Please help! Mom Refuses Medication

In March 2016 my mother experienced a psychotic break. I am an only child. My father died 3 years ago at the age of 80. I had to file a mental hygiene petition and my mother was hospitalized for 20 days. Upon release she was prescribed Respidal and was doing much better. She was diagnosed with Delusional Disorder. She was given a 2 week prescription and a follow up appointment which she refused to keep.

It has now been two months. Now all of her delusions center around me. I do not according to her dress professionally enough, I am about to be fired, I cannot miss any day of work or I will receive no Social Security. She also says my husband and I are divorcing, we have already had a hearing, and he is living in Costa Rica. When I have a conversation with her and my husband is brought up she says "You are in really bad shape. You need to get your head out of the sand and face reality."

I stayed with her for 2 weeks while she was experiencing the break. I stayed with her one week after she was released from the hospital. During her psychotic break she thought the neighbors were all going to sue her, etc. Now I have been accused of stealing from her, lying to her, and many other things.

I am totally upset about her situation. She is able to take care of herself, pay bills, get her hair done, etc. She is 79 getting ready to turn 80. I want to keep a good relationship with her. It is hard with her not believing me about my husband and I being together. My birthday is coming up and she would always eat out with us and my mother-in-law and then come down to the house.

I'm sorry to hear about your mom. We're in a similar situation. But for us, it's been over 4 years since my mom was briefly hospitalized, then refused medication. She did see a counselor for a while, but only to help with the stress she experienced from her delusions, which she still thinks are real. She and her husband had to divorce, and she still thinks he's coming in her apartment to tip lampshades, pull threads, place dust, those are the 'evidence' she tries to show everyone, including the police that she calls occasionally.

Our mom is almost 75, and is fully functional - pays bills, her house is tidy and clean, makes and goes to appointments, etc. She's got friends, but I see they distance themselves after they hear more about her thinking. Sometimes she can be paranoid about others besides her ex-husband, like someone is telling rumors about her, discrediting her, jealous of her, etc.

I am always nervous about having her over, worried about what she'll say in front of my kids or husband. Usually she keeps it together. When she was in the hospital, the social worker advised that we tell her what we will not discuss and to let her know what topics won't be allowed. I've hung up on her, and left her apartment once or twice, when she couldn't stop trying to insist that I need to see a doctor or read a book on criminal minds because I refuse to 'see' what is really going on, angrily saying that I'm hurting her by not looking at the 'evidence', calling me 'stupid' sometimes.

It is really sad, because we love her, but we just cannot subject our own well-being to her very upsetting ideas about her ex-husband and accusations and meanness toward me. She now thinks she needs to move away to get further from him, and she is researching out of state apartments. I don't know if I can prevent that.

Even today, I tried to gently suggest that maybe someone can help ease her mind since she is stressed, but she turned it on me and said I'm the one who needs help, she went on and on. Most of the time I can calmly ignore and try to change the subject, but sometimes I try to convince her, and ease her mind, that those things aren't happening, but it never, never, never works. Today I feel bad because I got angry back, quickly managed to stop saying anything, but wouldn't bring her to my house to see my kids. My family helped me feel better, I know there is nothing I can do to help her, and I know I'm not always going to respond in the best way.

I am sorry to hear about your Mother. I do not know how you have managed to hold it together for 4 years! My mother went looking for me last Thursday. I was at work, of course, she thinks I lost my job. She was out for 4 hours walking through my Aunt's neighborhood. My Aunt did not realize she was there. I left work because she did see Mom's car but could not find her. I found her lying in someones yard. She told me she was too old to keep chasing me. She now tries to physically keep me from leaving her house. She says I am getting a divorce and I need to live wth her. I am happily married and csnnot live with her. I stayed for two weeks before she was hospitalized. I got no sleep, could not go visit my husband and he can't come to her house because she says he beat me savagdly. Still I cannot do anything to force her to get help because she is not a threat to herself or others. Really??? She was out in the sun on one of the hottest days of the year for 4 hours. I think that is a threat to herself. It is so frustrating!

It does seem wrong that someone can have such a life-altering mental illness, but because they are fully functional, no doctor would say she is incapacitated, thus, being her daughter, I can't force treatment. Then again, my mom was on an anti-psychotic for a couple weeks, and nothing changed. So I guess, I just keep hoping something can help, but maybe all we can do is just monitor her and make sure she's okay and do our best to be prepared if/when she can no longer take care of herself.

With your mom being in the sun for so many hours, that could prompt community help. When my mom first left her home because she thought her spouse wanted to kill her, I called our county crisis clinic. To me, it didn't seem like an emergency, but they took it very seriously, and helped to work with my mom's doctor to convince her to go to the hospital, by saying it would be a 'safe' place. (Had she not gone to her doctor, the crisis clinic would have had someone come to her home to evaluate her.) Her stay there didn't cure anything, but they did tests to rule out any physical causes, and the social workers there were extremely helpful in helping us understand how to deal with the situation. They also arranged for free counseling for my mom, and she did go for about a year. I think they helped calm her down when she was dwelling on her delusions, without challenging her thoughts. So, she thinks they 'believe' her, but really they were great at getting her to focus elsewhere, take walks, etc.

Recently, I phoned senior services and they said they would assist if my mom were about to be evicted. I suppose she could be evicted, since her apartment manager there arranged for a mental health assessment recently, probably to cover them for any liability. But since I'm not her guardian, I don't have access to any reports. I know I may need to get guardianship later, maybe through court, since she may not grant it willingly.

I've learned that I need to protect my own well-being, and mustn't dwell on trying/hoping to change her situation, since it's not possible anyway. I limit my time with her, which is hard because she wants to see me and my family, or she asks for help with this or that, like moving a furniture item, or fixing her computer, but those requests are frequent because she dwells on room-rearrangement ideas, and because of her paranoia, she constantly changes passwords and security settings, which messes up her access to her own computer. So it's very, very sad.