat answers, even though well-intended, such as (forgive me posters) "tough love" and "don't play the game" etc. Those are very simplistic answers for very complicated issues that affect the lives of many people.

The OP mentioned her son, his failed marriage (thus a former wife), the OP's former husband, current partner, and grandchildren. Then, there is also the former husband's employer. Conservatively, that is a minimum of eight people involved. That's a lot of lives affected by a problem that pat answers, while meant well, won't answer. Additionally, they effectively minimize the seriousness and complexity of the issues and the consequences.

We can all second-guess or claim to know state statutes and authorities etc. better than the next poster, but the reality is none of us are vested and will deal with the consequences of any advice we offer the OP, be it good or bad.

I think the best we can offer are resources that the OP can connect with and our support.

As you said "I wish it were so easy. It simply is not."


I will ask the posters in this thread to please be cautious and restrained with the "help" and the "answers" you offer.

 

[welsummerchicks]

"it varies"

Often local actors have a degree of freedom in how they interpret and put into action, the laws. For example, a local judge who handles commitments may have personal issues that make him more, or less, willing to commit a patient against his will.

One may be fooled by 'outpatient commitment' laws more and more states have - in fact, if you research the numbers, the outpatient commitment laws have resulted in the actual treatment, of a surprisingly small number of people, even in the course of a decade or more. Most of them have extremely complex requirements that many people are highly unlikely to meet (for example, many OC programs only take people who have a history of compliance with taking medication).

In the urban areas, there tends to be a great overload of facilities and a very, very high bar that needs to be reached for people to be kept in a psychiatric hospital against their will. Sometimes the problem is not as acute in rural areas due to less overload of facilities. But that's not always the case - in my rural area we joke that that are three beds total for committments. And it's not that small a county.

"a diagnosis is never an excuse"

Ah...depends. Depends on what you mean by that.

People are responsible for their own behavior in the eyes of the law, but the fact is, some are a lot sicker than others.

I've got one friend with schizophrenia, 100% treatment compliant, who runs a teaching program at a hospital and lectures on schizophrenia and mental health all over the world. And when he's having a relapse, he STILL has to go into the hospital and does not have 100% control over what he does. Like a heart patient or a person who has MS, when he has a bad spell, he needs to be in the hospital.

And I've got another friend who can't do anything except go from his bedroom to the day room in a residential facility, also 100% treatment compliant, when he relapses, he stops being able to feed himself with a spoon.

Sure the majority of people are mildly or moderately ill, spend most of their time OUT of a hospital, don't need a permanent residential care situation, and do very, very well if they get diagnosed and start treatment soon, if they stick with treatment and don't drink or do street drugs. And even many of THESE people struggle very hard to learn to control their behavior. When your senses lie to you it's awfully hard to learn to ignore them. It takes time, effort, repetition...and a good many of these folks don't 'learn from experience' on the same schedule as other people.

frankly, I'm never 100% surprised when a person who has a given diagnosis, behaves in lots of ways expected for that diagnosis.

Again, what a mentally ill person is capable of, what can be expected of them, what they should be held accountable for doing, how they are made to understand consequences, IF they can understand and respond with those consequences in mind.....that depends.

There are times when they can help it, can just sort of say, 'No, I'm not going to lose it' and there are times and people who just can't. It depends on what they've got, and how bad it is, and who it is.

Sure most people can control their behavior. And some cannot. There are some violent autistic adults you can reach and talk to and give them a structure they understand and thrive under - and there are some violent autistic adults you can't succeed in controlling violence that way.

I worked with such a kid - there just was no punishment, contingency or structure that did any good. And the way his mother was treated was horrific. It was all her fault, she wasn't tough enough, etc, etc, etc. Well the fact was this kid was different. The degree of unchanging routine this kid needed in order not to start harming himself...the only place that was even MOSTLY in place was in a permanent residential facility. Even there he got agitated at times. Medication helped, but not 100%. Not everyone responds to everything. Depends on the illness, how severe it is in that individual, how much it affects their brain.

Some people are so severely ill, that no treatment in the world would make them appear 100% like chronically normal people.

Sometimes treatment is so delayed or so sporadic, or simple the wrong treatment. Then the results aren't the greatest. Some people are mentally ill and do drugs or alcohol, damaging their brain even more.

 

[ARose4Heaven]

No intent here to trivialize your situation.

As the old Indian adage goes... you must walk in another man's moccasins to know his path. Or something like that. We can feel for you and emphasize. But in all reality, you are the only one who truly knows what works or doesn't work in your world.

IMHO the best thing would be to sit down with that Ex, and hammer out a united front toward the "boy". If that is not possible, as a mother, your own intuition is probably your best guide.

Have you considered going to a counselor yourself to equip you with tools to diffuse the situation and at the very least reduce your own stress in dealing it all?

Wishing you well.