Fighting for Answers | Category Archives: frustratedfrustrated Archives

A sad reality – restraint of a mentally ill child

It’s a sad reality. Our son David is mentally ill. I know it’s been a while since I last posted. So much has happened. On Feb 3, as I was driving into the city for a medical appointment, I received a call from the facility where David was. “If you don’t come and get him by 1pm, you will be charged with abandonment.” said the Clinical Director. I tried to explain that I was on my way to a medical appointment, 100 miles south of the facility. I explained that I had made arrangements to pick him up at 4pm. Not good enough. I was given the ultimatum, either pick up your son by 1pm, or be charged. As a result, I cancelled my appointment, turned around and went to pick him up. You see, he is well. Or so they believed. That’s why his peers want to kill him.

Frustration, Frustration, Frustration ahead.

I am frustrated. Well beyond frustrated, and I am trying to work through it. What it amounts to is this. We are trying to get David services. So the facility that he was in two and a half years ago was approached. Again. We are trying to get them to rethink their denial. At any rate. The basic reason that they won’t accept him for care? Blame the parents. We aren’t doing enough. When he was there two years ago, we didn’t do enough. We didn’t participate in family therapy. We didn’t do this, we didn’t do that. After all of that was refuted, they blamed David. Said it was because he was too aggressive. That he didn’t do this therapy or that. Again we refuted their blame. Will this result in a bed? I don’t know. What I would like to do is for someone to make me a

we have tried…

We have tried inpatient, we have tried long term psychiatric care, we have tried therapists, counselors, social workers, child psychiatrists, child psychologists. We have tried law enforcement. we have tried…. there isn’t much that we haven’t tried. We have tried different ones of each thinking it might have been a personality issue. He did well in long term care, until Medicaid decided that he wasn’t making enough progress and sent him home. And when they discharged him from the facility in January, no after care was planned, no follow up contact was done. Nothing. If it wasn’t for the work that we did, and one of our best case managers that we could ever hope to work with, we wouldn’t have as much as we do now for services. Three months later, we are still working on getting things into place. So yes, we have tried. Tweet #fighting4answrs