Lost in Texas Update

Mirabelle

Member
Thank you to all who replied and offered their support and advice regarding my previous post. My stepson had left / been kicked out of a dual diagnosis treatment center in Texas and accepted into another. He has a diagnosis of schizophrenia and bipolar in addition to drug addiction. He willingly fronts up for his shot every month to manage the schizophrenia and says it is working - that he does not hear voices. When you speak to him he is lucid and 'with it.' The part he seems to struggle with is the disordered thinking, impulse control, and lack of ability to plan ahead or organize his affairs at all. He also, by his own description, does not 'like to conform to rules'. His decision making is on the fly, mostly disastrous, and always involves other people supporting him financially.

After being accepted into the second rehab, he ended up in the psychiatric ward about a week later. The hospital is his go to when he has nowhere to stay. The hospital contacted my husband and he then spoke to his son. My husband was unsure after speaking with him whether he conned his way in there or legitimately needed to be there. After being released, the hospital had arranged for him to enter a third rehab. He lasted four days before he was back on the street. He had come in one evening after curfew and refused to take a drug test. He informed my husband that the rehab expected him to comply with rules he didn't appreciate, and that he was going to see if he could make it on his own in Texas.

The first part of this plan involved my husband calling and paying for an Uber to take him where he wanted to go. My husband and I were in another country visiting family at the time. When my husband told him we were unable to make this happen from another country, my stepson said it was clear that we were on vacation having a good time and couldn't be bothered helping our homeless son. I went online and bought a bus ticket for him to travel back to our hometown. We told him to walk the two hours to the bus stop and get the bus home if he did not have the means to support himself. He refused.

For the next week, he was in contact haphazardly, asking for us to send him money (his money from his disability check.) He was asking strangers to allow us to CashApp money to their phones and then give it to him. My husband told him this was a bad idea but he insisted and ended up getting $20 from a nice person and getting ripped off for $180 by a not so nice person. Since this was not his fault, he thinks we should not deduct the lost money from his check and absorb the cost ourselves.

As I type he is on the bus returning to our hometown. My husband has him booked into a local pay by the week hotel with what remains of his disability check.

As is evident, especially to those who have read my previous posts, this boy (he's 21) has no skills to make it on his own. Although he is intelligent, when it comes to getting by in the world he has the skills of a 12 year old. Yet, he won't recognize this. Every misfortune that has befallen him is bad luck, not his fault, and ours to fix. Most we don't fix, and we have let him fall several times. But no matter what we do, help or not, he doesn't seem to learn anything new from these experiences.

We feel very torn and guilty letting a large 12 year old loose on the world. He is harmless but we fear he will come to harm. My eternal question is this, and I know there is no hard and fast answer : How much responsibility is he actually capable of taking? We would so appreciate some quality and consistent help with housing, counseling, and employment, but the social services we have made contact with in our area have either ignored us or turned out to be a disorganized, unprofessional, and unaccountable joke.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hi. Sorry for the hard times with your so .Believe it or not most of us ha e children who may be 35 but are emotionally young. All are at risk to come to harm. But legally we can not co trol these large adults.

My daughter is mentally ill. This we know although she won't get diagnosed. Borderline Personality Disorder and bipolar seem possible. She is homeless with her unstable, addicted husband. After ten years we concluded there is nothing we can do and we had done it all. Nothing we did made her better or, due to her life choices, safer. So for us at ten years of chaos and an almost broken famy we stopped all help and she is no better bit also mo worse.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
There are case managers for everyone that collects SSI. By calling your state Department of Social Services you can locate this person. Or by your stepson's involvement with the County Department of Mental Health, they can help him do so. This does not mean your family member will follow through, comply or otherwise play ball in order to receive coordinated and consistent help-if he is by virtue of his disease resistant to rules, oversight, and accountability. The change has to come from us. To accept the hardest thing in the world that we can't make them change even if their life depends upon it. All of us here have tried. And tried. Unless they are ready and motivated to change there is no resource that makes a difference in my experience.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hi. I got cut off before I mentioned NAMI, which is The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. It is nationwide and I am told it is helpful. They have resources for people with mentally ill family members. I hear they are very knowledgeable about resources and have classes for us.

Remember that although medications do help with some important symptoms medications are unlikely to take away every single problem somebody has. Your son needs to further his recovery with therapy and you can not force him to go. I am in Nar Anon for people who have addicted loved ones. Many moms with addicted kids started out being helicopter parents to their kids, thinking only they could keep them safe. It never works. I mean ever. They do what they want and sabotage our attempts to protect them. They only improve when/if they decide to do it on their own, without our badgering or even bribing them. This applies to anyone with problems, including mental health. Until that person decides on his own to get help, he will not do it.

Our hard earned money doesn't assure them safety...they tend to misbehave and get thrown out of places we pay for. Or crash cars. Or run away to who-knows-where. Every single person is responsible for his own behavior because we have no control over even our beloved children. And trust me, they will mot get better for our sakes, even if we believe it is very unfair that they won't.

I hope you contact NAMI and find it to be helpful. Love.
 
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