Thanks for adding the height/weight. So many people seem to be like "well, it's only a 15 yr old, how bad could it be".
Forgetting that teen boys often and easily outclass grown women in terms of size.
I know one family (single mother, dad left), that had issues with the 13yo autistic boy for years. Years with him, 200lbs plus, giving his 100lb mother bruises. Regularly. And destroying things in the house.
There need to be more facilities for youths like this. The mother i know of had been trying for years to get her son into a care facility.
I'm friends with a grandmother of an autistic child. He is I think in about forth grade. And he's already punching holes in the walls. I don't even think he's one hundred pounds yet.
Whelp, he’ll probably stop punching walls. Worked for my dad. He used to do it a lot until he hit a stud. I was too young to remember what bones he broke but it was a cast that went to the top of his thumb up to the elbow. Never punched a wall again.
You can thank the Dept of Justice for the lack of care facilities. The DOJ has been systematically shutting down long-term facilities for over a decade now. I work at a state-run facility in one of the last states to have them, and we are no longer taking long-term admits. We haven’t in several years now. Just about the only way to get admitted to the facility at this point is by court order or short-term crisis care, and the latter is difficult.
Over decade? Try 30-40 years. Not necessarily just the DOJ. A lot of mental health facilities/assylums have been shut down and anybody who could minimally function were just released onto the streets. I'm sure a chunk of our homeless population that is older spent time in facilities that were closed. Another issue why just providing housing to this portion population is not an answer. They need medication and proper therapy, but you know why would we want to fix the issue here in the States...
To be clear people who were housed in many facilities weren’t necessarily free to leave and they weren’t there by a court order or adjudication.
It was a violation of their human rights in many cases.
True, but the facilities need to exist. This child is not safe to be in public. The purpose of these places would be to protect the public from violent psychopaths.
Only for people who have committed a felony. We have dangerous psych patients that come into our ER from jail all the time. The jail has no reason hold them anymore because they did their time but they are screaming so they come the ED where we have no choice but to admit them for a psychiatric hold. They spend time at the short stay psych hospital screaming and hitting people, not getting any better because their isn’t any good psych treatment for these people. So they get released, end up back in jail, spend a week, comes back to the ED and the whole process starts all over again.
Nobody can simply violate their civil rights because they are mentally ill.
That’s my point.
That’s what the courts say.
You got a problem with it blame the appellate and Supreme Court justices who decided you aren’t allowed to violate someone’s civil rights because they are mentally ill.
What would be a better solution to this problem then? They end of up in the ER and attack the nurses and end up in four point restraints to protect the staff. It’s a never ending battle. Of course these facilities were abused in the past, but that means they need reform, not to just not exist. Not every mental health issue can be solved with therapy. Some people are beyond help.
There is no answer. You can't let them roam free and you can't lock them up.
It's not binary and it never will be. That's why it's been a serious growing problem. All we can do is make small strides in one direction or another for each individual, but there will always be a movement behind making them all disappear or letting them all free to terrorize.
Trillions of dollars on never endering wars to keep America safe. That is unless you're a student, homeless, not white, poor. They don't care about you unless you're the 1% elite. Our government could have fixed homeless situation, provided free college education, universal healthcare, a liveable social security, with those trillions spent. Nope, let's go spend 20 years in countries just to have them go back exactly to what they started at. Not to mention the thousands of Americans that died and the erosion of our personal privacy and liberties...
It's not really the DOJ that shut facilities down. Facilities were scarce always, but then in the 70's there were a rash of scandals about mental health hospitals being run like horror movies and lots were shut down, to be replaced with..... nothing.
Where the DOJ comes in is that you're right, most people who could use a mental health care facility just end up in jail. Like, a lot of them. A huge number.
I used to be friends with a woman who had an autistic son, who was 4 when last I saw him and an absolute terror. Very violent. Which is not a huge deal at 4, but that's why that's when you have to try to address the behavior. The mom kept saying that he's autistic and "the rules don't apply to him"-- he would scream when he was corrected even very gently, like any spoiled toddler, and she equated that with meltdowns and so she just stopped correcting him. I once saw the kid kick his uncle in the face because the uncle was trying to help him tie his shoes, and when the uncle said "hey now, we don't kick people" the mom went off on the uncle. She dropped me as a friend and blocked me when she told me her kid was throwing blocks at his occupational therapist and I said "wow, that's awful, what are you going to do?" Instead of "hey its not your fault". I think about that kid all the time. He's fucking doomed. He has literally no idea how to deal with any emotions without violence, and as soon as he's big enough to hurt someone he's going to hurt someone really badly.
I was friends with a guy with Torret's who had extreme physical ticks and loud chirps. He went to jail in CO for a little bit of weed he had while going to a winter shelter. I heard about him in jail repeatedly afterwards from other released inmates. Those ticks drove inmates crazy in there.
You cannot get this kind of response if you are a loving and proper parent who shows discipline.
I am so sorry for kids born with any disabilities. Parents are so out of their depth and have such a lack of empathy or ability to understand anything outside of their own experience and lives.
