Friend's mother is bipolar, acting manic and paranoid, and getting worse
May 7, 2022 8:12 AM Subscribe
Hi folks. A friend of mine is having some issues with her mother, and asked me to post this for her.
Her mother is diagnosed bipolar, does not take anything for it, and has been acting stranger and more manic lately, and the family is unsure what to do and what resources are available.
"My (35F) mother (58F) has recently had what I would call an "episode". This is not the first.
This past week she called me from a gas-station phone saying that she believes someone is spying on her with cameras and sensors and her phone is bugged. She has stated that there are hundreds of these all over her home including the showerhead, in her bathroom, the buttons on all of her clothes, in her purses, in her car. She has described them as a tiny sparkle on the edge of things. She then shared that she went to the police that day and they didn't believe her, asking if I would go with her to validate her concerns tomorrow.
Long story short, I did not go and she then went to her friend to get her friend to go with her to the police. Her friend is in the health field, and called authorities due to concern for my mother, and she ended up back at my grandmother's in a manic fit, escorted by the police as she refused to go to a medical facility.
The family is all in agreement that she needs help. My uncle took her car keys away due to this incident.
She receives disability income monthly, and does not have a regular job. She bounces between small short term babysitting and pet-sitting. She has no ability to plan financially, and often requires assistance from family members.
She has hoarding tendencies--you cannot easily walk through any area of her home. She obsessively plays Publishers Clearing House online for 6+ hours a day and is adamant that she will be the next winner (her father also played in the 90s and sued Publishers Clearing House, and got the local news to come to his house to validate he wasn't crazy). She refuses to acknowledge she needs help. This has progressively gotten worse with a significant spike over the past 1-2 weeks.
She was previously (at least 5 years ago) diagnosed as bipolar and prescribed lithium, which she took once and refused to take afterwards--she didn't like how it made her feel and didn't want to admit there was anything wrong.
What do I do to get her the help she needs? We are in the Milwaukee, WI area and I have no idea what is necessary to get her medicated and/or have her see a therapist regularly to get her the regular treatment she needs if she isn't willing."
"My (35F) mother (58F) has recently had what I would call an "episode". This is not the first.
This past week she called me from a gas-station phone saying that she believes someone is spying on her with cameras and sensors and her phone is bugged. She has stated that there are hundreds of these all over her home including the showerhead, in her bathroom, the buttons on all of her clothes, in her purses, in her car. She has described them as a tiny sparkle on the edge of things. She then shared that she went to the police that day and they didn't believe her, asking if I would go with her to validate her concerns tomorrow.
Long story short, I did not go and she then went to her friend to get her friend to go with her to the police. Her friend is in the health field, and called authorities due to concern for my mother, and she ended up back at my grandmother's in a manic fit, escorted by the police as she refused to go to a medical facility.
The family is all in agreement that she needs help. My uncle took her car keys away due to this incident.
She receives disability income monthly, and does not have a regular job. She bounces between small short term babysitting and pet-sitting. She has no ability to plan financially, and often requires assistance from family members.
She has hoarding tendencies--you cannot easily walk through any area of her home. She obsessively plays Publishers Clearing House online for 6+ hours a day and is adamant that she will be the next winner (her father also played in the 90s and sued Publishers Clearing House, and got the local news to come to his house to validate he wasn't crazy). She refuses to acknowledge she needs help. This has progressively gotten worse with a significant spike over the past 1-2 weeks.
She was previously (at least 5 years ago) diagnosed as bipolar and prescribed lithium, which she took once and refused to take afterwards--she didn't like how it made her feel and didn't want to admit there was anything wrong.
What do I do to get her the help she needs? We are in the Milwaukee, WI area and I have no idea what is necessary to get her medicated and/or have her see a therapist regularly to get her the regular treatment she needs if she isn't willing."
The National Alliance for Mental Illness has several contact methods on their help page. They say they offer “answers, support and practical next steps.” Best of luck to your friend and their family.
posted by scratch at 9:26 AM on May 7, 2022
posted by scratch at 9:26 AM on May 7, 2022
Does your friend’s mom have a spouse or is she single? Sounds like there isn’t a spouse?
I don’t know how it works in Wisconsin, but an appropriate member of the family (probably your friend, if no spouse) should seek a capacity assessment and guardianship or POA for both health and finances. She needs to talk to a lawyer about how to do this.
Just want to also say that symptoms that look like bipolar (which features anosognosia, lack of insight into the condition) + OCD/hoarding also resemble frontotemporal dementia, a kind of dementia that does *not* feature memory loss initially and can affect people as young as 40 (or even younger, sometimes). Other types of early-onset dementia can also look like this. It’s very common for people to first be diagnosed with bipolar DO (although sometimes people get bipolar and then develop FTD or other dementias). In short, what’s needed is an evaluation by a neurologist or neuropsychologist familiar with FTD and probably some brain imaging (MRI and SPECT or PET scan). It looks like the closest academic centres to you are in Chicago (Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) and Rochester, MN (Mayo Clinic). There’s not anywhere near enough awareness of FTD in psychiatry and medicine, so it’s important that she’s seen by people who are very familiar with it.
(At risk of bias, maybe, but my dad has FTD, and this really *really* sounds like it.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:34 PM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
I don’t know how it works in Wisconsin, but an appropriate member of the family (probably your friend, if no spouse) should seek a capacity assessment and guardianship or POA for both health and finances. She needs to talk to a lawyer about how to do this.
Just want to also say that symptoms that look like bipolar (which features anosognosia, lack of insight into the condition) + OCD/hoarding also resemble frontotemporal dementia, a kind of dementia that does *not* feature memory loss initially and can affect people as young as 40 (or even younger, sometimes). Other types of early-onset dementia can also look like this. It’s very common for people to first be diagnosed with bipolar DO (although sometimes people get bipolar and then develop FTD or other dementias). In short, what’s needed is an evaluation by a neurologist or neuropsychologist familiar with FTD and probably some brain imaging (MRI and SPECT or PET scan). It looks like the closest academic centres to you are in Chicago (Mesulam Center for Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer’s Disease at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine) and Rochester, MN (Mayo Clinic). There’s not anywhere near enough awareness of FTD in psychiatry and medicine, so it’s important that she’s seen by people who are very familiar with it.
(At risk of bias, maybe, but my dad has FTD, and this really *really* sounds like it.)
posted by cotton dress sock at 8:34 PM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
While it is good to find out about the resources available, as your friend is finding out, you can only force treatment when someone is an imminent (immediate) danger to themself or others. Irrational thinking, bad decisions or psychosis are not enough - that's why they wouldn't take her the hospital when she refused to go.
So, then the question is how can the family work with the mother to convince her to go along with getting help? There is a good book (which I first heard about here on the green) called "I'm Not Sick, I Don't Need Help" that might give them some insight in how to do that.
I also want to second National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI.org) They have some terrific resources for people struggling with mental health issues and their families, include support groups for family members.
posted by metahawk at 9:51 PM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
So, then the question is how can the family work with the mother to convince her to go along with getting help? There is a good book (which I first heard about here on the green) called "I'm Not Sick, I Don't Need Help" that might give them some insight in how to do that.
I also want to second National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI.org) They have some terrific resources for people struggling with mental health issues and their families, include support groups for family members.
posted by metahawk at 9:51 PM on May 7, 2022 [1 favorite]
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posted by kschang at 8:37 AM on May 7, 2022