Is there a therapist who can get past my mom's suspicions?
October 22, 2008 11:30 AM   Subscribe

Recommendations for a cognitive behavioral therapist in the Houston area for my mother? He/she is going to have to deal with a lot, especially because she is irrational and suspicious.

I need to be sure that the therapist is good because my mom has a lot of issues that need to be addressed, but she tends to be suspicious of anyone who tries, or else she has a nervous breakdown and starts crying.

If it matters, she's in her mid-50s.

- My father died less than a year ago. She has said she might need to get therapy for dealing with this but, to my knowledge, has made no moves yet, so I'm hoping to steer her in the right direction. She understandably feels some anger about his death too, since he died from the Digitek tablets that were mistakenly twice the listed dosage.

- I'm not even sure how to put this except bluntly. For at least five or six years now, she has read a website that has lead her to believe all of the following: the government puts microchips in people's brains to program them, but people can be "deprogrammed" if they do the right things; reptile shapeshifter people exist that look just like normal human beings; the husband of the couple who runs the website has been abducted and informed by various different species of aliens of all this stuff; etc. They often take news stories and twist them into evidence of their claims. They post other things daily, like aliens landed here but it's been covered up, or the numerology of this and that means some outrageous thing, and so on.

It is extremely delusional and paranoid, but you can't disagree with her because she just thinks anyone who denies it does so because they're programmed to. If pressed on the more ridiculous stuff sometimes she will say she doesn't take it very seriously, but trust me, she does. It's very awkward to watch TV with her and have her say she thinks someone is a reptile, or for her to talk about someone being rude to her at work and attributing it to their programming or something.

The website also told her that California is going to physically break off from the United States apparently within our lifetime, and uses this as a reason why I should not move there with my husband who recently got a job there. She became very upset and started crying when we tried to explain to her that land masses take much longer than that to break off, if it's going to break off at all. Things like that make it very upsetting to be around her now. She is trying to influence the direction of my life based on completely out-there, untrue claims.

If I hadn't seen the website for myself I would think she'd developed some sort of mental illness, but she's always just been very impressionable and superstitious. Since she holds a lot of irrational beliefs, apparently because they make her feel better on some level (i.e. to believe she's deprogrammed and everyone else isn't), I think CBT would be best for her, but I think (I hope I'm wrong) this is probably more difficult to deal with than your typical patient.

- On a similar note, she will make stuff up and then believe it 100%. It's disturbing. For example, another one of her arguments against our moving to California was that the rent was three times higher there. When we told her we were only paying a couple hundred dollars a month more than we were in Austin, she would move on to another irrational argument, then come back to the "three times higher" argument again.

- More irrationality: she's maybe $100,000 in debt but she won't even compile her financial data to find out. When I asked her why, she admitted it was because then she'd have to deal with it, and she was scared. I pointed out that she was paying all the bills anyway so it doesn't make a difference, and that the only way she can make things better is to look at it. She doesn't even know what interest rate her credit cards are, for example, so she's paying way more than she needs to; she has a card that's 30% interest rate with a balance on it that she could entirely transfer to a 20% interest rate card. She won't do it. I have offered to do it for her and she just says she'll think about it.

This is going to turn out very badly if she doesn't get help soon.

- She is extremely judgmental. She was completely anti-racist as I was growing up, until about high school when she started hating Hispanic people because we lived in a Hispanic ghetto, and then after Hurricane Katrina she started hating black people because crime rates in Houston went up. This has gotten progressively worse and it's quite upsetting. I can't have a conversation with her anymore without racist stuff coming up, even in the oddest places. (It would be more bearable for me if I could just avoid certain topics, but it doesn't work that way.) It makes her feel better on some level to believe that she's better than minorities and that they're the cause of her problems, so I think CBT might help with that.

- She worries about everyone, for mostly irrational reasons. She has always been this way, even since she was a child. The 24/7 worrying makes her an emotional mess, and in the past has had a lot to do with why she cries and has nervous breakdowns. I don't see how this can continue and I don't like seeing her get worse.

- This has started to affect our relationship negatively. She loves me more than anything and can't deal with my moving out of the state, especially after my dad has died. I understand that. But the ways in which it comes out lately have been very upsetting. She is negative and resentful of anything that makes me happy or I am excited about. She sighs about how different I am from her and calls me weird for normal things like being an introvert, which makes me feel very unaccepted. (I'm not a "weird" introvert either; I go out a lot and have normal friends. She calls me weird for being tired by social interaction.)

I try to see her more often to make her feel better, and because I used to have so much fun with her, but the last few times I have visited her she has been so negative and unaccepting of me that I've been entirely unhappy and just want to leave. I can't just go fake it either, because it's gotten to the point where I have nothing I can safely talk to her about. I point out how I'm feeling about specific things, like when I told her to quit being negative about California, but just that made her cry. I think if I told her that her behavior was pushing me away, instead of making me want to see her more, it would absolutely destroy her. Normally I would agree that telling her how I feel is the best solution, but I think it's well past the point where such a thing would be safe and I don't think I'm qualified to deal with the extent of her problems.

