My 33-year-old loved one's first encounter with schizoaffective disorder resulted in him running down a highway from his workplace, thinking his coworkers were trying to "unalive" him. I found him hiding in the woods near his home, several miles from his work. He was trembling with fear but trusted me to get him safely inside his home. I did not know what was going on as this was the very first time he had ever acted this way.
He had a terrible cough, and I kept asking him why, and he had no explanation. I checked on him every day and his wife said he was scaring her because he was locking cell phones up in boxes, covering tvs, and didn't want them to speak, but to write all things on paper because people were listening.
I convinced him to go to the ER for the cough and stepped out to talk to a nurse and pointed out that the true reason I was there was because of his mental state. Later that day, he was taken to a mental hospital... They kept him for a week, gave him meds then released him with the schizoaffective diagnosis. He snickered when he was picked up, said they were all part of some weird theory of his, and he was proud that he was able to trick them into thinking he took the poison they were trying to kill him with.
He never got better; he just learned to fake it well. As a mother, I knew... He does NOT acknowledge he has mental problems and says everyone is brainwashed. I tried to have him picked up again as he was scaring his wife and 2-year-old, but the magistrate would not issue a pick up... the exact words were "There is no law against being crazy"... This infuriated me!! This is my son, do they not have compassion ???!
Here we are 2 years later. My son has had at least 5 jobs. He is manic, he is paranoid, he hallucinates, he is living in hell, and doesn't even know that it's a false reality ...and I cannot do a thing because I can't get him help because he is over 18 and hasn't hurt himself or someone else.
Recently, his wife left him and took his children far away because she was worn out from it all. When he was well, they were his world, his everything. Now it's like he doesn't even care to see them again. He obsesses over religion, over eating clean, over how the government is the Illuminati... He sits in a house I own that he is supposed to pay rent for, just staring at the walls or watching conspiracy theory YouTube videos...
This mental illness has torn his life apart, my life apart, his wife's life apart, his children's life apart... Why won't anyone help us??? Why is our system so uncaring??? Do they think people who hallucinate are okay to drive cars??? Work on machinery? Live in homes where a voice could tell them to hurt someone or themselves??? Why does it take a tragedy to help?? My heart is broken; I am mourning a dead son who is alive... We need help, we need the system to care to be fixed... I'm begging !!!! 4 years I haven't seen nothing but the body of my son but he is not in there and I miss him so much!
Each story is shared by someone impacted by untreated SMI,
lightly edited for clarity, never for meaning.
Do you have an ask? If you were sitting down with your legislator, how would you ask them to help you?
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Please change the laws so that people can get the help they need. A lot of these mentally ill people, like my son, don't even know he is ill and living in a false reality.
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Change the laws to help caregivers, loved ones, etc, to be able to have them picked up and evaluated against their will.
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Also, set forth special training for our local police officers so that they don't hurt innocent people who cannot comprehend instructions or truly believe they are the enemy when approached by officers.
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Also, I want to point out that I used to think the people on the street corners were addicts and bums; turns out most of them are simply mentally ill and can't hold a job... No job, no money. No money, no home, no food, no happiness. Fixing the system will fix other things as well!!
