commitment

I'm disheartened by the way Sister's illness has progressed since her return from CA. Things have only gotten worse. On Monday, July 22 Sister's best friend from childhood and high school called to inform us that Sister had been calling her repeatedly since Friday. Sister would whisper into the phone "I'm going to cut you" and "you deserve to die." A was calm but has two small children and was understandably frightened. She had tolerated the phone calls as long as possible. Years ago Sister had made threatening phone calls to A. A knows that Sister has schizophrenia. She doesn't want her to be punished, she wants the phone calls to stop.

Mom called the ACT team. They called A and instructed her to contact the police. She did and the police picked her up and took her to Miller Dwan.

In the meantime Sister called me and told me that she had been threatening A and since I had not stopped abusing her or fucking Ryan she was going to call my childhood best friend's mother and torment her! I told her that was a great idea and she should definitely do that because then she would go to jail or to the hospital forever! Ok, this is admittedly not my best moment. But I am tired of this! I have always proclaimed for everyone to hear that Sister is the best person I know. That's not true anymore. Now she is an angry, violent, unreasonable, delusional, insane person. We've done all we can for her.

When Mom called the ACT team she broke down and cried. She asked why Sister was only prescribed 100 mg of Clozaril when the recommended dose is 300-450 mg. She is taking 1/3 of the proper dose! Before she went to CA she was taking 200 mg which was not enough. Patti had the psychiatric nurse listen in and talk via speakerphone. She explained that she told Sister to increase her dosage and sister always says she will but she does not. Dr. Glick no longer deals with Sister and has passed her on  to the psychiatric nurse. Seems cruel for  (both patient and professional) to give someone fresh out of college and doing an internship a difficult case! Then Mom started screaming, "well, put her in the hospital then! Or shoot her! Just kill her! Please just have the police shoot her because she can kill us but I can't live with it if she hurts A or someone else! Just put us all out of our misery and shoot her!"

Sister stayed in the hospital for 2 weeks. During this period she called Mom repeatedly and begged her for help. She said A was falsely accusing her. She admitted to calling A but claimed while she did whisper she didn't say anything violent or threatening. During these calls she seemed like her old self. She was extremely distressed and hurt to be accused of terrorizing her oldest friend. This confused Mom. She found herself believing Sister. She began to wonder if A could be making everything up. I tried to explain that this was not new behavior for Sister, it was new to us because we had never been on the receiving end. This is the way she acts when she is in the hospital toward the staff. This is why she is released after 72 hours. I'm sure she told the staff during her previous hospital stays all kinds of terrible things about my parents and I so they would believe she was the victim.

Are you wondering if schizophrenics can turn on and off the crazy at will? The answer is yes - sometimes. They're not stupid. Self-preservation is a key motive in everyone. Sister doesn't want to be in the hospital. Patti told her that she was going to be civilly committed. She realized she had finally gone too far and there were going to be repercussions for her actions.

She went to court on August 2 and was civilly committed. What is a civil commitment? We don't know. Does is it involve therapy or some kind of health care? Not yet.  It was a way for the ACT Team to relinquish their responsibility for her. They are no longer her mental health care providers. One thing we do know about a civil commitment is that it will show up on her public record and on background checks and could affect her ability to find a job. We wanted her to be committed to a hospital! We want a hospital and the healthcare system to be committed to her!