I'm tired of cooking/preparing 3 meals a day. It's just the two of us but boy oh boy can that woman eat!! She stays slimish, I get fattish. It's bad enough I do everything here much less start making her one thing and me the other. At times I feel guilty when I buy her fast food cuz of the nutritional value....not to mention I eat it too.
They should open up the mental hospitals that they shut down. Sorry if I sound archaic . The dangerous ones need to be on locked wards again .
I remember when I did my psych rotation in nursing school. It was scary . I was on a locked ward with 3O men, some had raped and/or murdered .
somehow that is coming out wrong
So, now your husband has my wheels turning? Would you rather blow up in an airplane or sink on a ship?
Or wait, ask your husband if he wants to make a joint list with me of the people that we could send on a one way space flight to Mars!!! 😆
It was circa 1984. At a very large New York state psychiatric institution with many tall buildings , most of the buildings were already empty . They were institutionalizing less people . Having them return to the community on meds . As a student nurse , they had me sit in on a discharge meeting with the patient who was 20 years old , his parents , the care team …psychiatrist , social worker , nurse etc .
The 20 year old male lived with his parents and he had molested the little girl next door. And they were sending this guy home to live there again. Now this was before sex offenders had to register mind you . But I was sitting there observing and wanted to scream “ Why would have have this guy living next door to that little girl again ? “
And the entire time this offender was staring at me in the most uncomfortable way , weird grins , licking his lips . I was the same age as him . I have no doubt he committed sex offenses again .
Now I know that many people were inappropriately institutionalized , that of course is sad . I also saw on another ward . A lot of older people that their parents had dropped off in the 1930’s, 1940’s and 1950’s because they had Down’s syndrome or were challenged intellectually ( previously called retarded ) . There were no group homes at that time I guess . Some of these people were there since they were early teens and that was all they knew so they kept them there . They felt having them leave or going to a group home would be traumatic for them . Most simply had no family as they were dropped off and forgotten ., and this institution was their lifelong home . These people were not dangerous.
We need to find the middle ground. I knew that from what I saw nearly 40 years ago with my own eyes .
I imagine constructing a glorious trebuchet, strong enough to launch them into the sun.
As Anabanana mentioned to you, these parents become elderly and their mi adult children often have no one to care for them. The parents' greatest worry is what will happen to my child when I die? What a burden for the elderly.
So true , group homes can be scary . 😞
After it was obvious that our children were not impaired , My husband told me that he was relieved that our children would be independent . He said that was his biggest fear . My husband has a very high functioning autistic brother. He actually is a genius . Has a photographic memory like in the movie Rainman. They used to call people like that idiot savants . But hubby’s brother is more high functioning than the man in the movie. He was able to work as a mailman because he did not have to make decisions. Making decisions at a job was not something he could do . He drives . Always has a studio apartment . My husband does his finances for him , and has to help with some decisions . When he was a child , they didn’t have support nor did they have the autism spectrum defined or addressed in schools. And since he was so high functioning and smart they thought he was just being difficult in school and he was often scolded in school . He was also bullied later on in school . His affect is a bit odd as well . I often thought had my brother in law had the services they have now, he would have been more independent .
I have a cousin that ended up in an institution as a young teen. He wasn’t high functioning. The story I heard was that he tried to harm his younger sister. They lived in Florida. When we would visit my dad’s family in Florida when I was a kid, I would hear the my aunt talking about it to my dad.
I’m sure that was difficult for the parents.
They certainly didn’t understand special needs as much back then.
I’m sure it was hard for my aunt and uncle. They divorced and my uncle moved to California. He remarried and wasn’t close to either of his children.
Sadly, divorce isn’t uncommon when there is additional stress within the family.
It is so sad that there are so many homeless with mental health issues . Even if you could convince them to accept help, There aren’t enough resources . Maybe at least some of them are capable of doing some sort of work to feel a sense of purpose, which could motivate them to accept help .
My husband works with a woman who can’t find her son who is homeless in another city . The boy’s best friend died in a car accident senior year of high school. The boy finished 4 years of college. The mother said that after college he just couldn’t handle being an adult , he kept thinking about his friend that died . The mother told my husband she just had to let him go (to God).
The stories about the homeless with mental illness are truly heartbreaking.
