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Hi, I've spent some time on this site and thought I should post. My fiance's ex wife is bi polar and has been for years. They have an adult (39) daughter who is now the primary "care taker". Unfortunately, the mother has driven her current husband, family members and all friends away with her behavior. She is now in a phase where she calls and leaves nasty messages on my fiance's cell phone (15 of them in 2 hours yesterday).
My questions aren't so much about the behavior towards my fiance but rather what can we do to help his ex wife and their adult daughter? How does one go about getting help for a bi polar person? She's been to therapists (3 of whom have "fired" her as a patient) and she has a longtime psychiatrist. Several of the messages she left yesterday were about having my fiance charged with "manslaughter" if and when she decided to kill herself (because he didn't answer the phone). She stopped short of saying she was going to actually commit suicide. The daughter is at her whits end and I feel for both her and her mother.
How does one handle this? I'm familiar with patterns in alcoholics and know how to handle that but is this the same as far as developing boundaries? It's new to me and I just feel so sorry for the mom and the daughter.
It sounds to me like she might need inpatient treatment. I don't really know if anyone can convince her to go but if she says she's going to kill herself she can be admitted against her wiil.
The only way my ex wife has stayed on treatment (see my other posts for a very involved story) was to finally, after 5 years, have her own family take over her financial affairs and have her involuntarily confined. This requires various court procedures that are different from state to state in the US. In my state someone can be held against their will for 72 hours for evaluation. Then with 2 physicians say-so they can be held for a couple of 2 week periods in an institution. To hold them for more time takes court decisions that result from petitions filed by the family or friends and renewed approximately every 90 days.
According to reports to my kids my BP ex is improving and may be released to an assisted living situation in the next year, It took several months of serious and intensive treatment to get there. Largely it is no longer my concern since she left me, blaming me for all her ills. But because some responsibility for her care falls on my kids as they turn to adults, I hear things.
On a few occasions when my bp ex behaved erratically or made trouble for others, I attempted to convince her family that she needed help. This was not especially effective since they believed her and not me and said she was fine. Her family did not act until some friends of hers became alarmed at her behavior and took her for treatment. The family then acted.
So bottom line is, since your fiance is the ex spouse of this person, it is unlikely that he or you can do anything to involuntarily confine his ex beyond the 72 hour and 2 - 2 week periods. This can be done by reporting your phone messages to police or local mental health agency at which time she will be perceived as a "threat to herself or others". This won;t make many people in the situation happy. So if you can;t do that , all you can do is alert this person's family or friends of her erratic behavior and tell them about their legal options for seeking involuntary treatment.
Wish there was a better way but as I have stated numerous times on this board, the medical and legal systems are very ill-prepared to deal with mental illness. Until she actually does try to kill herself (and sometimes even after she has tried) she will, for the most part, have control of her treatment. And since her judgement is impaired by the illness, she will not do a very good job at getting appropriate treatment.
