What would you do ?

LegacyUser

Hi Folks,

Going unreged for this one.

I am looking for some advice and some opinions and where to turn next.

My sister in-law has currently been admitted to a Psychiatric Ward following a downward spiral of panic attacks, self neglect and a few attempts on her life.

This has led to her losing her job, losing the accommodation that she was staying in. This has left her homeless.

This is not the first time that this has happened and in the past we have helped her pick up the pieces. She had a breakdown a number of years ago that led to her family getting a barring order to remove her from the family home for fear that she would hurt her mother.

Following the breakdown she spent time in residential care, nearly two years or so. Due to an altercation with one of the patients she was discharged. With nowhere else to turn we took her in. After a 2 month stay in our home she managed to get a place.

Things went back to what passes for normal for a while, issues began occurring in the house she became paranoid and was constantly fighting with her house mate. This led to a standoff at one point where she pulled a knife on her house mate. As you can imagine she lost her place.

We picked up the pieces again, and gave her a place to live. This time she was with us for six months. The atmosphere in the house became toxic, due in a large part to her staying on the couch all day, stealing food and not contributing to the house.

Eventually she managed to get a place and we warned her that this was the last time we were going to take her in. Things went well for a while she got some work temping and she was working away. In November she stopped turning up for work, would spend days in bed smoking, neglecting herself and neglecting her diabetes. We started getting texts saying she was going to kill herself, phone calls at all hours of the day and night. Eventually her landlord had enough but he gave her a chance, that if she got the help that she needed that there would be a place for her in the house. She went into hospital and was discharged two days later. She went back to the house and started screaming and fighting and abusing the landlord. He was fed up and gave her notice. At this stage she had stopped paying rent, was abusing the landlord. We agreed to bring her over for Christmas dinner so she stayed Christmas Eve and Day. On St Stephen's day we were going out, all of a sudden she claimed that she couldn't see and that her legs weren't working and that prior to coming to us for Christmas, she hadn't eaten in two weeks. While I find this hard to believe especially as she is diabetic. My wife had a meltdown and had to leave the house. We called an ambulance and she was taken into hospital. The hospital kept her in until last Wednesday, her social worker convinced her landlord that she was doing better and could he give her one last chance.
Upon leaving hospital she returned home got into bed and didn't leave her room for two days. Last Friday I got a call from the landlord to come down as he was evicting her and that he was ready to call the Gardai if she didn't leave.

I brought her into the hospital, after a few minutes in A&E her mood turned on a 10p and she became angry and hostile and stormed out of the hospital. She then tried to throw herself under two cars, then she tried to set fire to herself. Eventually I got her to go back to A&E, she was seen by the triage nurse and I have explained everything that had happened and that had led up to this point. She got brought in and was seen by a medical doctor and the on-call psychiatric doctor. I stayed with her all night. The psychiatric doctor agreed that she needs a spell in a psychiatric ward. On Saturday we received a call from the doctor's in the hospital and from talking to them the impression that I get is that they didn't believe her and then the doctor asked would we take her back in.

My wife has taken this very badly and my kids are now afraid of their auntie. One of my daughters is autistic and that last thing she needs is upset in the household. We can't take her back this time and I have told the doctors that are treating her in the psychiatric ward the same. I wrote up a letter detailing what has been happening over the last few weeks along with screenshots of the texts that I had received from her.

I know that we have enabled this behaviour by letting her stay with us twice following episodes, but now I fear for my wife and kids mental health and our safety.

What options are open to us ?
Do we need a safety order or barring order ?
Can we even get one if she is not living with us ?

Sorry for the wall of text just needed to get this off my chest
Thanks

Tenigate

Don't take her back. You tried your best. Sad to say but she's the state's problem now. Hopefully they can put her on a max dose of antidepressants and find her somewhere to stay.

Fakediamond

AFAIK a person cannot e discharged from a a mental health facility if homeless so the SW has to assist them in finding accommodation. If you cave in and take her back that suits the “system”just fine as the problem is solved, from their perspective and they will push you to take her for that reason. Hold firm and don’t take her back. Why should you? She’s disrupting your family life and upsetting your children. The system is broken but don’t make that your problem.

Airyfairy12

@Tenigate - the state dont care, she will be left homeless.

