Mental health problem or one of the grieving stages? Death and denial in Poland.

DTaylor is an expert in this field by the way, his advice is sound IMO. He also happened to reiterate what i initially said.

Just an update for anyone who was following this thread.

The person is not showing any signs of recovery and the problem is now gradually manifesting itself in some of her other behaviours which I would summarise as a lessening of an ability to function normally, ie grasp reality in other matters also. I have anecdotally heard that some of the people she knows socially have broken contact with her, ie they cannot get along with her nowadays. From what I can gather, this is now starting to disrupt her successful social interactions with others, although she is replacing those people somewhat by going online and using social networking sites.

I have urged, and will continue to urge, her family to get treatment for her, I can only hope they will finally do so. I am now convinced this will not mend on its own, is worsening, and could end badly.

BritinPoland

You should be really blunt with the the family. Tell them if she does not get any help this is what will happen....give them the worst case scenario.

Yes, thank you for that advice.
I'm was very, very demoralised at what I heard her say last night, and it is now crystal clear to me that she is markedly deteriorating and her reality grasp is slipping away from her, it's now ringing an alarm in my head that she needs to be under the care of a professional as an outpatient before this all goes too far. Whether her family will actually now grow some balls and do something I don't know, but she won't listen to my suggestions no matter how cleverly put over to her, so her family will have to wake up and stop their faith in it all righting itself because it clearly is looking about as likely for that to happen as for me to become an astronaut.

Wishing Hague1 and all a very happy 2011, by the way.

[If anyone would be kind enough to PM me a brief note in competent Polish that I can give to her family I would appreciate it. All it need say is "As mentioned to you, I am very worried about X, your suggestion for patience is pure wishful thinking, and I've now noticed a rapid deterioration in her grasp of reality about additional things, not just her denial of her father's death. I strongly urge you to seek professional medical help for this matter now as "patience" is no longer an option. You must ask her brother and aunt for help on this if you can't do it alone, but see to this matter now without delay, she won't listen to me but she may listen to your family as a unit if you present a unified insistence that she goes to a doctor."]

if you write to the family in strong words they will say : what the fcuk do you know... and then put you on ignore.

it should be plain to the family that xxx is running out of friends for a reason.

your problem is that xxx doesn't believe her father is dead.

And the family believe xxx will get better.

They are all in denial. big time.

Yes Wroclaw, every sentence you wrote particularly the second line, sums it up 100%.
Some other things she has been saying and doing before are now clicking into place in my mind, they are part of the same jigsaw puzzle and explain some other odd things which I had previously put down to an unrelated cause.

(I will post again here if there is any progress in the coming months.)

Aren't some of us trap in the same madness? Why to look at the speck of sawdust in our brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in our own eye?

Can I suggest that you also look after yourself. Perhaps it would be a good idea for you to chat with a professional to a) get some advice (mentioning no names etc about your GF) and b) because the stress and worry of watching over someone who may have mental issues can be very wearing on the partner. You might be affecting yourself with your worrying (I speak from bitter personal experience)

Good Luck.

Thanks, yes you're right. I have felt totally exhausted from it and there are signs my health has suffered - namely my BP, and hair started to thin out noticably, plus skin rashes, etc.

I hope you're recovered now from your own experiences as mentioned, and have a very happy '11.

Thanks. It was a while ago.

Basically an ex-GF with a history of mental health problems (ironically she was also a MH care assistant) began to have a break-down (possibly cos we'd split up but I think that was just a catalyst) and began leaning on me big style, hanging around my work-place, calling at the house.

Eventually i rang one of her work colleagues and asked if she knew that her friend was cracking up and how a MH organisation could not notice one of it's members was in trouble. She was surprised and then asked... "And what about you, are you OK?" and it was like a cork popping to be asked. By that time it became clear I was pretty stressed out myself and the doc wanted to start feeding me happy tablets.

I really wish you both all the best and hope for a speedy and happy resolution to your own situation.

Thank you Trevek, and I hope the same for you and that you have found happiness now.
I can honestly say it seems more exhausting dealing with problems like the above than running a marathon.

Thanks, mate. It was 10 years ago and I'm in another country these days;-)

I believe she's happily 'partnered' (not sure if she's married) and doing well. Funnily enough, when I was home in England this summer, I saw her in the sudience on BBC Question Time!

Re: the marathon... we train for marathons and know what to expect. We're rarely trained for this kind of thing.

Best,

TREV:-)

sound like she need some help, the difficulty will be in thst she acknowledges that she needs it. Grief is different for everyone and time often heals but some need help to get on the right path. Good luck with this and just be there for the times when you are needed:)

Here is an update for people who are following this.

I spoke to a UK bereavement advice counsellor, she told me that she has heard of this problem before but not going on for this long. The only thing she could suggest was that the person goes to her doctor. The person has refused and says that it is other people who are confused/ill and not her.

If anyone suggests to this person that her father is dead, she now responds with a smile more often than in anger and will quietly declare later that the person who suggests her father is dead suffers from mental ill health issues and I should ignore them. She says that I too should be careful not to accept the word of the mentally ill people who say her dad is dead.

I have noticed having seen her last week and today that she has less and less grasp of time. I am also noticing she is forgetting a few more things that have happened to her previously. There is no improvement and in many ways it is surreal to return to Poland as I have and see this is still going on.

