Remember Dave the tradie from my previous post? This post is about him.
Dave and his missus split up years ago, because she went insane. That's not hyperbole, she was literally mentally ill—like—with paranoid delusions and shit. And I'm not just taking Dave's word for it; I've got rellies who've met her.
He tried to look after her for years, but your options for controlling another adult—even a raving lunatic—are pretty limited. Eventually, he was getting worried for the safety of the kids, so he moved out and took them with him.
I was talking to Dave the other day, and he was telling me he's getting worried about his teenage daughter. Even though she hasn't been around her mother since she was a baby, he's starting to notice all kinds of odd little behavioural quirks that her mother exhibited, back in the days before she went off the deep end.
Maybe he's just being overly fearful, and worrying about little things that aren't that important; but it does make you wonder about how inheritable these things are, doesn't it?
3 comments :
There is a genetic link with these things, but those behaviours might just be behavioural quirks with nothing to do with mental illness.
OTOH, I'm judging Dave a little for leaving his wife when she clearly needed support. Because that's what's happening to me. Even though I know that his situation was a lot more complex than that and there was probably a safety issue as well as a needs issue.
The difference is, you clearly want support, whereas Dave's wife wouldn't even accept that she had a problem.
What do you do with a person like that? They don't want to be helped and you can't legally force them to do anything.
You can have them committed, or at the very least assessed for involuntary admission under the mental health act.
But if that fails, well I do agree there's little can be done.
Post a Comment