Any Experience Dealing with Family with Mental Illness?

Long story short, I have a close family member who is severely bi-polar who decided to go off of her medication about three months ago. We only discovered this in the past couple weeks. Now we are trying to figure out what it will take to get her to go back on her medication.

I am the one with the most freedom at this exact moment to deal with the situation, so it will probably fall on me to make a 9-hour roadtrip next week to go down there and deal with her. I do not have any kind of power of attorney to make her take the medication, and she is not current in such a state that she is an immediate threat to herself or others. We want to get her back on her meds and being looked out for before she has the opportunity to slide into being a risk to herself.

Anyone have experience making someone close to you get back on medication they need to in order to function properly, but are refusing to take?

I suggest finding her psychiatrist and contacting them. Otherwise, you are wasting your time.

That's a tough one. I have recently experienced something somewhat similar (convinced the problem is medical, so it's not as bad). It really is a tough situation. You of course have to bring them to their own conclusion, just telling them will likely not do anything.

The only thing I can suggest is to try and outline and make clear the reasons why her life is better on the medication. E.g. make a list of good things and bad things about both and see how they line up. Talk it out, make diagrams, get statements from people it effects, whatever it takes. As you note, if she doesn't want to do it, and she is no danger, there is no other option.

Dr. Hess wrote: I suggest finding her psychiatrist and contacting them. Otherwise, you are wasting your time.

I know who her psychiatrist was. Apparently she fired all of her doctors and hasn't seen any of them in almost two months.

I called their office last week before discovering she wasn't seeing them any more, and for confidentiality reasons, they could not even confirm if she made an appointment with them.

If she is obviously unwell, what power do I have to get a prescription for her or a release of any records when I do not have any kind of power of attorney?

she will have to be a danger to herself or "others", does she have kids, if so you can contact your local sheriff's department or child health agency, it is a hard road to go, i have been there, they almost have to hurt themselves or others.......trouble as you may know they get the medication then they feel better and think, hey, i dont need those meds i feel good........then when it is gone from their system they slowly start having trouble...i wish you luck.

You have no power. BTDT.

Until she is shown to be a threat to herself or to others there's not a damn thing you can do. Firing her doctors etc is perfectly within her rights unless she is court ordered to take her meds and believe me that is a drastic step. Here in SC it's a 'three strikes' thing, if someone is picked up and held against their will ('involuntary commitment') because they are obviously unstable they typically spend 14 days in protective custody and then go before a judge who will decide whether to release them or not. On the 3rd such episode, most judges will remand them to the custody of the state DMH.

At this point all you can do is try to talk some sense into her. You might contact the local PD, explain the situation and ask them to do wellness checks. Even then, they can't do anything unless as noted above she is shown to be a danger to herself or to others.

If you can convince the doctor at the emergency room that she is a danger to herself or others you can get a short involuntary commitment order that will put her back on her meds whether she thinks she wants to or not.

Sorry. Bi Polar is a tough road that leads nowhere good.

Yep. It sucks. This is why I haven't talked to my father in 4 years. It's very hard to help someone who doesn't think they need help (unless they're asking for money...).

wrote: she will have to be a danger to herself or "others", does she have kids, if so you can contact your local sheriff's department or child health agency, it is a hard road to go, i have been there, they almost have to hurt themselves or others.......

Her kids are adults. No children. She is not an active, physical threat. More an issue of slowly distancing herself from the world and failing to take care of herself.

I contacted her local PD district this morning. They can do wellness checks, but that isn't the problem. If her condition worsens, she just goes basically catatonic and locks herself in her apartment. Nothing the cops can do to get in.

There is a family member in the area with some amount of power of attorney. But she is really busy with work for the next several weeks. Doing lots of traveling. I do not know how much authority the specific power of attorney she has grants, if she can force my family member to get hospitalized.

Otherwise, it will probably involve me driving down early next week to coerce her to take her medication or go to a hospital.

best case, if you could get her to go back to the doctor that has been treating her and knows her history and scripts.......that would save a ton of time.

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/bipolar_disorder_family_friends_support.htm

Spoke to the family member with power of attorney to see how much authority we have to make something happen. Turns out she wrote in several outs for herself so that the durable power of attorney does not actually have any weight for us to get her help when she is resistant.

Basically, when she was getting care and doing well, she sabotaged our ability to get her the care she needs now that she is actually having a problem.

