» LPS Conservatorship
» Who's Getting R&R?
» Am I Delusional?
» Message of Hope

LPS Conservatorship

Do you need an LPS Conservatorship for a loved one who has mental illness? The following information is being addressed first since time may be of the essence.

Complete these two forms and have them ready to give to the hospital as soon as your loved one is hospitalized. Give a copy of each form to the doctor, the public guardian and the social worker. It is best to hand deliver these papers and have the doctor sign them to validate they have received this information.

Form 1

Form 2

Who's Getting R&R?

There I was, sitting on the white paper covered gurney in the ER room of the hospital. My son was sitting in the corner of the room, holding his red motor cycle helmet. He seemed extremely nervous and very agitated. The security guard stood on the other side of the door.

If I didn’t know better, I would think this was some TV script when the staff stated, “He is. No, she is. No, he is the patient. No, she is. They both are patients! We’re going to put them both in rooms and put gowns on both of them.” More security guards came to the door as my son insisted he had to leave.

Well I didn’t get my R&R that night but my son did. He is still in the hospital awaiting the court to grant conservatorship for us. How did this strange scenario occur?

My son’s delusions of my illness began about six weeks before he finally took me to the ER. He began to project his depression onto me. He was convinced that I was moderately to severely depressed and very suicidal. His thoughts were now giving me some insight into what he was feeling. He was sleeping until 2:00 in the afternoon, couldn’t seem to do anything and was up and down throughout the night. I never debated him when he said I was extremely depressed and it was keeping him from being able to do any work. I just told him I just didn’t see that I had a problem.

For the past six weeks the intensity of his thoughts increased. He called people at NAMI to seek help for me and Genesis, an old folk’s home to secure a bed for me. One night he slipped out of the house and had the fire department knock on our door at 1:00 to check on me. He called to see if I went with them to the hospital. I told him they couldn’t take me because I didn’t see that I had a problem and he needed to come home and explain my problem to them. Two hours later the police came to check on me. The policeman remembered me and my son from a call to the house a year ago. We had a delightful visit even if it was 3:00 A.M. My son called and begged me to go with them. Again, I told him he needed to come home and explain to them about my problem.

With all his heart he was really trying to get me help. Frustrated, he explained that no one wanted to help. It was really hard to get help and I was to hang on because he would get that help for me. He gave me a lecture about taking medications and seeing a psychiatrist and how much it would help me. I asked him if the tables were turned would he be willing to do the same. Silence followed. Never did I tell him that he was depressed. I just thanked him for his concern.

One afternoon, he woke up at 2:00 and stated that I needed to go to the hospital right away for treatment. I asked if he was going to take me as he needed to be able to explain my problem. He said yes.

Quietly, I got the message to my neighbor to call the hospital and give them a heads up. My son’s paranoia kept him from riding in the car with me so he took his motor cycle to the hospital. I chose to take my car rather than hitching a ride on the back of his cycle. Besides on the way to the hospital, he passed two stop signs and one red light without stopping. It definitely was wiser to drive my own car.

At the hospital, I felt like I was being kidnapped. I couldn’t go to the bathroom without his permission. He escorted me to the restroom and stood right outside the door. Ladies leaving the restroom had to darn near trample him to get out the door. He wouldn’t even let me fill out the hospital forms and then he had to tell me where to sit and stand. I was able to write a message while I was in the restroom and managed to secretly pass it to the security guard. My son genuinely believed I was depressed and suicidal. He was projecting his feelings on me. The hospital recognized this and placed him on the 72 hour hold. We are now proceeding with the conservatorship.

As caregivers we do whatever it takes to get the help our loved one needs. I knew if this didn’t work out, the worst that could happen is that I would be committed for a little R&R and, nobody better bail me out. Well I didn’t get my R&R after all!

Gail Evanguelidi
April 2007

Am I Delusional?

“How long will you be gone?” my neighbors asked.

“As long as it takes,” Both my husband and I responded.

