Don’t Know What to Do, My Mother in Law Actually Is Having a Psychotic Break.?

Question by Koko K: Don’t know what to do, my mother in law actually is having a psychotic break.?
So here is the scoop, my fiance and I live with his grandparents to help take care of them. He grandmother has Alzheimers.His mother moved back from New Hampshire a couple years ago to help out. (We’re in CA).

When she moved out here, she decided to see the same psychiatrist that my fiance sees. He has ADD and takes Adderall for it. The Dr. put her on the same meds. At first things were OK, put then it seems that her mental state has really been debatable. It has really gotten a lot worse in the past couple weeks. Let me run down some things she has done in the couple weeks,

1. She has started either talking or humming to herself constantly.
2. She has been accusing her son of stealing her car keys to take gas from her car and hiding her kitchen tools.
3. Accusing me of clogging up the toilets and that anything I leave in the house (like a bag) collects dust to worsen the grandpa’s COPD.
4. She sometimes doesn’t sleep at all (maybe a few hours)
5. She sometimes sleeps all day
6. She recently kicked out her husband (end of last year), then now called him over, called him a piece of s**t and asked for him to move back in, after saying she wants a divorce and never wants to see him again (all in the same breath)
7. She thinks some rooms in the house smell like rotten meat.
8. She is blaming me right now for everything wrong in the house.
9. When she is talking her to herself, it varies from talking to another person, from highs to lows, to the dog (we actually have a dog, so not that bad), to just mumbling to herself.

I do believe it has a lot to do with the Adderall she is taking, and I do believe she is taking more than the recommended dose because she always runs out before her next prescription is written. But the scary part is that she has been out of pills for a few days now and her symptoms have not gone away.

Before a few weeks ago, she was still passable for sane, even though she was accusing her husband of taking money out of her bank account to make it over drawn. (he doesn’t even have access to that account, it’s hers)

My fiance believes that the smell part is a big deal. She has been on about smells for a while.
1. She couldn’t sleep next to her husband because he smelled too much.
2. She smells an intense cigarette smoke in my fiance’s car.
3. She smells rotten meat in the living room.
4. She has been putting a bad smelling incense around the house to “clean” the house
5. She used to sleep with the dog every night and now doesn’t because it smells too bad.

And I’m sure it related but she has been cleaning far more than usual. She spent 5 hours cleaning a room that was perfectly clean. She also has been making it look like no one lives here. For examples, the bathroom used to have air cleaners, a plant, shampoos, soap, etc and now it looks like a hotel bathroom with nothing in it.

I guess what I’m trying to get at is that she has been exhibiting some really unreasonable behavior and doesn’t see how anything is wrong except for everyone else. I can go on forever listing things, but really we just don’t know what to do. We have tried talking to her Dr. and letting him know everything that has been going on. His response was “I’ll do some looking around.” What does that even mean? We are at out wits end. Please, anyone with some advice out there as to what could be wrong or what we can do to fix it?

Best answer:

Answer by W E
She needs to be evaluated by a psychiatrist. It sounds like an extreme manic episode of bipolar. The thing with the smells could be the increased senses that comes with mania. Also, in extreme mania a person can experience hallucinations.

Adderall is a stimulant. When you give a stimulant to someone with bipolar, it can cause a manic state.

Answer by Adair
My uneducated guesses are mental illness, sleep deprivation and Adderall in any combination- even if one or two is aggravating the other, is what is causing this. It’s been my personal unfortunate experience that doctors don’t listen and that’s caused a lot of problems. This woman’s behavior is disruptive to the entire house. The grandparents especially don’t need this. Perhaps she’s abusing her medication, perhaps something odd is going on. I’ve said this in a few answers lately, but it’s not a standard answer for me: call the Division of Family Services (DFS). It’s also called the Division of Social Services in some areas. They should have plenty of resources and can guide you through them. Your fiance’s mother should get help soon.

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