I am a 74-year-old widow with 3 grown children: my middle daughter is 50, almost 51, and homeless, schizophrenic, and has dissociative disorder. It runs in her dad's family, as there are 2 other people with the same disorder. Under all that, she is a really good lady, and there is a reciprocal love between us. Her behavior started changing after I moved in with her, at her suggestion, after my husband died.
In 2023, she had done a lot of damage to the walls of her bedroom, writing on the walls, putting holes in them, and damaging the neighbor's truck with a baseball bat. She was arrested for the damage to the truck, and she had threatened another neighbor.
I had to put a restraining order on her. She was getting physically violent with me. I had the RO lifted this year, at her request; she wanted to come back here to live. I knew the landlord would not allow that, but she couldn't understand why. One day she asked me why I put an RO on her and I said, "Don't you remember what you did? You scared the hell out of me," and she looked like I was telling her she had lobsters coming out of her ears.
She has delusions that I own an apartment house, and claims many other things, including being sex trafficked. That might be possible as there are reports of that in this area. She did go into a drug rehab program, but left early to stay with a friend instead of sober living. She drove the friend crazy enough to eliminate her from his home, and she has been homeless since 2023.
I would like to see her get mental health help as her health is compromised with other issues such as epilepsy and pancreatitis, and thyroid issues. I changed the way I spoke with her, and that worked, but not as far as my suggesting she get help, which she just ignores and then says there is no help for her; she claims she has been turned away.
I truly want to see her get help and don't want her mental illness to cause any other problems. She is angry a lot and screams at random people. The people she hangs with are, well, there is a certain culture of homelessness that these folks hide in.
I've been told over and over that she has to want to get the help, but what if something happens to her or she does something that isn't right and she gets in trouble because she is mentally ill?
We really need help.
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?
I would ask that steps be taken to assist in approaching the issue of mental health treatment to be readily available to my daughter and others with mental health issues, that is to be more active in talking with them, urging them to seek treatment before any really bad things happen.
