The answer should be yes. Not "how can I get my loved one help?"

Category Archives: family stress

Against Medical Advice

Against Medical Advice.

It’s been two years since this happened. Two years ago he was discharged against medical advice, 

The only thing bad about mental health is the way we treat those who have mental illness.

David was discharged from the facility in another state because the insurance people who create the Certificate of Need decided that he wasn’t making any progress and needed to go home.

This week, he will be discharged from a different facility.  Not because of the Certificate of Need.  But because the facility says he doesn’t need support and should be sent home.  How can David continue to see the successes he has seen in care if he comes home to no support?  Even David recognizes that he needs support.

I don’t understand how so few can over power the recommendations of so many doctors.

Bad Parent

I am a bad parent.  It’s a title my wife and I wear with honor.

What makes us bad parents?  We are fighting for the 24/7 supports that 3/4 medical professionals say he needs.  The people who provide said supports and the funding to pay for them have chosen to listen to the one psychologist who says he doesn’t need support.  It’s not easy for us to fight to keep OUR SON in care.  But we will fight for the care he needs.

So we are looking at a discharge against medical advice.

How we treat the mentally ill

Now, I am going to make a general statement.  If David had cancer and I decided to pull him out against medical advice, I would be facing the fight of my life and his to make that happen.  There would be no question about it.  So.  Why is mental illness treated differently?  David doesn’t have cancer.  He does have mental illness.  I am not saying it’s worse than cancer.  I am saying that like cancer, mental illness needs appropriate treatment by qualified personnel.

The future

In the end we are left with few options.  David will come home.  Things will be good for a week or two or six.  Then his world will fall in on itself and we will be right back where he was two years ago.  Violent. Stealing. Aggressive. Narcissistic.  David will be 16 this summer.  Some of the things he has tried and done in the past could land him in adult court.  Prison is no place to get mental health care.

 

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the value in flaws of the mind

I talk regularly about David’s mental health.  Flaws isn’t a good word for the way he is, or why he is the way he is.

Even though most days I am flummoxed by what to do with his behaviors, his mind has value.

Every mind has value.  Why?

With David, it is the simple things.  When he wants to be helpful, regardless of the reason, you can’t find a better helper.  If one of the pets is upset, he calms them down.  He can calm pets for other people, especially cats, including one that is especially standoffish to anyone except her owner.  He has a wicked sense of humor.  He can hear conversations from 30 feet away, even if they don’t concern him. He is a voracious reader.  A technology wizard.

Every mind has value, there is a purpose for everything that is in the world.  Sometimes we wonder at the reason for creating the issues that David has in the way that he has them, but there must be a reason.  Ours is not to reason why.

It would be altruistic of me to say that David will achieve something great one day.  In fact, I could easily see him in a prison setting.  I have to believe that he is a part of our family for a reason.  To give voice to the cause of mental illness.  To give voice to special needs children in foster care.  To give voice to those kids looking for forever homes in spite of their special need.

As a family we feel the impact of having David in our lives.  It isn’t always positive, and quite literally, most days are pretty awful.  Yet we persevere.  As a family we continue to work to get him the help and services that he needs to be the successful person that we believe that he can be.  Our other children are prime examples of the helpful and caring people we had always hoped to raise.  Our other children know empathy and as a result are more understanding of people with special needs.  Dare I say that they are more tolerant?  I am not sure.

It took David to open my eyes to the possibilities of helping others.  For that, I offer David my thanks.  I also offer my thanks to our other children, college age or not.  They each know who they are.  David has taught each of us a lesson that we should be forever thankful to have had the opportunity to learn.

hmmm Toby you smell bad

Kill germsToby is our Pomeranian.  David decided that since Toby hadn’t had a haircut and bath recently that he would deodorize him.  So he sprayed him with a Lysol type spray.

So far the dog hasn’t gotten sick. And he did get a bath and hair cut this past weekend.

We have explained before that he can’t spray the dogs with anything.  Last time he was home, he sprayed two of our dogs with bug spray.   No explanation as to why.

Frustrating.  And we do have locks on the cupboards.  They aren’t even challenging to him anymore, he is an amateur locksmith.