paranoid sister

my sister, 70, has been mentally unstable for most of her life, she had electroshock back in the 60's when it was in vogue, and has been taking valum and whatever other prescribed drugs forever

she managed to survive this long, always a little out of sinc, but normal mostly.........

one of her sons has been living with her for 30 years.....she divorced her husband along time ago.....

about 2 years ago, her house was destroyed by arson,,, the fire was started in the alleyway of the house next door and 3 houses had to be torn down...it was the second arson in the neighborhood in a short time,,,,,the arsonist was never caught.....

she was / is convinced that she (or her son who is a part time policeman for local jurisdictions) was targeted to be killed by the arsonist..

since then she has been getting more and more paranoid and now is to the point where she thinks that everything is poisoning her.....she has pulled all the caps off her teeth becasue the glue is poisoning her,,, she thinks the gas line in her house is poisoning her,,,,,,,,,,she has called the police and called 911 so many times about people in the neighborhood, etc that they have quit responding....

she sold her $6000 car for $600,,,, threw away all of her clothes, moved out of the house, staying sometimes in a local hotel, and he found her one night sleeping in her rental car in their parking lot....

her son finally had to have her picked up by the state police and they have put her in the mental ward in a local hospital for observation......

it is a real small backward town in appalachia ( i moved away from there 35 years ago) and after talking with my nephew this morning, he doesn't have a clue as to what they are doing for her if anything...he is trying to learn about the options available, but is not the best in problem solving and it is not the kind of place with alot of resources for him to go to..... i recommended that he try learning about this on the internet,,,

and so i have taken my own advise and found this site....

we are not an extemely close family, i live 3-1/2 hours south of her, our other sister recently moved out of the area after her husband passed, and our brother lives a couple hours south of me....

i don't know if there is anything that i can do, or if anything can even be done, but i am probably the most analytical of the family ( i am the only one to go to college and am an engineer, not that means anything) my three siblings are much older than i (15, 16, & 17 years) , i am 55 and was born when my parents were 40,

thoughts ???

thanks

concerned brother.........

Sorry that your post seems to have fallen through the cracks for a few days.

My 74-yr old mother also suffers from paranoia, usually accompanying her depressions. Something like what your sister has gone through would send my mother over the edge too. My sympathies are with you.

A few questions: do you have any sort of power of attorney over her, or does everything go through her son? Would he be open to you stepping in to help? Is there a larger city with a dedicated psychiatric hospital that she could be transferred to if you don't think she's getting good care at the local level? Possibly something closer to you? Does she have a regular psychiatrist that she sees?

As far as you being able to do anything, it sounds like that might be up to her son and how comfortable he is in letting you into the situation. They should be having family meetings at the hospital periodically. I would first try to get to one of those meetings to get a good idea of whats going on with her there. Your nephew might be relieved at having someone there to help support him and help him make some difficult decisions. Also, if you don't feel like you're getting anywhere with the hospital, some places have patient advocacy programs to help intervene when problems arise.

It sounds like you might be her biggest advocate right now. There may be some red tape to sort through, but there should be a way for you to have a voice in this. You might also want to look up your local NAMI chapter (National Alliance on Mental Illness) at www.nami.org . They may have other social resources for you to access.

i appreciate the reply, i'll see what i can do.........

thanks

thank you for caring about your sister ........