Mom has Paranoid Personality Disorder. Plz help?

Question

My mom has PPD. For years, she had been misdiagnosed as bi polar. She is hateful, vindictive, has bulimia and anorexia, lies compulsively, and gets memories all confused. She is addicted to nerve pills, pain pills, and alcohol. She is extremely jealous and suspicious. She thinks everyone is out to get her. I have dealt with her for 27 years the best way i know how, but now I am at the end of my rope. She wants to see my children, but when she does, she tries to turn them against other family members. Shes always telling me they r fat(trust me, they arent). What do I do? How can I continue to dea with this?

Answer 1

Your mother seems to be a detriment to herself.

She seems delusional and out of it, which leads me to believe that you could commit her, although I'm not sure.

The best way would be to, as someone already suggested, sit her down though. Talk to her and tell her what she's doing. She may not know what she's doing and she may not be able to even control it. Just make sure she knows that the way she acts is wrong and that if she continues to she could lose you and the rest of the families support. Then, ask her to check herself into some kind of treatment. It may help if you have the rest of the family around (not the ones she obviously dislikes though).

Answer 2

You have described my (late) wife. She died in 2004 of breast cancer. We were married 20 year. She was mentally ill for the last 18 of them.

I could write a novel about my experiences with her.I'm sure you could too.

In those 18 years she was diagnosed as bi-polar, schizophrenic, alcoholic, bulimic, addictive personality.  

There was a period of time when I held all of the meds. They were locked away. She had a container that had compartments for the entire week. Every Saturday, I populated it with all of her pills for the week.

I can understand the stress you are going through. It seems like there is no end.

My first thought when I read your issues, is to get her to stop drinking. My wife was hospitalized for a month with dual diagnosis, alcohol and bi-polar. The family was involved and she was confronted with our concerns with drinking.

The last 10 years of her life, she was sober. I kept no alcohol in the house and in addition, I stopped drinking too.

That was the turning point for her, although we still had a challenge to overcome the other addictions and her mental illness. It was better.

Answer 3

Sit her down and tell her that she needs to see a psychiatrist and get medicine. If all else fails, admit her to a hospital for mental illness.

Answer 4

Wow, that is a hard thing to deal with. My father is bipolar, and I have dealt with him for 53 long years. Anyway, I found one of the best ways to help ME was to join a support group. He is now in a nursing home, so I dropped out of that one. Support is a big thing. There are several on line. Does she take any meds for her PPD. It is a bad combo with the alcohol, etc.  It is very hard to help somone who does not want to help themselves. A family and friends intervention sometimes works, but that would feed her paranoia. But, I would get some information

on doing an intervention in case it can ever happen.