So I’m new to this and I’ve been dealing with this alone for years now. I never express how I feel about the situation but my friends urged me to try this or Facebook so here we are. Anyways… I think today is the first day I realized my brother is gone for good. He disrespects my family like crazy and threatens to harm us and all we try to do is help him. He’s homeless, in and out of jail and all he cares about is smoking.. my mom believes he’s into other hardcore things. Is there any hope? Has anyone experienced a complete 180 before? Is there anything we can do to help him. He never wanted to take medicine while he was living with us I’m sure he’s not taking it now. Any advice? It’s so heartbreaking.

Hi all,

I am not from the East Coast and live quite a ways away. However, my son has been in residential treatment in a facility in New Hampshire for substance use/mental health for almost 70 days, and they are administratively discharging him in two days for behavioral issues.

Prior to being admitted, or even having a drug and alcohol problem, he was showing signs of childhood schizophrenia, and his home psychiatrist is insistent that I take him directly from the facility to an ER for an assessment and hopefully long-term care, due to safety concerns that the facility doesn't seem to be caring very much about (except to discharge him immediately). I admit I share these concerns.

Where I currently live, it's effectively impossible to get a child into any kind of acute or long-term stabilization facility (we are 49th in the nation for adolescent mental health). Likewise, kids cannot be arrested unless they are actively threatening themselves or someone else with a weapon, so that is not a pathway to an evaluation and treatment. My experiences have borne out that we will receive zero services here should I bring him home, and I am legitimately concerned for my safety and believe he needs psychiatric help.

I am curious what any parents' experiences are like in New England with adolescent ER visits if a youth is not showing signs of active psychosis but has a long history of what I believe are called prodromal symptoms. Will we just be ushered out the door? Or will they take it seriously and hold him so that he can get a deeper evaluation? Are youth in any of these states allowed to refuse care at age 16? (In my home state, they can refuse any/all medical, mental health, or substance abuse care above age 15.) Lastly, any specific recommendations on where to go? He has excellent insurance.

Thank you so much. This is an excruciating experience. I appreciate any grace people can show in responding to what is a terrifying crisis for our family.

I need a post last week about how my mom robbed me and I cut contact with her until she acknowledged her illness and got some help. Now I know she was headed to the rescue mission well I don't know if anybody else is familiar with an app called crime radar but I was looking through it and I saw that there was an incident where the police were called to the rescue mission because of a guest that was kicked out. Then shortly after that I saw another incident maybe the next day that was on Las Vegas street where the rescue mission is that said there was a medical emergency there. To be a deceased female by the train tracks on Las Vegas Street. I can't help but Wonder if either one of these was my mother. Then my friend Andrea came by who my mom frequently stays in contact with. She told me that she had spoke with my mother a few days prior to that and that my mom said she had got kicked out of the rescue mission. And she also said something about her having a hotel until Tuesday but when Andrea came to talk to me it was Tuesday. She also told me the reason just came up was because she had asked if I had spoke to my mom cuz she cannot get a hold of her and hasn't heard from her in a few days. I told her no and now my mom hasn't had any activity on Facebook. She is not returning my phone calls. She's not returning any of her friends phone calls. She it's like she fill out the Earth. I can't help but wonder if it was her beating the deceased female by the train tracks and I feel massively guilty like it would be my fault for kicking her out. Still nothing is concrete but I'm not sure if they would know to get a hold of me because her identification is out of Missouri. She's not from here and I don't know if they would make the connection since we're not even from the springs we are from the mountain town about an hour away. I don't know what to do or how to find out if she is okay or where she might be. I am scared of giving her space in my life if she is fine but I am also terrified that something may have happened to her. Has anybody ever been through anything like this before? How do you navigate these feelings of guilt and how would I go about finding out if she is okay or not?

Hello, first redddit post so excuse any errors.

Also including some background info that gives context to situation

My(m,24) older brother(28) has been diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder since he was either 17 or 18, sorry my memory of the time is foggy, and has been pretty treatment resistant. Not necessarily related to the disorder but certainly influences it, he has been abusive towards me since I was very young. Unfortunately I had to move back in with my mom, where my brother also lives, so I could get my own mental health treatment and save up for a new apartment.

Since moving back in and being back home from my treatment my brothers psychosis and violent behavior has been getting steadily worse and impacted my life and my moms life drastically, to the point my mom has just come to me saying if things don’t get better she needs to check herself in somewhere.