She currently seems to have decided her father is in a hospital in the USA or far away. When asked how come no one has made contact with her or her family to say where he is or ask for money to keep him hospitalised, she replies that he has money for that or that his insurance must be paying his medical bills. When asked why he hasn't made contact with her over so many birthdays and Xmases etc, she indicates a lack of awareness on how long he has been dead (or missing, as she calls it), and sometimes adds "He must be very ill if he hasn't made contact for so many months" (it is of course many years now).

In the meantime, she continues to plan her life around her father's return, and this has had some unfavourable consequences already with her career decisions, income and activities.

Her family had said they were going to a doctor to discuss it in early May, this did not happen. Ditto last week. There is, it seems, a possibility they will secretly go to a doctor this week, but she herself will not be going and carries on with her everyday activities although they are restricted by her expectations of her father's imminent return.

Stalemate 100% from what I can see.

Many are still waiting for Jesus to return too :) :)

You have to let people work things out in their own minds sometimes. Intervention is a subtle art and professionals are generally well-equipped people. Keep up your efforts!

Hello seanus, but there are not any professionals nor anyone helping her that I know of. This has been going on for some time now. Her brother simply says (when I very rarely get a reply from him, like once every quarter) "No one knows what to do...I am busy with my own family, bye". His own family seems to not include his sister in his head, it seems.

She is no doubt seen as a black sheep and such people are on shaky ground in Poland. They appear to be callous but it would also appear that she is complicating things and it is strife that they would rather not deal with. In the words of the late, great Jim Morrison, "people are strange".

yes seanus, I think you are correct - that is how they seem to treat her.

The tendency amongst some is to assume that it is a self-induced malaise. When you lose the support of those that should matter most to you, you pretty much lose everything unless you have set your stall out to be a lone wolf.

These symptoms are very troubling indeed. I am not a psychiatrist but this sounds like depression. Is she still resistant to seeing a doctor?

This is still going on?!

Poor girl...

You're a good and loyal friend, BP. Many folks would have given up on her by now.

Rybnik, yes she still refuses 100%, no chance. Her typical response is "What for?"
Llamatic, thanks and yes it is still going on and worsening if you observe her carefully. About 2 weeks ago she used a sentence which I misheard and so I thought for a moment she had suddenly snapped out of it. When I asked her to repeat what she had said I then realised what she had meant and that she was indeed still unwell.

Okay, I read all posts from the beginning.
I am not a doctor. But, this is my opinion.
Let her keep denying a fact. She can keep thinking her father is somewhere else. There are many parentless children and they see everybody as their fathers or mothers. She can live like that. Your repeating her father's death over and over may be perceived by her you are dictating something to her. Seeing her academic background and religious views as well, she may not be used to dictations and she may be reactive even against some truths. If you can take risk, you can say you believe her that her father didn't die. After a while, either she will try to convince you he is dead or you both will live as if his father is alive and somewhere else, like parentless children who never know where their parents are, alive or not.

BP have you tried forums dedicated to psychological counselling? I've seen many sites like that, where people asked questions and some specialists gave back answers. I believe it was for free. You can ask what we think but none of us is a specialist to give you any reliable advice. I'm sorry I don't know what else you can do...


Oh you did. Sorry I missed that part.

Incredible story...
I'm not sure, if you can help her.
People who suffer very much refuse any kind of help, because nobody knows what they feel. They often don't want to share their feelings with others. A normal reaction for compassion is denial.

If she wants to suffer, if she wants to believe, that her father is still alive, she probably needs it.
I would live her alone. I would try to believe at things she says.
I'm not sure if I understood correctly the story.
It's fascinating and strange.
I think she just wants to stay in her world. You won't force or encourage her for treatment.
She would explain to you why she refuses it. She probably feels OK in her state. I hope she will finally understand she can be happy and lead normal life again.

When she will be ready to realise her father is "there", not here, she will get out of it.

Maaarysia

Yes, I have emailed various services last year and phoned them again recently. All very patient free services in the UK but none could suggest anything other than "she must go voluntarily to her GP [general practitioner or family doctor]". However, no chance of that, so far.

She is a religious Catholic, one avenue that could be explored is if a priest could break it to her, however from what I have heard from her before if a priest did so she would throw back her head and laugh and say something like "Satan, very good disguise, but you don't fool me...". I really think there's a >50% chance she would respond like that instead of accept it as truth from a priest, have a good cry, and come back to normal. She very regularly reminds me that (in her view) Satan exists and corrupts the weak and vulnerable and that I too must be careful not to fall into his trap (for the record, I have no significant or perhaps no religious beliefs really at all and certainly no belief in anything like that or in any devils etc. If I put that to her, she says that Satan wants people to not believe he exists so that he can do his bad works and that I should watch I don't let my guard down, etc etc etc).

Noreenb, I do not feel she is leading a healthy life, for the reasons I have outlined, it has been going on some years now. There is evidence her life is being neglected due to waiting for something that cannot happen (ie a dead person cming back to physical life). That is exactly what she is doing and to a greater extent now than last year she is affecting her life wth that futile wait.

Is her work suffering? Do you know any of her co-workers? Is she still paying attention to her appearance? How about where she lives? Watch for signs of further detioration....

Yes, this has started to happen, financial problems now arising as a result. Her appearance is ok, not much sign of deterioration if any, but she has become very thin and tells me she has little appetite. However, she still seems to eat including biscuits/cookies and treats etc as well as the usual meals, so not sure where the appetite loss is but it must be somewhere as her weight is less than last year.

She feels she is leading. You aren't a GP


This is your point of view.