My son had been calling, asking for help, but we could not make sense of his few garbled words. We had reason to believe that he was in Santa Ana, CA. Therefore, on Christmas Eve 2003, I booked the last ticket on the plane and flew the next day from Louisiana to Los Angeles in order to locate and find my son. At the LAX airport I rented a car and drove to Santa Ana to scout the layout of the streets. A homeless man, whom I picked up in the area and fed him tons of food, showed me the ropes of the streets. Together we found my son late that evening. This was my Christmas miracle!

I was little prepared for the ordeal that lay before me. My son had regressed to the stage of an infant. Three words from him in a day was considered a great day. He could not function to get food and would tend to want to be naked. Mental Illness was not part of my vocabulary so this had to be from drugs. But what drug would cause such strange behavior? I had to find out.

This beautiful and brilliant young college graduate, who had such a zest for life, was deteriorating right before my eyes. His weight was 135 pounds and his brain was being sucked into a black hole. He needed help!!!

On New Years Eve his body ceased to function and he became catatonic. His body was like a rag doll. His eyes fluttered and he blew slobbery bubbles with his lips as he lay on the gurney at Cedar Sinai. The ER doctor flicked him on the check, generating a rapid succession of more bubbles from my son’s mouth, and stated, “See, he hears me, there’s nothing wrong with him!”

“Am I delusional?” I thought. This scenario continued for five hours and then the doctor administered a heavy shot of ammonium up his nose which brought him to a semi-conscious state and severely burnt his nose, and chin. The doctor refused to place my son in a 72 hour hold. He said nothing was wrong with him. So I took him back to the house where we were staying.

Life didn’t get better only worse. I called UCLA Medical Department, the LA Mental Health Department, and Cedar Sinai asking for help. I was told that my son needed to call and ask for help otherwise no one could help him. I tried to explain that he was incapable of making a phone call let alone asking for help because he was not able to talk. This small fact made no difference and so I couldn’t get him help.

I was also told that my son needed to be hospitalized in order to get him help. I asked how I should go about getting him hospitalized and was told that he needed SSI to be hospitalized. Ok, how do I get SSI? Well, he needs to be hospitalized to get SSI. Am I delusional? How do you break into this system?

Fortunately, a month later my son used me as a punching bag. This wonderful event jump started diagnosis and treatment for him. This brought me into a new realm of thinking. His problem was no longer drugs but mental illness. My neighbor, bless her heart, exclaimed that his diagnosis of schizophrenia was wonderful, now he can get treatment and live a normal life. Oh how I wish she was right and it would be that simple!

Very quickly I realized that I needed to fight the government which withholds medical treatment from my son just because a small part of his brilliant brain, which is so impaired by this illness, lacked the ability to recognize that he has a problem. He was diagnosed with acute paranoia schizophrenia by medical doctors, who spent many years specializing and studying in the treatment and diagnosis of mentally ill people with serious mental disorders.

If my son doesn’t get immediate help, his brain will continue to deteriorate. The longer it takes before he gets treatment, the longer his treatment will take and the lower his overall functioning will be. He will be robbed of too many precious years from his youth. He may be homeless, incarcerate and possibly die if he isn’t treated immediately.

The laws say that the medical profession is not allowed to help my son unless he agrees to this. The government doesn’t understand, he cannot agree for help. He does not recognize that he is ill! Who is delusional? Is it the government that would rather see him on the streets, in jail or in hospitals or is it his parents who refuse to throw him back on the streets until he figures out that he is ill?

I have never seen so many mentally ill homeless people until I came to Los Angeles. I see one homeless person on every block! The jails are jammed packed with mentally disabled people. Who in our government would want to be left untreated if their brain catapulted them into this dark hole? I must be delusional, because as parents we cannot and will not turn our backs on our extremely ill son.

After four years of my son’s lost youth, over 20 diagnosis from extremely learned medical and mental health professionals, five hospitalizations and one incarceration, and over a quarter million of our taxpayers’ dollars, we have finally gotten our government to agree that my son can have treatment for his serious illness.

Why is it so wrong to have the people with the expertise in mental health make the medical decisions for the treatment of the mentally ill? Why does it have to be more expensive, time consuming and difficult to get people treatment than it is to just treat them and save people like my son, years of their precious life? What other illness do we demand such ordeals before treatment is granted? What delusional thinking is this?

Gail Evanguelidi
Sept 2007

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