OP this shouldnt be you or your wife's responsibility, neither of you are trained or equipped to deal with this. The mental health services in Ireland are appaling. How could they send her back home after previously saying she could do with a spell in psychiatric care and after her jumping in front of cars and attempting to set herself on fire? The mind boggles. She clearly needs to be institutionalised for her own safety and the safety of others. The only ones that can help are mental health professionals but their not bothered. Have you tried getting her admitted somewhere?

Tenigate

Airyfairy12 wrote: »

@Tenigate - the state dont care, she will be left homeless.

Aye, possibly. But maybe not. Mental issues or not, but this is the person she is, and this will be the chance she gets.

She has a better chance of being fixed where she is rather than being released to op's care, which hasn't worked.

Ghekko

Don't take her back in. I'd go as far as requesting your contact details be taken off her file. If you do get a call say she is not your responsibility. Your poor wife must be in bits but she's not responsible. You can't have someone in your house who causes fear in your children. It sounds horribly harsh but she needs to be looked after by professionals and if she comes to stay with you she won't get the help she needs. What a friggin dick of a doctor to put that pressure on you. Its obvious from what you describe that she is not fit to be discharged.

Rubberchikken

Youve both done your best and have bern very decent to her but this woman sounds seriously unwell and needs specialist care.

I have no advice as i dont know much about the menral health system in this country and am guessing its sadly lacking but you need to let her be looked after by people trained to deal with her illness.
Sorry im no help. Best of luck

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Sardonicat

Stand your ground OP.

"It is not possible for SIL to live with us at the moment."

No explanation, or justification required. You know having her with you will be of no benefit to her and be detrimental to your family. It's in everyone's best interest to repeat the above phrase in a firm but neutral tone as often as necessary til the professionals put a plan in place for your SIL's care and safety.

I'm sorry you're all going through this and hope a safe resolution can be found soon.

shesty

IN response to your question, and reading your post, I think what I would do is....

Try in my heart to get over the guilt of the whole thing, and wash my hands of her essentially.

You are never going to feel good about doing it.

But on the other hand, you have tried. Several times. Your family life is being severely disturbed and worse, given that your daughter is autistic, it's not like you don't have enough on your plate. Continuously rescuing her and then expecting things to turn out differently is not going to work.

The answer to the medical people is that you are no longer in a position to do anything for her, maybe they could try someone else, or else the system has to deal with her. This could go on for years and years, and you have a life to live too.

It's a rotten situation to be in OP, but I don't think anybody would judge you for walking away from her.

qwerty13

As good and decent as you’ve been, you’re not qualified to deal with this situation. You don’t know whether what you’re doing is helping short term, or perhaps hindering long term in that every time you provide a cushion from reality is another time she’s not getting the real help she needs. Obviously that’s not meant as a criticism OP.

I’m afraid it’s a bit like another thread a while back here re ill and/or mentally infirm parents, who are determined to live alone, and won’t accept outside help. If you accept from the health service your relative being discharged, she is effectively ‘your problem’. I strongly believe that you should not accept this. Because, in my experience, it is that they are ‘discharging someone into your care’. With the best will in the world, you cannot cope with this situation, you don’t have the skill set to do so, and it may not do your relative any favours long term. Not to mention the detrimental affect on your family unit, especially your daughter.

There are times in life where you have to be selfish - which is possibly the wrong way of putting it. ‘More concerned with your family unit’ would maybe be a better term. This is definitely one of those times.

Look after yourself, and your own family. Try to remember that you can’t ‘fix’ your relative, your history shows that the most you’ve achieved is a temporary sticking plaster. Don’t sacrifice your family unit for repeating that process over and over again.

I feel for your relative, I really do. But you simply aren’t qualified to help her. And if you accept her living with you, you are just getting into the same cycle over and over again. I’d like to think that the State would give you maximum support if she lived with you, but that’s simply not the case.

LegacyUser

Hi Folks, OP here again.

Thanks for all of the replies. We have stuck to our guns and now the HSE is looking after my sister-in-law.

They are sorting her out with accommodation, a treatment plan and are keeping her in the psychiatric unit until they can get her suitable accomodation.

Thanks again
WB2018

Ghekko

Good on you. She is getting the help she needs which wouldn't have happened had you taken her home.