Family members struggle with this a lot. The issue is that a full 50% of people with severe mental illness believe that they are not ill. That belief is PART OF THEIR ILLNESS and called anosognosia (I still have trouble remembering the word even though I teach about it in NAMI classes!). Here is a link talking about it:
So even though people are adults, they can be incapable of taking care of themselves if they believe they are not ill and do not get proper treatment. This is the question I get asked most as a teacher, âHow can I get my loved one help when she doesnât think she needs it?â My sister is actually going through this with someone in her husbandâs family. It stinks.
Maine, just last month, FINALLY passed a law to make it easier to hold someone involuntarily if they are clearly ill. Family members have been begging for this for years. Some of them had children they fought unsuccessfully to get committed, and those kids went on to commit violent acts or suicide. Every time the bill came up for debate, consumers (the correct word for mentally ill people in this context) would argue that it violated their rights. When they would testify, youâd think, âWell, obviously THEY should never be committed against their will, theyâre obviously capable of taking care of themselves!â But as I explained in my earlier post, itâs possible those same people could decompensate the next week and NEED hospitalization.
I canât emphasize enough that someone who has not gone through this with a family member cannot understand what itâs like. I even had a social worker berate me for not bringing my son to the ER sooner one time: âMom, you know, you could bring your son in sooner next time, before he got to this pointâŠâ I almost blew up. DS still lived at home with us, and I watched him constantly. Just two days before, his psychiatrist had seen him and said he was doing great. The next thing I knew, DS was channeling Abraham Lincoln. Another time, DS went catatonic WHILE IN HIS DOCTORâS OFFICE. The doctor said that was a first. The experience is heartbreaking and indescribable, especially considering that he was studying biomedical engineering and getting As when he fell ill. 
Schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder, and major depressive order are horrible, horrible diseases. Family members are just begging to be given the chance to take care of their loved ones. It is far MORE common for families to abandon their loved ones, so we should be thankful when families step up. (When I asked my sonâs housing staff when they hadnât told me about the state rule that residents can be gone no more than 14 days a year, I was told that it had never come up - family members donât take their loved ones home for visits very often).
And yes, Iâm sure that occasionally a family member doesnât have the best interests of the ill person in mind. Thatâs why we have judges to decide these matters. I have no idea where the truth lies in Britneyâs case, but I trust the judge to make the right decision.
We DID listen to our son when he said he didnât want to live at home anymore, even though we were skeptical how it would go. To our surprise, a local group runs quite a few homes in our area, so DS lives in an apartment with 24/7 staff in an upstairs office. We do whatever we can to foster his independence. But if it comes to having to commit him involuntarily for the safety of himself AND OTHERS, we will do it.
If he asked that someone else be his guardian, we would be open to the idea if we trusted the person and he or she were willing to take on the daunting job. Itâs not for the faint of heart. Even without being his guardian, I spend a good bit of time every week making sure my son is getting the support he needs. My latest success was getting him into the Meals on Wheels program, since recently all he had been eating, and I do mean literally, was Campbellâs Soup and smoothies. I have to call MoW every week to order meals for him. Thatâs just one small example. Itâs endless.
Iâm sorry, Iâll get off my soapbox now. Itâs just that every time I teach a NAMI class, I hear more heartbreaking stories about loved ones trying to get their kids the help they need. Thereâs usually not a lot of assistance I can offer.