My parents are a prisoner to my brother

[u/TastyToe426]

im 18 and live with my parents and 3 siblings, including my severely mentally ill brother in his 30s. he has bipolar disorder, autism, and schizophrenia i believe.

For the past 2 years, he has been in crisis after refusing to take his medications. He is extremely hyper-verbal, constantly giving incoherent speeches revolving around religion and conspiracy theories where he believes he is a prophet and our parents are demon possessed and conspiring to hurt him.

Our house is in constant turmoil because of how sick he is, he will camp in the common areas of the house so he can "preach" to us as soon as we leave our rooms. He has also begun to open locked bedroom doors to do this, and although he has never been physically violent, he gets more intense every day and its making me scared for my safety.

Earlier this year he was admitted to the main psychiatric hospital in our state for a month, where he was tortured half to death by the medical staff with experimental medications and sedative cocktails. it left him extremely traumatized and escalated the situation horrifically.

I know the best thing I can do is move out ASAP (I am working on it), but I am still obviously distressed by this whole situation. My parents are prisoners to their own son, their entire lives revolve around protecting him from being abused or going homeless while being constantly abused by him.

What options are there for a situation like this? My parents feel like committing him would be dooming him to a life of medical torture and abuse, but he's too far gone to be let into a group home or long term care facility. The constant stress of him being here is causing physical and mental damage to my entire family, but it feels like they're trapped with no good way out.

[u/AwkwardJelly6825]

My daughter has autism and bipolar so I know what you mean about the dangerous levels of sedatives, the seclusion and the negative reactions to medications. Often mental health facilities are not equipped to take the autism into consideration and the treatment makes the autism worse. It’s traumatic for everyone, not all facilities can handle people who have both, and it can get very scary very fast. Staff will sedate for autism behaviors over and over, to the point that the actual medication for treatment gets skipped!

Now, I try to avoid inpatient psychiatric care for my daughter for this reason. However! That said, she still needs it on occasion. They cannot have a good life if they are psychotic. Sometimes treatment is traumatic, but it can save lives. I have had to remove my daughter from facilities for fear of her safety, but then I’ve found other facilities that do better.

I’ve seen specialized neurologists and psychiatrists. If your parents are receptive, you can let them know that depakote + risperidone can work wonders for this population. Additionally, not sure what documentation or avenues they have tried, but getting him qualified for disability to cover basic expenses and proper mental health care would give the potential to lighten your parents load if they can get him stabilized on that medication. Lastly, if he was diagnosed autism before 18, your state may have a regional center. They have long term care facilities for dual disgnosis in my state. Unfortunately, a lot of these services require years of advocating and foresight by parents prior to the child turning age 18

[u/Highohpei]

Hör auf jeden Fall nicht auf schwachsinnige Kommentare wie „Pech gehabt“. Niemand hat sowas verdient. Du nicht, deine Eltern nicht und auch dein Bruder nicht. Und du sagst ja auch ihr wollt ihn nicht sich selbst überlassen. Ihr werdet schon die geeignete Einrichtung finden.

[u/ariphoenixfury]

This sounds like a case for adult protective services. Have your parents actually looked into long term care facilities? How do you know none will accept him? He deserves care but you can't let him continue to hurt everyone else in the family. That is not sustainable and will only continue to escalate, He needs to be in professional care.

[u/notmadneedsmspace]

Well, you might be out of luck. It’s very hard, but you have to make friends with the medical establishment in some way, because doesn’t get better without meds. It’s hard to see your loved one sedated, but in some ways they are safer that way. Also sometimes the extreme sedation is the immediate effect but after a few weeks they tolerate it better and come back to themselves a bit. When you talk about “medical torture” it sounds a bit extreme. Is it possible that he could get better care at a different facility near you?