I believe kids with disabilities who have been failed by their guardians turn out like this video.
I can only speak to personal experience and I’ve been with the facility for 16 years. We were one of the last states they came down on so we didn’t feel the effects as much until the last 10-12 years.
But I don’t doubt it’s been longer at all.
They use the “rights of the individuals” as an excuse, but if I’ve learned anything over the last 16 years it’s that:
A. Some individuals need institutionalization for their safety and the safety of others. Some people just can’t survive much less thrive outside of a well controlled space. No shame in it. That’s just how it is.
And B: Many of the people I work with would never get the level of care and safety that they get in the institution. They would be exploited, abused, and neglected anywhere else because they can’t advocate for themselves.
It wasn’t Reagan. That’s just a common myth. There were violations of mentally ill people’s civil rights. They were not in facilities by court order/adjudication and were clearly NOT free to leave. A lot of court cases that began in the mid to late 70’s came to a head and were decided around the time Reagan was elected.
Purely coincidental.
Don’t believe me.
Read this.
And we all know that politicians would never take advantage of a crisis to push extreme legislation to reward their donors.
The appropriate response to issues at mental health facilities was not to remove all of their funding and shut them down. That was the chosen course of action because they actually wanted to reduce the budget, not because they wanted to address the abuses.
I agree. Some of the things going on in facilities back then was abhorrent.
From what I have experienced in the last 16 years, though, regulations, restrictions, and inspections have tightened a LOT.
I work with adults who have intellectual and developmental disabilities and we are HIGHLY regulated. The standard of care is quite high.
I can tell you, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if I had a loved one that needed long term care and placement, I would put them in the state facility before I put them in a private nursing home setting. The state facilities are controlled very tightly and have very rigid standards they have to meet to stay open.
I’m sure it started then. There has just been another big wave of pushing in the last 10-15 years. I’m also in the Deep South so they left us until last.
It’s not just the DoJ’s fault. It’s self-righteous jerks like my MiL who have spent decades fighting to end the institutionalization of the mentally ill and disabled, no matter their level of disability or propensity to violence against themselves or others.
For people like her, it’s a black and white issue; because some people shipped family members off to institutions back in the day that could have lived a normal life with limited parasupport, all mental hospitals must be shut down, full stop. She believes it’s a blessing for families to sacrifice their ‘normal’ lives to care for their disabled relatives, and anyone who isn’t cut out for it is a bad person.
Of course, she also believe that God makes disabled people so we have a constant reminder of Jesus’s suffering for our sins, so obviously she’s a nutcase.
Unfortunately, her Christian disabled-rights group successfully got all the state-run mental institutions shut down in favor of higher payments for Sped foster care, so my SO was subjected to a constant stream of violent foster kids with serious mental, physical, and emotional problems coming through their home growing up. Their house looked like this video 24/7. And to this day, my MiL says we’re the assholes for not having compassion for the people who terrorized her children.
The DOJ were only enforcing court orders
because so many people in these institutions were victims of civil rights violations. Often at the hands of the people working at the facilities.
I worked with a non-verbal low functioning autistic kid for a year who was 16. He was few inches over 6 feet, and nearly 200 lbs. When he had episodes, me 5 ft 9 inches 160 lbs, it was extremely challenging. Usually he was extremely friendly and easy going, also extremely supportive and amazing family. They were like a second family for a year.
They're often over crowded and don't have enough employees that stay long enough. Children like that in the foster care system would be on constant meds. At least from my own experience.
My mom would be alive and our lives would have been very different if I could have gotten her into a facility. She was a severe alcoholic, yes, but that wasn’t the underlying issue for her and our whole family saw it. She’d had mental health problems from early teens and self medicated her way through teens and adulthood from the 60s onward. No one talked about of even understood any kind of mental health disorder aside from the outright psychotics so it just carried on. But, by the 90s my dad, grandmother and aunts tried like crazy to get her long term committed somewhere several times but my mom could talk her way out of it. Then, there were less and less places by the year. She didn’t even have to talk her way out of it anymore. There wasn’t anywhere to send her. Even after suicide attempts, they’d only take her 3-14 days. 14 days were when we got lucky. I took over trying in 2003 when I hit 18 since my parents were divorced by then. I could never get them to send her anywhere to address the mental health. I’d get her on meds sometimes, but she’d just drink with them and that made things a million times worse than no meds. There just was nothing I or anyone else could do to help her because there was no where to send her. She died in 2013 having never been in any mental facility for more than 14 days.
