Father in Law has been hospitalized three times now in the past couple months and each time he is stabilized and behaves very well and gets released. However every assisted living/memory care he has been placed in, despite medication for his agitation, he gets violent and trashes his room, threatens staff and other patients and gets kicked out on his first day there. Every time. I don't think we have any options left. We already had to move him to a different state as our home state had no more places that would accept him. We cannot have him in our home as it would not be safe for ourselves and especially our children.
Feeling lost and unsure what to do or what comes next.
If they threaten you saying it's either you take him or he ends up on the streets... point him to the nearest bridge to sleep under. This is a dangerous and violent individual.
If your husband insists he lives at your home, move out that day with the kids and file for divorce.
He needs to be made a ward of the state asap.
It's not your problem to deal with. You have a home and kids. Don't get involved. Let the state handle him.
You are mistaken. They can simply resign POA by going through APS and filing paperwork in the probate court.
No one needs a lawyer.
I know a few people who actually got themselves removed from being a POA by doing exactly this.
It's not that hard to get yourself removed as a POA. In fact, the easiest route to getting removed as a POA is to do it through the hospital while someone is admitted. Their social workers get that done fast.
In my State the closest Phychiatric hospital is 2 hrs north of here. Thats where those showing violent tendencies are taken. But its not permanent. Once they find the right combination of drugs, then the person is released to a Memory care facility. What is needed for those suffering from violent behaviour and those suffering from sexual behaviour is a place where there is appropriate staff, like men aides. That there is a neurologist/psychiatrist on the staff. A PCP/GP should not be prescribing meds for people with these tendencies.
Again, in this situation, I would let the State take over FILs care. No, its not his fault but its not his families fault either. He needs care that that average person can't give.
Then much the same questions for the facilities he has been chucked out of. Were they giving him the same drugs as the hospital? How quickly did he deteriorate (three times in a couple of months means it wasn’t instant). Did there seem to be any reason for him to go downhill?
Next, more details about how he is “violent and trashes his room, threatens staff and other patients”. In particular, what was the violence? What were the threats? Did he actually make physical contact with staff or other patients? Was he making demands, and if so what? Did the facility consider calling the police, rather than evicting him? And where did he go, if he didn’t go to your home? If it was to another facility, who found it for him?
If you are really running out of options, I’d suggest that the police do get called, and he goes into the law enforcement mental health system. But as you will be asked a lot of questions, I’d try to get answers to the points I’ve set out above.
I think he associates hospital somehow as temporary and then he can go home, so I don't know how but manages to keep it cool there so he can leave. But he can't go home and he doesn't understand that. His confusion is too great at times to be alone and he was self harming. His violence too great to be with us. He is divorced from his wife for physical and verbal violence towards her and before he was hospitalized/302d for the first time in the past few months he had turned his paranoia on me, began stalking like behaviors, threatened to kill me and had a plan to do it (which he told me through phone messages and then called my husband and walked him through the plan and told him to keep it a secret...). He then vaguely threatened he could just kill himself, my husband and our kids so they could be together forever without me. He confuses me with his ex wives at times as well. We used to have a good (enough) relationship.
As for the violence in assisted living memory care, he has punched staff members in the face. He has broken glass and held pieces of it up to threaten with. He has set off fire alarms. He picked up a table and threw it through a window. He took off his belt and used it as a whip. In other facilities police and ems were called, and took him to hospital and then we are told the facility cannot handle him and he is not welcome back. He stays in the hospital until a new place is found by a team of social worker (new one each time), a placement specialist (same one each time) and my husband.
His most recent I do not know many details about yet but he was placed in a group home setting with what seemed like more experienced staff who understood his needs/triggers. The plan was to keep him more sedated for a few days while he got used to the place and slowly taper off to see if they could as the hospital only had him on low doses for anxiety. All I know is, again, first day there, and he woke up from a nap, got angry and began trashing his room. My husband had to go back and take him to a hospital again. I am awaiting more details, all I got yesterday was his room was destroyed and he had injured himself as well in the process of raging. I don't think he is able to understand the consequences of his raging out but he does seem to sort of understand that when he does, his son comes to get him (or meet him at the hospital) so it's all okay.
We're exhausted and confused. He seems to both understand/has "logical answers" for his behavior AND not understand what he is doing and just is going downhill so fast.
No need to repeat all the ‘violent criminal’ symptoms you have already set out, no need to say that insanity is not his ‘fault’. We all know that. No sense in trying over and over again to work out ‘why’, failing every time. The point is that our community deals with many such people in appropriate facilities, which are NOT mainstream aged care facilities. Many of them also have grieving families. Shift the focus.
I absolutely worry about him being around other people, but he is able to be charming in the hospital for the most part so the cycle keeps repeating.
I just wanted to know/prepare for what comes next because it seems it's going to keep happening until they run out of places to put him and that is going to happen fast. I appreciate all of your advice and those who let me know about ward of the state, etc. Lots of great advice and knowledge here and I am reading it all even if I don't respond individually. Thank you!
I have a friend whose MIL keeps getting sent home because she tears off her colostomy bag and sprays everyone and everything with the contents! I don't know if they still use strait jackets but this sounds like a situation where that might be necessary...
You hit the right answers yourself, first in your post of April 1st, and second in your answer of April 2nd. FIL “has been completely obsessed with (your husband) his whole life (honestly to the point where if it could be just him and his dad, other family out of the picture, his dad would be thrilled...hence the death threats) and he is very much the only child on a pedestal”. FIL was violent to his ex-wife, and has no respect for women, including you and the largely female staff at any age care facility.
Peggy Sue said that her in-laws “loved, absolutely loved, being admitted to the hospital. The family visits, the flowers, the concern from staff”. For your FIL, add in more and longer visits from his son, and the female nurses appearing subservient to male doctors. That’s why he calmed down in hospital, not medication.
If this is still the problem, there could be a couple of useful ways to make it clear:
1) Next time FIL goes to hospital, your DH doesn’t visit. See if FIL calms down. If he doesn’t, they won’t send him back to a facility.
2) If FIL is in a facility, get your DH to take time off work to spend around the clock with him, meet female staff at the door to his room. See if FIL calms down. If he does, this also shows that it’s an obsession about his son and women, and it’s a mental illness issue which is not treatable in a normal facility.
I would still suggest that the best way to get FIL to somewhere capable of his care, is to call the police and charge him when he is violent and threatening. That will get him out of the age-care roundabout, and into somewhere set up for this behavior.
Sympathy and best wishes, Margaret
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