How to get a mentally ill person help?

[longshadow11]

I have a person in my life who is actually exiting my life due to my not being able to deal with her mental illness and how it causes her to mistreat me. There is little doubt something isn't right considering several people, from acquaintances to those who know her fairly well, have told me she is "crazy". Nobody is sure what her exact condition is, so she has been simply labeled as crazy. Dealing with her craziness actually made me crazy and I had to talk to other people to get my sense of reality back in place. After a few years of dealing with her, I made the decision to get her out of my life and, more importantly, out of the lives of my children. I'm still concerned for her and her kids and how they will all suffer until she gets help. But how do you get a mentally ill person help when they don't think they are? It seems like it would take an intervention of many people coming together and making her wake up to reality, but the problem is, she has no friends. None. Because women pick up on her craziness almost immediately. Any ideas? I doubt seriously she will listen to anything I have to say as we haven't seen each other or spoken in months.

[FlyingFinn]

Re: How to get a mentally ill person help?

I have a person in my life who is actually exiting my life due to my not being able to deal with her mental illness and how it causes her to mistreat me. There is little doubt something isn't right considering several people, from acquaintances to those who know her fairly well, have told me she is "crazy". Nobody is sure what her exact condition is, so she has been simply labeled as crazy. Dealing with her craziness actually made me crazy and I had to talk to other people to get my sense of reality back in place. After a few years of dealing with her, I made the decision to get her out of my life and, more importantly, out of the lives of my children. I'm still concerned for her and her kids and how they will all suffer until she gets help. But how do you get a mentally ill person help when they don't think they are? It seems like it would take an intervention of many people coming together and making her wake up to reality, but the problem is, she has no friends. None. Because women pick up on her craziness almost immediately. Any ideas? I doubt seriously she will listen to anything I have to say as we haven't seen each other or spoken in months.

My brother's ex-wife was the same way. Eventually he couldn't take it any more and got divorced. Unfortunately, there was nothing he could legally do about it so I believe she is still struggling with the same problems today.

[daflyboys]

Re: How to get a mentally ill person help?

It sounds like you are talking more so about a personality disorder, though a lot more information would be needed. If she truly has a personality disorder, typically, by definition, she won't perceive the problem as being herself, but those around her. There usually has to be some rather significant string of consequences before the person realizes, if she ever does, that something is amiss with her. Typically it is a number of failed occurrences that could eventually shake the person into a new perspective. Certain personality disorders are very difficult to remediate, if at all, because it is inherent in the disorder that the problem lies outside of themselves. The most blatant one is anti-social PD..... aka, criminals. Simply, you're not going to make a hardened criminal discover remorse, typically. Another that is very difficult is Borderline PD, more typically diagnosed in women. The problem will be that confronting the person with these ingrained disorders will have the counter-effect that you are looking for. Just keep in mind that her problems are not yours.

[slickdtc]

Re: How to get a mentally ill person help?

You can't force a person to seek help so my best advice is RUN!!

I typed that in jest, but I'm serious. Cover your bases and get away along with your kids.

I had a family member go off the deep end out of nowhere in 2007. It was fascinating in the most depressing way that someone could one day wake up and be... gone, so to speak. There was no life behind her eyes. She committed suicide 5 months after her initial episode.

Those 5 months were like walking on egg shells. We couldn't force this person in to help, and she actually escaped either the hospital or mental facility she was at after her episode (she sustained injuries). Yeah... it was a waiting game to see what she was going to do next.

We didn't know if she was suicidal or homicidal, but it was like having a living ghost haunt you. She was physically there, but she was not there mentally. Completely aloof. Just a shell. Needless to say, I slept with my door locked. But when it wasn't, she'd wander in, talk to the dog or cat, and be in her own world.

I don't think much about it. But every now and then I wonder.

Protect yourself and your kids.

[longshadow11]

Re: How to get a mentally ill person help?

Good advice guys, and helps me to feel I have done right. My oldest daughter, who is 21 and lives in another city, told me a few months ago she didn't want her sister, who is 12, growing up in the same house as her stepmother. Now that I and my daughter live by ourselves, she has started telling me what she really thought of my soon to be ex wife. According to many, I dodged a bullet by getting away. My dad actually calls me just about every day to make sure I haven't been killed.