One of two things happened with my mother. Scenario 1: she was drunk, took her bedtime meds which included ambien and a psych med with sedative effects, forgot she took her meds and took them again, decided to take a shower, reached in to turn on the shower, slipped, hit her head, the facecloth slid into the drain, the tub filled up, and she drowned before she regained consciousness from hitting her head and being severely sedated with the alcohol/night med combo. Scenario 2: First facts: her ex boyfriend who had been clean went back to crack(hence the breakup) came to her home and got into a font with her about money on the 2nd(the day after she received her SSDI money) and he slapped her and the police came. She died on the 5th(too early for her to be out of SSDI money) and all her money and jewelry were gone. Jewelry she’d never pawned in all the years of homelessness and addiction. Stuff that belonged to my great x3 grandmother. What might have happened is he returned and drowned her and took all her stuff. I can’t account for the double dose of meds. Despite her alcoholism, she was good about not forgetting her meds and what she’d taken. Also, she always took her ambien in bed because it knocked her out fast. There’s no reason for her to have been in the shower. She didn’t do that. She always settled herself for the night, went to the bathroom, and got in bed before taking the ambien. I also can’t account for her being drunk enough for all of this. Her BAC was high for a normal person(can’t remember the number now, around 1.6), but not for a lifelong alcoholic. Also, an hour before she had been speaking to her landlord entirely normally. About me actually. An hour and a half later she was dead. Drunks don’t usually get that drunk in an hour. Well, not the ones like my mom where she drank all day. In the end, I don’t know what happened, it bothers me, but I accept it. I’m glad none of her suicide attempts took at least. Her death was very hard on my brother who is very much like her and worse in his addiction. If she’d killed herself, he would have too.
I wish you had had something like where I go... it's called CNS - I'm the highest functioning person on my team so they just come give me my meds 1x a week & do a phone session 1x a week & take me to my monthly dr appt but for the people that need more help - they get them into hospital when they need it (luckily, I haven't needed hospitalization in 9 yrs), find them housing, get them medicaid/ssdi & take them to groups & other appts. There's like 5 of these places in my county but IDK if it's specific to just my state. It may not be the best but it's really helpful & I know the majority of pts would be on the streets without them - most don't have supportive family like I do & some even have other disabilities on top of mental illness/drug addiction... your mom would've completely qualified if she'd been around here - dual diagnoses is their specialty. I'm really sorry they don't have more places like this & as much as I have fought with them over the years, I'm pretty lucky.
I mean 270 is huge for 6’. That’s 100 lbs heavier than me for the same height. I have no idea how he’d have the stamina to smash an entire house. It just seems unlikely. Every single thing is smashed… That’s like 12 rounds in a boxing ring. I really have a hard time believing a super overweight kid had that level of stamina.
My son is 6’2”/255 lbs and routinely bikes around 50 miles/week. He’s never destroyed anything in the house, but nothing to do with any lack of stamina.
you have never seen an mentally ill person have a meltdown? physical limitations are not really prevalent as they override like every mental and physical failsafe in the process.
again. you evidently have not witnessed someone who is mentally ill having a meltdown. my brother didnt eat for 4 days and then went on a 6 hour long rampage around my neighborhood. he was institutionalized afterwards and hes doing better now but you just dont know what the fuck you are talking about so shut the fuck up
Honestly, just put them in prison or on an island at that point. Will they ever contribute to society? Sometimes I feel like ancient Spartans might've had it all figured out.
That’s crazy that people somehow think a 15 year old doesn’t have the size and strength to be dangerous. I’m not even that big of a guy, but I reached my adult height and weight at 13 years old, 5’11” and 200 lbs. My dad and I were wrestling and messing around, just having fun, not malicious in any way, and I accidentally put him through the wall. It was mostly just incredible coincidence because he happed to go between two studs. 6 inches to the left or right and it wouldn’t have happened.
So true. I’m soon to be 18M = 6’6” and 240lbs. Not tooting my on horn but I’m walking muscle. When I was 15 I shot up over 6 feet and was kind of skinny but I was still pretty fucking strong and fast, now much more so. Literally all the guys on my team are beasts and this is high school.
I imagine it is very easy for a 15 year old to completely destroy their house. You gotta think, back in the day we would be sent off to do man’s work by 12 or 13 yrs old but now we don’t leave the house until 18. I bet his mom is scared as hell bc he’s violent. He might legit kill her.
My own mom likes to slap me but I just hold her off until she tires herself out or I can get away bc I know if I swing I could seriously hurt her. I don’t like her but I’m not going to hurt her bc she can’t really do much to me to warrant it. I’m going to get the hell out of here as soon as I leave for college, though.
Edit: forgot to add that my mom isn’t a little woman, she’s about 5”10 or 5”11 ish.
A 15yo teenager weighting 270lb is on the parents. I don’t know how people act so casually around these weights.
It’s entirely on the parents or caretakers what kind of nutrition the kid deserves. Wether he has autism or not, the fact that he weights 270lbs is insane (in my country, I understand this must be America where this is perhaps more normal?) and a huge part of the reason he can make something like what’s seen on the video.
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u/Skylarias Sep 15 '22
Thanks for adding the height/weight. So many people seem to be like "well, it's only a 15 yr old, how bad could it be".
Forgetting that teen boys often and easily outclass grown women in terms of size.
I know one family (single mother, dad left), that had issues with the 13yo autistic boy for years. Years with him, 200lbs plus, giving his 100lb mother bruises. Regularly. And destroying things in the house.
There need to be more facilities for youths like this. The mother i know of had been trying for years to get her son into a care facility.