Does he know what he's doing?

LegacyUser

Hi there,


2 years ago my Dad began an affair. I recovered text messages from his phone after he told us he had decided to start drinking after 22 years of sobriety. We were concerned and decided that taking a look at his files might give us an indication of what he was up to. My mother was distraught with upset after finding this out. Afterward, it appeared, that Dad couldn't recognise the errors of his judgement, had no remorse and kind of just expected us to accept his bad behaviour. Knowing he had a drinking problem over two decades ago led us to be constantly worrying about his health.

He continued his relationship with this woman over the period of two years, destroyed his company, burnt down an apartment accidentally, got uninvited (at the last minute) from my sister's wedding, and got involuntarily thrown into a pyschiatric unit. We tried time and again to get him there on an involuntary status, but for various reasons his status was changed. He stayed for a week, was diagnosed with hypomania and bipolar and was put on an anti-psychotic pill. After a week he jumped up out of his bed at midnight and left the hospital. He then went missing for five hours, showed up in my sister's house and urinated in her garden. He drove off with no tax or insurance in his car, and is now somewhere in Cork. The hospital provies a home-help team for patients such as this but they can't help him if he isn't in Dublin.

After a week of taking the medication, should he be better than this? Because alcohol is a factor, we don't know how to approach it (as a mental illness, or as alcoholism). I've decided to cut contact (the third time these past two years) with him until he wants help. He seems to be able to get himself to places, eat and stay alive so what can I do? I feel pretty helpless... He has been a horrible, wicked person to me and my family and he is the only person who thinks that he's doing fine. He keeps spending 10s of 1,000s of euro on absolute crap. Mum just took half of everything from the accounts... He has access to maybe 200,000 in cash... I'm worried what he will do with the money and to himself.

What way can I approach this?

I can offer more detail, this is kinda badly written... I'm just in a bit of a weird mood right now.

Improbable

To be honest, since he has been diagnosed with a mental illness, I don't think you can rely on anyone on Boards to give you advice on what action to take that is any more sound than to perhaps try and talk to his doctors to see what you can do, if anything. However, If you do decide to remain out of contact with him, I have a feeling that you might regret it in the future because despite everything, he is still family. Anyway, that's just my opinion. I don't really know much about this but maybe you should check to see if the gardai would get involved if he poses a risk to himself or to others.

sam34

if your dad is awol from a psychiatric hospital and he is detained there involuntarily, then the hospital will have to inform the guards and they and staff will be searching for him.

give them any info you have as to his whereabouts

apart from that, we cant give youa ny advice as to whether is it ilness or alcohol that is teh primary factor, or what stage he should be at now

good luck, i hope all works out well for all of you