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My adult son's father was diagnosed with manic depression 30 years ago and can become abusive.. He was seeing a psychiatrist for years and lived in the City. He moved to the country and stopped taking his prescribed mental health medication. and stopped seeing his doctor. I saw him today and he was nice then switched quickly to being belligerent. I asked about his meds and he said he quite them a over a year ago. I don't think he realizes his behavior is affecting the family. I think his son should contact his doctors and start getting involved. One thing scary is he is 65 and the State has written to him to please stop speeding because he has so many speeding tickets. I'm thinking this is not safe for our roads. Anyone out there with some advice?

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If he has multiple speed tickets, he must be close to reaching the maximum amount before his driver's license is suspended. If he continues to drive on a suspended license, the next time might involve a trip to the jail or some really serious fines. And if his insurance carrier finds out about this, his insurance coverage will likely be terminated.
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Oh it affects the family alright. Which is why your son would do better to learn as much as he can about boundaries, and start setting them. And also educate himself about re-setting boundaries, if his father escalates. As the good folks on AC Forum have said, do not expect boundaries change the doer's behavior -- because boundaries won't change the doer's behavior. The purpose of effective boundaries is to prevent oneself from being sucked in, used, denigrated, disrespected or manipulated. Your son is responsible for his 30-yr-old self (and his dependent children, if he has any). Your son's father is responsible for his 65-yr-old self. The father chose to discontinue meds. His mercurial behavior and traffic offenses are his problem. As are any and all related consequenses. The father's mental illness is sad and unfortunate. But it's not your son's fault, and he can't fix it. There are several posters here (sandwich42plus and golden23 come to mind) who share stories of the futility of trying to mold or persuade a mentally ill parent, and the PTSD-like effects of getting too close to the flame. Your son has probably, at times, invested too much of himself trying to be the fixer or the appeaser. For his own sanity and safety, your son needs to trend away from that. Not toward it.
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What exactly do you think your son can do for his father? The mentally ill are free to discontinue their treatments if they choose and there is nothing that can be done about it, that is why there are so many mentally ill people in jail or wandering the streets homeless. Your son can not talk to his doctors unless he has been given permission to do so, and even then the doctors can not force him into treatment or make him take his meds. There are no grounds to step in unless it can be shown he is a danger to himself or others, and even then he can be back out after 72 hours.
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First, the only way your son can get involved with his father's doctors is if his father had signed a HIPAA form saying that the doctor's can give his son medical information.

Secondly, does your son even want to get involved? And why get involved? Your son's father is a grown adult who is deciding what he wants or doesn't want to do regarding his health.
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