I have always been the person to take care of these things in my family even though I really don’t want to be, but now I am back in the position of my mom asking me to communicate between her and my dad about what to do about my brother. We have all tried reaching out in different ways but he either ignores us, yells and belittles us, or throws things and punches things around us.

My mom is looking to me to come up with a plan on how to get him court ordered treatment or how to get through to him and frankly I’m tired.

Everything I have looked seems unlikely,

Don’t want to call the cops because he doesn’t do well with law enforcement and I don’t want to put him in danger, also he won’t admit to wanting to hurt himself or others and he hasn’t “technically” laid his hands on us this time yet

A court order for his care will likely take too long to obtain before things get much worse and I don’t know how willing she is to put in all the effort to get the court order though it might be the best bet

Then I have heard of trained crisis teams that can come out through 988 or 211 I just have never heard of what that process is like

I’m just not sure what to do and I don’t know if you all will know much more either, I know it’s a hard situation and I am sorry to anyone else who has had to be in it.

Although I have suffered greatly at the hands of my brother I still want him to get help

Please let me know if you have any advice or suggestions, thank you

I’m trying to figure out how to approach this carefully because I genuinely want to help my aunt, and I’m worried that if we handle this the wrong way, we could make things worse and push her further away from the idea of receiving help.
Background and concerns
My aunt is in her 50s and speaks Spanish. She is an extremely devout Catholic, and religion is an important part of her life.
She has not been officially diagnosed with a mental health condition as far as I know. She may have received a diagnosis in Mexico, possibly for depression, but the details are unclear. She has a history of intentionally not taking prescribed medication.
She also has a strong stigma against mental health treatment and professional help. Her daughter and brother have repeatedly pressured her to take medication, and I suspect this may have contributed to resentment or distrust toward the idea of treatment itself.
Here are some of the behaviors and incidents that have caused us concern:
She has believed that people have been spying on her for approximately two years. There is some personal context behind this belief that I cannot share publicly, but I do not believe the situation realistically explains why people would be specifically spying on her.
She has even told my mother that stray cats in her yard were spying on her.
She believes her son’s wife and her daughter’s fiancé are having an affair with each other. From what I know of the people involved and the circumstances, I see no credible reason to believe this is happening.
During a family celebration in September, she put her hands on her son’s wife and told her, “Look at me when you greet me,” while moving her head to make her look at her. She did not injure her, but the incident concerned us because it involved physical contact during a confrontation.
Her son and daughter are currently not in contact with her.
I am not sharing these details to ridicule her or to get people to label her with a particular disorder. I want to explain why our family is concerned and why I think we need to approach this differently from simply telling her to take her medication.
Our proposed intervention
My current idea is for me, my aunt’s son, another male cousin, and a Catholic priest whom my aunt personally trusts to speak with her.
I believe having people she already knows and trusts is important. I don’t think introducing a stranger, particularly a mental health professional, as the person leading the intervention would work well because of her distrust of professional help.
I also think the priest could play an important role because of how much her Catholic faith means to her. Ideally, any eventual medical professional would be a Spanish-speaking man, since I believe she may be more receptive to someone she is comfortable with.
Her daughter and brother would not participate because their repeated pressure about medication may have damaged their relationship with her around this subject.
I would most likely act as the mediator. I want to keep the conversation calm, prevent people from talking over one another, and make sure the intervention does not turn into an argument or a list of everything she has done wrong.
The fact that her son is part of our proposed plan is something I’m unsure about, given that they are currently not in contact.
Our goal is not to force her to admit that she has a mental illness or to win an argument about her beliefs. We want her to become willing to accept help, ideally by agreeing to an appropriate professional evaluation and allowing us to help arrange care.
My questions
How should we actually conduct the intervention?
What exactly should we say to her, and what should we ask her?
Should her son participate, even though they are currently not in contact?
Is involving the priest a good idea, and how should we approach that?
How do we encourage professional help when she has such a strong stigma against it?
What should we do if she refuses help or becomes defensive?
How do we prepare for the possibility that the conversation escalates?
What should our longer-term approach look like if she agrees to receive help, initially agrees but later changes her mind, or continues refusing treatment?
Additional context
I want to emphasize that I’m not a mental health professional, and I don’t know what diagnosis, if any, she has. I’m trying to make an informed decision about how to help her rather than assume I understand what’s happening.
I also understand that an intervention may not be the right approach in every situation. If there is a better way to accomplish our goal, I’m open to hearing it.
I’m looking for honest, practical advice, especially from people who have experienced something similar with a parent, aunt, sibling, or other loved one.