I'm hoping if I can recommend a cognitive behavioral therapist and say it's to help her deal with losing my father and my moving away, especially because she already expressed some interest in it, maybe the other stuff will get slowly dealt with too.

I'm not the only one affected by this either.

Sorry for the long explanation, but I partly wanted to vent and partly wanted to show how important it is that the therapist really know what he/she is doing. I think it would be difficult for any therapist to deal with my mom thinking they're trying to steer her wrong because they have a chip in their head, for example, and she's going to cry and deny things a lot.

One other caveat: I would prefer someone who's not going to drug her. I realize such a thing might be necessary but I would rather that conclusion be reached after a significant amount of sessions. She tends to have bad reactions to medications, too (runs on her side of the family, it seems) so that's a concern.

Thanks for reading all this and any suggestions you might have.
posted by anonymous to Human Relations (4 answers total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Wow.

I'll just point out that you could probably stand a bit of therapy to learn some coping mechanisms.

And if she's as impressionable as you say, get her to go to the Dave Ramsey website. That can only help with the finances.

Sorry about your father.

And lest I checked California was pushing into the the continent, not pulling away, so it will never fall off into the ocean.

You can try to help, but you can't really take responsibility for other people's actions/thoughts. Don't let this process damage your life.
posted by cjorgensen at 11:55 AM on October 22, 2008


Best answer: From what I've read about CBT (including Feeling Good), it seems to be geared towards logical, rational processes for changing your thinking. That might work for you, but perhaps less so for people who have delusions like your mom has.

A lot of the things you've written about here seem rooted in fear (her fear, not yours). Her racism seems based on fear and anger. The reptile/programming thing is a classic fear thing. She fears for your safety if you move to California. Maybe she's afraid what will happen to her if you leave, but is afraid to admit that to herself, so has latched onto this idea that California's going to sink into the ocean. She's too afraid to peek into her finances. She's afraid that if you move to California, it'll be expensive, and you'll get pulled into the same black hole of debt.

Fear doesn't really respond to logic. Logic and facts can deal with misunderstandings, but fear is a different sort of animal. Sometimes such fears are triggered or aggravated by malfunctioning brains, and then you need to treat that with medicine. Sometimes a good talk therapist can pin down the source of the fear and deal with it directly, and then the need for the reptile/programming mindset drops away. But I don't think there's a cognitive behavioural strategy specifically geared towards such things.

I fear that a cognitive behavioural therapist would try to explain why such ways of thinking aren't useful for your mom, and that would trigger her paranoia that the therapist is programmed to think that. I would try to find a therapist who would just accept your mom's world for the time being, and help her find a more safe space to deal with things.

You may benefit from CBT in learning how to deal with your mom though. That sounds like a much better fit. More than that, you have control over whether or not you find a therapist, and little to no control over what your mom chooses to do.
posted by heatherann at 12:26 PM on October 22, 2008


Best answer: CBT is not something that would likely work in this case. Given that your mother is having delusions, I would say you need to head right to a psychiatrist or a clinical psychologist who has experience with psychotic disorders. *I am not saying your mother is psychotic*, but some of her more severe symptoms as you describe them fit criteria for a psychotic disorder --- consider psychotic here to mean "break in rational functioning."

(I am not a therapist. I am just a counseling student. I am not a therapist. I am just a counseling student. I am not a therapist.)
posted by zizzle at 12:50 PM on October 22, 2008


Best answer: Has she ever been treated for anxiety? Maybe if the fear and worrying could be got under control, it would calm down the other stuff. From what you described, it seems like her emotions are totally in control of her brain which makes it hard for her to think things through.

I kind of wonder if she's making all the negative comments to punish you for wanting to move. Breaking down and crying can be a great way to get your way. I know a friend's mom with anxiety problems who's done this same kind of stuff occasionally when she's under great stress (not believing weird stuff, tho she does believe every FWD e-mail until someone snopes her). She's a very caring and kind person otherwise. Not sure if this is relevant but she also has great trouble with bills and buys stuff to feel better. Does this sound a bit like your mom to you? If it does, have a doctor screen her for anxiety.

If it is, don't be afraid of medication for this, just research the heck out of it and make sure it's used cautiously. It can make a huge difference for someone with anxiety. Tranquilizers tend to have less side effects than anti-depressants and you can cut back on the dose if it's affecting her too much. They can be used as a crutch but right now, your mom seems pretty extreme. Therapy can take a while to get results.

All this is just my best guess because I've known a few people with bad anxiety. You know your mom best so ignore it if it seems off base. Not a therapist, doctor, etc. ...... Best wishes for you and your mom.
posted by stray thoughts at 12:38 AM on October 23, 2008


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