My son felt our home was under attack by the “red side” he always hung up something red in his bedroom window to ensure they knew he /we were on the red side. God, forbid he wore blue. He kept containers of gas around our house just to be ready in case and even tried putting one near our furnace. Yet when we brought him into the hospital to get assessed he apparently was not a threat to himself or others, so he was let go. He was so paranoid that everyone was conspiring against him he absolutely would not agree to start medication. A week later he took a computer from home called a cab, asked the cab to stop at a store. We got the call he was arrested for robbery; he went in the store with a butter knife and demanded money from the employee. He was trying to escape. It then cost us thousands of dollars to keep him out of jail.
When I called the hospital to report that my teenager had set fire to the hair on his legs and head yesterday, the doctor calmly explained that this did not meet the guidelines for him to receive psychiatric treatment. Three weeks later, after he was admitted to the psychiatric ward, the hospital staff were shocked that my son was setting fire to his own hair.
My son said the bushes were talking to him and yet the doctor at the emergency department would not conduct a psychiatric assessment.
My son called the police to explain that we had pushed him. When police asked him to be assessed at a hospital, my son showed the police his one-way ticket to India and his visa, explaining that was his plan to get healthy with karate and sunshine. Our family had no clue that he had bought a plane ticket, so we were lucky to have called 911 that day.
My son telephoned the emergency phone line twice and then showed the fire fighters where the recycling box had paper and plastic mixed together, saying he was reporting an important violation of the building code.
My son attacked his father when he tried to stop him from running overseas to borrow large sums of money. The money was intended to sue the head of the conspiracy he believed was ruining his life. In hospital, after being visited by a rights advisor, he contested a Form 3. Although the Dr said he needed medication he refused to challenge her decision saying it was a waste of his time, he wouldn’t win.
My son had responded well to treatment after 12 weeks of hospitalization. One week later, he won his challenge to the legal order for his (CTO)/ medical treatment plan and immediately stopped the medication. After 3 months without medication, police found him at the door of a luxury apartment in England, he was hungry, cold, malnourished, inappropriately dressed for the cold weather and trespassing and demanding keys to a $50million apartment he insisted a well-known individual had bought for him.
My son was on a Community Treatment Order and was mandated to take his medication. As a Substitute decision maker, I attended his psychiatrist’s appointment and showed him all my son’s unopened medication. He asked my son if he had taken the medication and my son said “yes”. He believed my son because he spoke and presented well.
At the Psychiatrist ‘s appointment, I spoke to him about my son’s deteriorating condition. His alternate reality, “Dark Elite” had guided him to leave Toronto. I showed him a photocopy of my son’s one way ticket to Thailand. He asked my son if he will be back for his appointment. My son said “yes” and agreed to follow up with the doctor. The next day my son left for Thailand in a very psychotic state.
My son pointed out elevators which he believed were the hard drives of a world computer system, on the same day that he was approved to make his own medication decisions.
My son believed that the Asian couple who moved in across the road where ninjas. They came into our house in the middle of the night to poison his dad’s food and that was why his dad was losing weight. He ended up going to their house, pee on their garage and smashed their glass storm front door. He was charged and had to go to court. The ACT team helped him have the charges stayed. He had to stay away from the house and not talk to them.
My son was kicked out of the group home because he unscrewed the light switch so he could use the wires to light his cigarette. He did not have any matches. When in hospital he was declared mentally fit to take care of himself. During the time his meds were not working. He also zapped several cell telephones in the microwave, 2 laptops and smashed a TV because they were talking to him and sending him messages.
When my son was first hospitalized, I could get no information on any diagnosis. I asked to speak to the psychiatrist, who told me that he would listen to me, but would not be able to give me any information or comments. This despite the face that my son had no objection to exchange of information.