Our Problem Relative, who I shall hereafter call PR for simplicity, had been very quiet for a few weeks....ominously so. Whilst we are all grateful for the respite, we all know that it is generally the calm before the storm. Well, the storm started breaking a couple of days ago, culminating in full-on hurricane/tsunami yesterday.
The PR has been a massive problem for literally years and years, partly due to being coddled and babied for his early life and had everything done for him. He is epileptic, although rarely has fits nowadays, but suffers with no end of other physical and a lot of mental problems. He did undergo some psychiatric tests years ago, but soon flatly refused to do any more, or see the psychiatrist again. Consequently, the psychiatrist couldn't make a definite diagnosis, he said the PR definitely had OCD, agoraphobia and chronic depression, probably a social phobia, likely some kind of personality disorder and some signs of schizophrenia - that was as much as he could say without further investigations and tests, although he did prescribe some medications. We (my relatives and I) have arranged numerous kinds of assistance for him - a mental health worker and a social worker to help him with day to day living and tasks, a friend who worked in the care system who was willing to visit him weekly on a friend basis, loads of health appointments, etc etc - to no avail. He did allow the mental health worker to visit a couple of times, then was extremely rude to (swearing at) her, ordered her out and insisted she not come again and remove him from their books. He did the same to the social worker a couple of weeks later. The friend he wouldn't even allow in the house.
He's had an inpatient psychiatric stay - he discharged himself after just a couple of days. A couple of years ago he fell down the stairs at home, banging his head and splitting it open, he went to hospital by ambulance accompanied by a relative. His head wound turned out to be superficial, the A&E doctor did a few tests and told the relative that PR appeared to have some kind of cardiac problem, but they would need to keep him in and do more tests. The PR flatly refused and discharged himself, the A&E doc said there was nothing further they could do as he was an adult and appeared to be lucid (they were overwhelmingly busy, rushed off their feet). The doc wrote on the discharge notes that the PR was leaving against medical advice and there was a risk of sudden death due to his undiagnosed heart problems. PR's response to this was to become even more of a hermit and point blank refuse any further medical help.
The PR has caused all of us so many problems over the years - with police, the health service, his neighbours, his bank, tradesmen and delivery drivers, workmen who have gone to do jobs in his home, sex workers on chatlines who are just out to get his money. He frequently rings the Samaritans (who apparently are always kind) and calls 999 to ask for an ambulance regularly....generally he rings back a short while later and cancels it, sometimes an ambulance comes and he either won't let them in, or refuses to be taken to hospital. They always ring one of us for a chat about him. We are concerned that he is making such a nuisance of himself that they will blacklist him - they are already overstretched, as we all know.
He flies off the handle over stupid and trivial things - this time it's because his TV has broken down - he lives alone and has 2 TVs, plus a laptop he can watch programmes on, so it's not a disaster. He has Amazon Prime (and a healthy bank balance) so could simply order a new one! He worked himself up into a frenzy yesterday and then started with the threats to do himself in. At which point I blocked him. Before anyone starts thinking I'm a right hard-hearted bitch - he's threatened suicide literally dozens and dozens of times over the years and to date has never so much as taken ONE extra paracetamol, and during his relatively 'normal' times (normal for him that is) has frequently said he hasn't got the guts to do anything to himself. It's pure emotional blackmail when he's not getting his own way.
My relatives and I are virtually immune to it all now, it's been going on for so long and always follows a pattern - he'll throw his weight about and make a downright nuisance of himself, getting very abusive in the process, until he finally burns himself out and goes quiet for a day or two, before spending the next week or so deleting all the foul messages he put in texts and on FB, slagging us all off, and bending over backwards issuing ridiculously OTT apologies and saying how much he loves us all. It's exhausting. He has no quality of life and regularly disrupts our lives. It's not going to end well, we all know that. Frankly, it will be a relief all round when it does.
I've turned off comments, this is just to get things off my chest.
