How to deal with Heroin addiction and paranoid behaviour in a partner?
Patient: I am concerned about my grandsons living with my daughter who is exhibiting bipolar symptoms and her boyfriend that has told me that he has been diagnosed paranoid schazephrenic. neither are under a dr care for these conditions. her boyfriend was born with as a heroine baby and has had serious drug problems from street drugs. recently in August he beat her up and held her captive trying to gauge her eyes out and kicking and punching her. a friend of hers husband beat him up and has post concusion disorder sadly she returned to live with him despite having a restraining order and DA speaking up against having it revoked. he is still on probation and seems to be well behaved lately. my concern is how dangerous is he and is it this mental illness that causes this behavior. he is extremely controlling and paranoid and fuels this belief in my daughter Doctor: Hello,Thanks for your query. I can understand that the situation with your daughter's family must be quite distressing to you. You are indeed right in being concerned about the safety of your grandsons and your daughter.You have mentioned that your daughter's boyfriend has been diagnosed to have Paranoid Schizophrenia and that he has serious drug problems as well. Now, Paranoid Schizophrenia is a serious mental illness and requires regular treatment and follow up. Unfortunately, it seems that he is not on any medication or monitoring, which increases the risk of relapse of symptoms, that can lead to aggressive behaviour. Using street drugs like heroin, etc. further worsens the illness and increases the risk of violence. So, considering the above factors and the fact that he has already exhibited very violent behaviour in the recent past, I would say that his risk of violence / danger to your daughter and your grandchildren is very high. The situation seems to be further complicated by the fact that your daughter has mental health concerns herself. From the situation that you have described, I have concerns whether your daughter's decision-making / judgement capacity is being clouded by the mental health problems that she may be undergoing.From your side, I would suggest that you consider the following two things:1) You can inform Child Services that you have serious concerns about the safety of your grandsons. They will take appropriate steps to do a risk assessment and put in safety measures in place.2) You can take your daughter and also her boyfriend to a mental health professional to ensure that they are started on appropriate treatment and followed-up regularly.I hope I have addressed your concerns and do sincerely hope that this difficult situation resolves as the earliest.Kind regards,Dr. Jonas Sundarakumar MBBS., DPM., MRCPsych.(U.K.), MBA.(Hosp. Mangmt.)Consultant Psychiatrist