Suggest Ways To Deal With Aggressive Behavior In An Adult

Posted on Tue, 15 Dec 2015

Question: my daughter is 52..she has 3 children 18,15and12. she is divorced and lost custody of the children, her home and received no monitary support after court proceedures. She was homeless for about 3 years. She refused to move in with me or her Dad. She has seen psychiatrists for at least 20 years. She has seen many different psychiatric doctors collecting many different prescriptions. When I realized this I called several doctors, sharing names on the bottles found and they did an efficient job of setting up communications between themselves to protect her . She has been hospitalized in psychiatric units for a few days at a time. The longest period was about 2 weeks. Her Dad and I have rented an apt for her . She has been declared disabled and receives about $720. per month. Her husband who has the children wanted me to come ocassionly to be with them and I loved it. She had someone call me claiming to be a doctor, who said she may cause harm to herself if I visited the kids. He did not identify himself although he was very polite. I rea ly don't think he was a Doctor but I have not seen the kids since then- maybe 6 months ago. She is so rude to her husband,sibblings-4, parents and others. How can she be helped? I am truly at a loss.

Answered by Dr. Psychologist K. V. Anand (7 hours later)

Brief Answer:
Please try to clear the element of distrust.

Detailed Answer:
Respectable madam,
Thanks for the question.

I am truly amazed at the way you are em-pathetically approach the issue with your daughter. God bless you, and your whole family. I Pray.

From the given details, it is impossible to assess your daughter's mental condition or mental disorder. As your daughter is receiving disability payment per month, it can be assumed that the psychiatrist diagnosed her with some mental illness which is non-curable. Possibly schizophrenia.

In that case, as you already know the implications, it is always better to go about with love and affection, but without expecting anything in return from your daughter. Treatment should continue.

You are staying away from your daughter. I suggest you to be with her and provide assistance. There could be an element of distrust towards you. That is one reason why she is reluctant to let you meet her children. I suggest you stay with her and build the trust. Once you regain her trust, you may try alternative measures of treatment and approach with the help of psychiatrist and other therapists.

The above suggestions were based on the assumption that your daughter could possibly be suffering mental disorder which warrants disability. If you provide me with the correct details of her disorder (if possible diagnosis itself), I will be able to assist you much better way.

Thanks and god bless you.

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar