My brilliant son with an electric smile passed away a little over a year ago. the journey to his death started about 5 years before. He was admitted to D.O. school. He was signed up to take an accelerated Anatomy class prior to the start of school as he didn’t take Anatomy in college with his Biochemistry major.

He moved into an apartment with another student. The second day of class he had a breakdown, didn’t think he could do it. Got in his car and drove to his parents house in Arizona. Told the school that his Grandma was very ill and withdrew from the class.

When he came back he said he wasn’t going back, that he didn’t learn the way they taught by just memorization. He seemed depressed and we all thought that it was due to the situation. He decided he wanted to work at a restaurant and got a job. His mental health seemed stable after a couple months and he wanted to go back to school so he applied and got into a biomedical engineering program at UNLV. He applied their because his brother was going to school and playing baseball their. Then COVID hit.

Classes went online and baseball was shelved. My younger son came home and left my other son in Vegas alone. This is when he really spiraled out of control but no one was there to witness it. A lot went on in the next two years but we eventually found out that he was lying and had dropped out of school, he wasn’t working and he was racking up debt.

We confronted him on this and without knowing the root of this was a severe mental health problem along with an addiction to Adderall. We then got a call from the neighbor that our son had trashed the house and was arrested. We drove out and bailed him out and were planning to bring him back to California to get treatment.

Before we could get him back he attacked me and was arrested again. We again bailed him out and brought him back to CA. Problem was that he had dropped out of school and was disorganized due to his mental illness so he had not been paying for health insurance. When we brought him to a hospital in California they didn’t want to take him because it wasn’t in the county we lived in.

They shuffled him around for three days and then released him back to us. We did what we could to get him treatment, but the only treatment he got was zoom therapy. He was diagnosed during the hospital stay as Bipolar. For the next 10 months with medication he got a little better and then all the sudden worse again.

He got permission to go to his grandmothers vacation house in AZ. His behavior became worse again and we reached to crisis intervention and the police with no real help. He trashed her house and was arrested again. His uncle brought him back and we gave him no choice. the streets or inpatient treatment. He went to treatment. got out three months later and seemed much better. Taking meds going to therapy.

Doctor changed the meds and put him on Prozac and he became manic. Tried to utilize crisis prevention and other resources to no avail. In the end he became psychotic and attacked my husband and I. My husband shot and killed him in self defense. This sad, sad story is much more complicated of course, but the bottom line is that ever time you call for help they ask is he a danger to himself or has he threatened you.

If that criteria is not met, you can’t force an adult child into treatment. In this case I believe forced sustained treatment may have changed this horrible story. I am hoping to push for a change in legislation to make it easier to force treatment.