In 1977, President Jimmy Carter issued an executive order with the intent to reform the part of our health care system dealing specifically with mental health with the intention of setting standards and better taking care of our mentally ill.
(Click for more info on the executive order)
One of the effects of these changes was that there was a standard set for incompetency. There are now certain tests in place that somebody has to fail to be declared incompetent--Things like not being able to remember one's name, or the date. It became a lot harder to get someone committed to a mental institution, and a lot of people had to be released from said institutions.
About a year or so ago, it was determined by doctors that my grandparents were too old to live on their own anymore. Taking care of themselves was just too physically demanding. Before I go on however I need to take a step back and say that my grandfather is a long time recovered violent alcoholic and my grandmother the victim of his abuse alcoholic and my grandmother the victim of his abuse. My parents made the effort to let them live with us, so that we could take care of them. It was always one of my grandmother's wishes that she never wind up in a nursing home.
The problems started with my grandfather, who attempted to glue utilities to the floor. This did not sit well with my parents, and the confrontations began. A lot of the time, the confrontations were very... strange. My grandfather would do things like get up n the middle of the night asking for lunch, or otherwise act in irrational, seemingly impulsive manners. There was a point and time near the end of his stay with us where he remarked that his printer needed ink. Upon being told that that wasn't here they were ging, he started beating on the window of my father's car and after realizing he lacked the strength to break the window opened the door an practically jumped out into oncoming traffic (in the middle of rain no less) before the car could completely stop. There were arguments where the police needed to be called, and incidents where he'd ask me personally for help with non-existent computer problems.
We tried to get doctors to look at him and tell us what was wrong. One doctor informed us that all the alcohol he had been drinking in the past was coming back to bite him in the brain. Despite this, hospital staff would not declare him incompetent. A social worker working on the issue and hospital staff dismissed my grandfather against our will after becoming hostile towards us and choosing to believe that we were out to take away my grandfather's freedom, rather than the more obvious reasons we might want to keep him from leaping out of moving vehicles and the like. (To keep him safe) She then proceeded to quite literally help him flee the state, so that he could go live in Massachusetts with our absolutely not safe to be around schizophrenic aunt. (Do not question this. She has a history of not taking her medicine ad becoming violent. We once caught her hiding knives under her mattress.) They were living poor, and he took frequent trips to the emergency room without all the medicine he was supposed to be taking normally.
It would be a good couple of months before the police had to intervene on a fight between him and my aunt, at which point adult protective services got a hold of him and managed to put him in a nursing home where has now started being treated for Alzheimer's.
By that time, the problems with my grandmother had started. Quite simply, she did not understand how to change. It started with small things, like awkward behavior. She was taking phone calls at rather inappropriate times and bringing unnecessary drama into the home via going on about things she heard through that phone. We didn't quite understand how bad things were until we discovered she was witholding money from our humble rent to send to my cousin, a fully grown adult. She was quite literally telling us she didn't have the money to pay our once again very low rent, and then sending a bunch of money to help someone else. Things got very heated very fast once the lying became a thing. Counselors got involved and serious talks were had. She had no concept of the fact that she lied to us, and no concept of my cousin needing to be able to live on his own. She was obsessed, trying to save him at everyone else's expense. The fact that we'd bought a bigger, more expensive house just for her and my grandfather was lost on her. As the talks went on, an ultimatum was introduced. She thought she could do whatever she wanted and just breach the agreements she made with my parents when she moved in with us, and my father told her that if that was the way she was going to behave she needed to get out.
Her reaction to this was to leave. The implications of this are that she intended to move in with my cousin, who could barely support himself let alone her. Living on her own could only go one of two ways, an early death or a nursing him. (The latter of which being one of her worst fears.) Her counselor attempted to convince her that this was an awful idea, but she listened to no one. To top it off, not long before she left our home a sheriff's deputy came to us with a summons for her. Apparently, she had used her power of attorney to take the money from some of my father's health insurance policies with intention to spend all the money on her own endeavors. The nursing home we originally tried to put our gandfather in before he fled the state was suing her for the money she refused to give them. Not only is she headed off to live on her own, but there are people hunting her down to make her pay the money she owes them. She has no concept that this is going to blow up in her face very quickly, and she's going to be shit out of luck. She has been told--She does not listen. She has no concept of what she does wrong and can't even seem to remember half the conversations she has! I once overheard her talking to my father and she accused him, in private (or at least what they both definitely thought was private), of hitting her! She was literally trying to convince the one person in the house that knew for an absolute fact that he had not hit her that he had!
She also wasn't 'incompetent'. We had absolutely no choice but to let her move out, and let her ruin her life and doom herself to a nursing home. We had absolutely no say in the matter under the law.
That being said, why wasn't the law on our side through all this? Why did the law not only fail to protect my grandparents, but pave the road for their issues to tear our family apart? They were all I had, and when their old age paved the way for disease, disease paved the way for their destruction and the law prevented us from getting them the mental health care they desperately needed. The high standards of declaring someone incompetent were meant to protect us from having our freedom taken away from us wrongfully, but is that really what's happening now? How in the /hell/ is knowing your own name and the date the standard for competency. Even my grandparents could do that much, and they couldn't take care of themselves if their lives depended on it. They demonstrated that thoroughly. Chances are I will never so much as /hear/ from them again, and it's because the law let them slip through the cracks.
Both of them.
So... my question is. Is it about time we asked ourselves about reforming the idea of when we declare someone incompetent and in need of help? I for one am ready to start sending letters to my local congressmen, among others. I would appreciate support and or opinions, as input from others will likely help me better combat this injustice in the long run. The bigger question is, where should the line be drawn if we're going to change that?
Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/RolePlayGateway/~3/0ffjm0Cu1i0/viewtopic.php
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