I am also pissed off at a family member who knew she had fired her doctors back when she did it, and didn't let everyone know that she was clearly having a problem so that we could all persuade her to get help back when she would be more receptive to it.

In FL we had the "Baker Act." I'm guessing there's similar stuff in other states. Sorry bud. E36 M3 position to be in :(

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florida_Mental_Health_Act

I have a sister who is severely Bi-Polar. It is a tough disease to deal with, so you have my sympathy.

From everything I have read on the matter, it is very hard to keep them on their meds. I know my sister hates them because they make her feel "numb".

The problem is, when they are on that manic "high" it is better than any drug in the world, and they want to experience that as often as possible. Sadly, they then get that low. I can always tell when my sis is off her meds.. I get 30+ text messages an hour from her.. starting at 5 or 6am

You cannot force a person to get better. Oh, sometimes you can force something for a little while (like drying out an alcoholic). But you cannot force a person to take a medication, eat healthy, exercise, quit smoking, etc.

There is usually a group known as Adult Protective Services which can step in under certain situations. We recently had to hospitalize my elderly mother who has bi-polar tendancies(she has never been diagnosed) and went manic on us. In that event, she gets seriously into retail therapy and goes on shopping binges. She also ignored other finances and had multiple auto accidents. Even so we had to lure her back to Tn to get hospitalization in a locked elderly unit. Being an attorney I knew some of the answers but usually getting family members to commit and support you is difficult. Filing for a conservatorship is the last thing that you want to do but sometimes necessary.

APS can be a big help in some circumstances. As mad machine says, many bipolar detest the meds (my ex said she felt like a zombie) and to get straightened out has to come from within that person. Not everyone wants to have their lives straight and there's not really anything that can be done about that.

Ugh and now my brother is giving me three shades of E36 M3 because I am not immediately dropping everything to make the 10 hour drive and days of struggle it is going to take to resolve this. I don't actually want to do that. I would much rather find a way that the people nearby her can deal with this like everything was supposed to have been coordinated for the emergency contacts down there to be able to after the last episode a year and a half ago.

I'm 99% certain I will end up going down there to resolve it. And I will, if that is what it takes. I just really wish there was another way (and there was supposed to be).

In reply to Beer Baron:

read your sig line and breathe. Best advice i can give.

I think it's kind-hearted that you want to help. I'm afraid there's no great solution for you scenario. Why you instead of family that live nearby? Do you have extraordinary powers of persuasion or hypnosis (or does the family use those powers on you)?

oldtin wrote: I think it's kind-hearted that you want to help. I'm afraid there's no great solution for you scenario. Why you instead of family that live nearby? Do you have extraordinary powers of persuasion or hypnosis (or does the family use those powers on you)?

The family that is nearby is more distant family. The person in question is my mother, and we're pretty sure it is going to take one of us kids to convince her to go back on her meds. Last time it was my brother who went out to deal with it. He is the closest of us, but he is still 5-6 hours away. He is also active military, and never really knows exactly what days/hours he'll be working. I have the most flexibility to get down there, since I can do it as part of my cross country trip to start my new job.

Thankfully, the new job is fine with me starting an extra week later than planned, if it comes to that.

Sadly I don't know the answer despite being familiar enough with the circumstances.

Bipolar disorder runs heavily in my family on my dad's side. It's a big catholic family with 7 in his generation and 20something kids in mine. 2-3 of Dad's generation have it, and roughly 2/3s of my generation has it to one degree or another, including myself. Mine's luckily not too bad, and can be managed without medication but my brother and a few cousins got walloped by it bigtime.

I know situations like yours have come up in our family before with the cousins (brother too, but he was a minor last time it got that bad, leaving my parents with more options), but I don't know how they were resolved. I've sent a few emails out, but I doubt I'll get a response in a timeframe that's useful for you. Just in case I do, will you be checking in here regularly? If not, if you send me some contact info, I can forward along any useful responses I get.

In reply to keethrax:

I will be checking in regularly. I probably will not be down there until a week from tuesday. She has been off meds for three months, is not in immediate danger, and she is overweight and does not have a car anymore (she claims it got vandalized and broke down... bur I suspect she actually just got paranoid). So there is not an immediate rush.

Al bets are off if its mom. It's a tough situation. FWIW a good percentage of patients seem to improve as they age.