The ongoing saga of Mental Illness and a VERY broken system!
4 Bailouts of Jail, 5 times in jail, false promises from the courts to have him accessed for 90 days, a psychiatrist leaves him in jail and walks away.
The Mental Health Act is useless and our hands are tied.
My father in law was even attacked in general population, being thrown to the floor from over someones head. Where does it end?
This has been going on since the beginning of October.
My father in law in a Paranoid Schizophrenic, Bipolar and Manic Depressive.
It all started when it was noticed that his behaviour was worsening over the past year. He takes his meds, he becomes immune and then new ones are prescribed. We have a short burst of normalcy then it is back to chaos. He was never a violent man, albeit a little suicidal a couple times but that was harm against himself, not others
But as of October he started becoming physical with people, pushing them around and being very abusive verbally. This brought him into his first time in jail when he refused to go the hospital.
Mother in Law bail him out and tries to get him help, which was a total fail. He was livingin hotels and his car and stalking her while there was a no contact order in place.
So he resorted to watching her through windows and then kneeling in the backyard praying for her to let him him. He refused to leave which led to his second arrest.
This time the court stated they would order a 90 Mental Health Assessment. Well that never happened.
So his step son bails him out, with the condition he must remain in his home and have written notes if he were to leave with times, places and when he would be back. This lasted less than 2 hours. He put my sister in law into tears and feeling frightened of what he may be capable of doing. She was a nurse and understood his illness but she has 2 small children in her home. So by the second day, he was gone from there and driving hours up the highway to his sons. From there he was told he could not stay so off to another motel.
Living in terrible conditions, blood on the hallway walls in the motel and a tooth on the floor. Not good for him at all. So we went to work to try and find him a place to live. In the meantime he is out of control harrasing his wife again.
Now on his 3rd arrest, again no one seeming to be able to help him. Contacting support centers and court liasons to try and get him out of the court system and into a hospital. But again nothing was changing.
His son bails him out and is told by the courts he needs to stay with him, seek a doctor and do as he is told. Five days later, wants to leave, suitcase packed and his son says no, a small pushing match ensues for the keys to his car, he gets them, drives into his sons house and over the nieghbors lawns, causing oer 3500 in damage to his own car. Son call the police and they stake out my mother in laws house.
Naturally he shows up there and he is arrested as soon as he stepped out of his car.
Arrested for a 4th time he is in general population and gets hurt. Step Son 2 now bails him out after 5 days and was told he had to live with him. This went awry due to lack of space, not wanting to see him on the streets again, mother in law agrees to allow him to stay at her house and help him find his own place and some help.
Things became so unbearable for her with him there, she was left no other choice but to call the police again since he refuses to go to the hospital to get help.
All this in such a short time, only 2 months. I received a call from the Court House asking if I would bail him out, I said absolutely not. Our system is seriously broken, there is no funding or maybe a lack of caring for the mentally ill.
The courts have promised an assessment to no avail, his own doctor has thrown his hat into the ring in defeat saying he is a lost cause. To get him into a care facility you have to put him on a waiting list, some are a year long and then he would need his doctor to do the paperwork. Well how do you get him to do that when he keeps saying, he is 50% just an asshole and 50 is illness.
As sad as we all are, he is better off in jail than on the streets. We are able to breath and not worry about him showing up, looking in our windows, threatening harm etc.
Why is our system so broken? How did it ever get this way?
We are collectively trying to find a solution to this problem. They don't commit people anymore here unless his doctor states he is a harm to the public. As family, we are left on our own to try and help him which obviously, up until now, has not been effective.
Maybe in time something will change but for now, mental illness is a family problem with very little outside help.