My Mother

Paranoid Schizophrenia

So my mother is quite mentally ill with a diagnosis of paranoid schizophrenia. The past few months, she has become more and more paranoid about a man she imaged was stalking her. She refused to leave her apartment, and she was harassing her landlord and apartment manager about this man. She became completely obsessed; I just don’t know how you can live your life that way…

Three weeks ago, she took off to Logan then to Ogden then to the hills of Richfield, Utah (southern Utah). She would call me once in a while and say she was getting as far away from her stalker as possible. I initially found all this out because she had listed my home and phone as her own and we got a copy of her hotel bill in Richfield. Luckily, it had already been paid.

It turns out she took off because she was getting evicted because her landlord looked into the stalking and found no evidence. So she took off and left her furniture, everything, in her apartment. She just up and left it all.

A Call Last sunday

Last Sunday, I got a call from the dispatcher for the Richfield station of the Utah Highway Patrol. My mother’s car was found that Saturday night with the door open after a camper had called in the mysterious car in the campground parking lot. The officer looked around and found nothing, but the next morning an officer went back and found my mother sleeping in her car. Yes, my mother had chosen to become homeless.

I chatted some more with the sweet lady who was the dispatcher. She said she was really worried for my mother; you can tell she is not from Salt Lake where we have become jaded about the homeless.

I asked her to please call my Uncle Doug who lives in Annabella, just outside Richfield. She must have followed through and then Uncle Doug called my Uncle Mike who is a social worker in Gunnison, Utah. Uncle Mike must have mobilized and found my mother within a day or so.

New Horizons Crisis Center?

I took the day off yesterday, Friday. Yesterday morning, I received a phone call from a psychiatrist at the New Horizons center in Richfield. She told me they had my mother, and she had not received my mother’s medical records, yet. She asked if I could confirm her suspicion that my mother is paranoid schizophrenic. I said that my mother is most definitely ill with that mental disease.

She reported that my mother was highly paranoid. No kidding. She asked if my mother has ever taken Haldol and would it be alright if she gave my mother a shot of Haldol. I said of course she could give my mother that shot.

Wow! I just looked up information about Haldol. It is quite the powerful antipsychotic medication. Whew! My mother has been so delusional that I am glad she is getting proper treatment.

Anyway, I asked this doctor what New Horizons is. She just said, “We are New Horizons!” That told me nothing, and I asked her again and I got no information from her. We had to look it up online. But I did get the doctor’s phone number.

The Call Today

My mother called today. She wants to move to Ogden right away. Blah! I had to act like her mother again and tell her to stay until her meds stabilize. I had to say it about 10 different times. Just like when my own children were little. But mothering my mother has been a way of life for 40 years. Yuck.

Well, it is a good thing I told her to stay there based on how Haldol works. It takes weeks to months of continued treatments with Haldol shots before the schizophrenic delusion disappears. She had better keep her butt there.

My mother during last Christmas