Tag Archives: Antisocial personality disorder

SMI and the Tragedy of Adulthood

SMI – Serious Mental Illness

The National Survey on Drug Use and Health  (NSDUH), which defines SMI (Serious Mental Illness) as:

Rethink Mental Illness

Rethink Mental Illness (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So, what does this have to do with David?

David came to us when he was 18 months old.  We became his parents, legally, 6 months later.  In truth, since he was just months old, he has been a part of our lives.  Mom had a home daycare.  And we filled in as needed for his foster family‘s day care provider.

David is 15 now, in the blink of an eye, he will be 21 years old.  What happens to his care then?

This is the tragedy of adulthood for someone with a Serious Mental Illness.  Without the appropriate diagnosis, all care basically ends, regardless of what his actual needs are.  Unless two conditions are met.

Conditions

  1. Appropriate diagnosis.  –  something like Schizoeffective Disorder.  Each diagnosis that David has currently isn’t enough by themselves to get him continued care after he reaches 21.  Together they aren’t enough.  He has to have the right diagnosis.
  2. Jail/Prison.  He can receive mental health care that he needs, in prison.

111What kind of life is that?  With basic care, staff and supports, there is, I believe, a huge potential for him to lead a productive life.

Now, I caution my readers, his productive life isn’t going to be the same as yours or mine.  For him, it might be as simple as getting out of bed each day and playing video games. But if that keeps him and others safe, that’s okay.  It could be that he does something else.  The key here is safety and out of prison.

So again, how does this help him?  How does this help any adult who struggle with Serious Mental Illness?

 

 

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visited David today

Stopped at the psych unit to see David tonight.  He was being so good that I didn’t stay long.

He and some of the other patients were playing games.  It is rare when David sits still long enough to do anything, so I stayed long enough to give him a hug and let him know that we would see him tomorrow.

A part of me wishes that we could bring him right home, he would be good for a day or two.  But then, all of the old behaviors would start up again.  Then, we would be back where we started.

For now, I will for sure take the positive.  David deserves it.

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What do you mean?

This has become David’s favorite saying when confronted with a behavior.  Confronted isn’t the best way to describe how we deal with his behaviors, but it works for the purposes of this post.

“David, what are you doing upstairs?”  I ask.

“What do you mean?” he responds.

“David, why did you steal my keys?”  I ask.

“What do you mean?” he says.

For everything that he is confronted on, his response is nearly automatic.  “What do you mean?”

Most of the time, just in case he isn’t understanding what we say, we explain it to him.

 

Another odd thing happened tonight.  He took his meds with water, just like always.  They immediately came right back out. Immediately.  Thankfully we were in the kitchen when it happened.  See, he thinks that if he is throwing up, he won’t have to go to safe bed tomorrow.  Little does he know that the only thing he ever throws up is his meds.

Kind of hard to be sick if that is the thing that you throw up.  Kind of hard to have an allergy to those meds if it doesn’t happen every time he takes them.

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