Many years ago I took my dad to speech therapy three times a week after he had his stroke.
I would drop my dad off in front of the entrance so he wouldn’t have to walk far. Sometimes I had to park a few blocks away and walk back to the facility to wait for my dad.
I always passed this old homeless woman pushing her shopping cart. She looked filthy from living on the street. She looked like she was in a daze.
I decided to give her money and I called her over to my car. She looked terrified to come near me. I kept saying that I was not going to hurt her and she finally came over. I gave her $20 and told her to go get something to eat. She was quite thin.
She didn’t say a word. Just a blank stare. I don’t know if she got something to eat or not. She was reluctant to even take the money.
There are many mentally ill people living on the streets and it does break my heart to see them.
Of course I'll pray for you.
In the mi world there is "normalizing" and we do it without even knowing we are doing it. Look at all the trouble my MIL caused by telling relatives I was saying all kinds of stuff I wasn't saying - the woman truly hated me. When my son's scz revealed itself (took years because we didn't know what was going on) suddenly we could see everything with new eyes. When MIL's geriatric psych report stated "underlying psychiatric disorder" we realized that she probably had been "hearing" me saying all the things she said I had been saying. No wonder the woman hated me.
On this forum I can see people normalizing a lot a mentally unstable behavior from their elderly family members. They don't know to think any different because mom/dad has always been that way. How can we know something that we don't know? Mental illness is a tricky world.
I agree. It does go both ways, however: under-diagnosing (in other words, people who really ought to be diagnosed with a mental illness), and over-diagnosing (wrongly giving a label to someone who isn't mentally ill at all). Both are just as problematic.
People taking care of a mentally deranged adult can do a 'Social Admit' (ER Dump) at the hospital. The police can actually transport the person if they are hostile. This is not just for caregivers who cannot meet the needs of an elderly person with dementia.
Parents have had to do this with their children. Spouses have had to do this.
No one has to keep a dangerous, mentally ill person in their home if they believe their lives or the lives of their other children living there are being threatened.
I don't think herding elderly people onto cruise ships is any kind of a possibility.
That would end like the Titanic. It would be impossible to staff an operation like that.
Put a thousand elderly people with dementia and various other health conditions out to sea. What happens if there's an emergency and the ship has to be evacutated? It ends like the Titanic.
I was shocked to hear about your experience as a student nurse with the child molester at the mental hospital and his behavior. I don't think I would be capable of the great level of restraint that you have.
There are today at least a few laws in place that would prevent that monster from being allowed to live next door to his victim. There are also 'Stand Your Ground' laws in some states. The victim's family could defend themselves and a child from a potential threat if it should come upon their property.
People can say what they want about the Italian mob, but when they ran a neighborhood in New York there was none of that. They dealt with people like that child molester.
I agree, many are undiagnosed . My mother was a narcissist diagnosed when her dementia was diagnosed . We normalized it in my family for the most part . We knew something wasn’t right , but when you are so close to the person day in and day out , it can be difficult to see the forest for the trees. I tried many times from the time I was in college to have my mother get help for depression. She always said “ I’m not crazy “. Also my mother played the victim and Dad gave up , just went along to get along most of the time . It was a losing battle. You can’t help those who don’t want help or think nothing is wrong.
True , some are misdiagnosed . I knew a woman they were treating for depression. Turned out she had Lewy Body . I knew another that was hypoxic , had delirium from undiagnosed COPD . They had her on antipsychotics. I’ve seen other cases as well . Often we see posts recommending tests for UTI , when behavior changes . There are many illnesses that cause mental illness symptoms .
Always need to look for a medical problem , don’t just assume it’s mental illness .
I don’t know that it is always so easy to get someone out of the house. That’s why people sleep behind bolted doors at night afraid of their own adult children . People living with the elderly with dementia have trouble getting them out as well . The police come to the house and don’t do anything many times if they don’t see the violent behavior themselves.
Actually a city by me is suggesting having social workers respond to domestic disturbance calls instead of the police . I don’t know what social worker will want to do that . I have a friend who is a police officer. He always said he felt walking into domestic disturbance situations are the most dangerous . He said you don’t know exactly what’s going on when you get there , and things can go from bad to worse in an instant .
Many times you hear how the police just talk , leave and then not long after someone kills someone they live with.