Roommate not put into in-patienty treatment

Given what you have shared blanch, I can understand how this situation really bothers you. It's hard sometimes to get a real picture of what someone is actually trying to share without seeing it one's self. I have tried to share what I have experienced in dealing with my older sister and I honestly don't think others understand just how toxic she can really be. She can get so incredibly toxic that it's been embarrassing that she is my sister. People tend to actually hide when she is around to avoid her and that includes nurses and professionals in the health care field. Even a lawyer she hired had to appologize to my lawyer for something that was sent to my lawyer that my sister wrote. My lawyer, after meeting her looked at me and said OMG what a mean witch your sister is, WOW. Truth is, her behavior has been so toxic it has traumatized me.

It sucks on SO many levels. Yes indeed it does.

I can ask her sister via text if I can install a lock on my guest bedroom door that I rent. The worst she can say is no. Right now, I have been using a chair (I told my family physician about my roommate b/c I had been thinking about seeing a therapist but can't with my temp hours so I have to see random unlicensed grad school social worker students at the evening walk in clinic for emotional support).

I do think you are right -- that my roommate's sister is using me as a safety net. That, I'm here to prevent my roommate from harming herself at the very worst, and that I would call my roommate's sister with updates if something happened.

I do feel like I'm being taken advantage of. I read that caretaking elderly parents can have lasting health impacts on the adult child caregiver for YEARS (depression for one, and other physical health problems). What impact will living with this 55 year old depressed woman have on me on top of that?

That's probably what concerns me the most. I am thinking of using what little money I have to take some community education art or music classes, so that I have a creative outlet. Sort of like, DIY art and music therapy to help me cope and get through this god-awful period.

I am temping again. I am supposed to find out if this other company will decide to hire me or not soon. And by "soon" I mean, the end of December. My god, if they hired me (as awful as a temp job as it is), that means stable income for at least 1-2 years that would let me move into my own place. And, then I could relax and focus on taking more grad school courses instead of wasting my grad school money to live on, which means I can't use that grad school money to pay for the courses. But I digress...

Tonight, I set some boundaries with my roommate after a sleepless night (due to my own anxiety). I told her that if she wants me to buy her food, she has to give me the money ahead of time. (I don't trust her to give me money after, since she never deposited my rent checks for the past 3 months). She was short with me, "Ok, thank you." Whatever. I am not her caregiver. I'm not being paid by the county to take care of her.

Her sister had told me she would be visiting this week. So far, I haven't seen or heard from her sister. And her ex-husband stopped by tonight to take my roommate's care away from her again. Not sure why he does it. I didn't ask. I don't want to get involved beyond what I've already been involved with.

I won't bring up my roommate's hospitalizations with her. No need to trigger her and create more stress for myself.

I'm sorry that your daughter has bipolar. But she is at least taking responsibility for her treatment and diagnosis. My roommate who is 55 years old and knows better, who's been this way since she was 49, is willfully refusing to take responsibility for herself.

I need to take care of my mental and physical health, I think, while I live here. I think i will look into those community education classes. If I don't do something art-music related as self-therapy, then I'll need to force myself to get involved in Meetups again to get away from this roommate and her miserable energy because it's affecting my energy levels now too.

I think your doing all you can pro actively to make this lousy situation into something you can tolerate until you find an escape.

I would push hard for that lock. If the sister refuses you can always use the ole rubber door stop , jam in under the door at night. No way could she get the door open.

Find peace of mind where ever you can. Getting involved with art music etc will not only get you out of the house more but something that can have soothing effect on you.

I'm going to just go buy a rubber door stop tomorrow. That will work the best.

Thanks for your post Christina! I appreciate it!

Actually Blanche, from what you have described of this woman? She fits into just want you have quoted "I don't want realism, I want magic". She is in the same place Blanche was in Streetcar named Desire. The difference is that back then in the time of that movie women like that could be taken away to an asylm, today that kind of place doesn't really exist. Her sister like in the movie is stuck and is trying to keep her at a distance so she doesn't intrude on her life just as was the case in that movie.

Update: so, my roommate confronted me last night in my guest room that I rent about where her money orders of my rent were. I explained to her calmly that since she was gone all of last week, I just deposited the unpaid rent back into my checking account and Paypal-ed her sister who is her power of attorney. She was MAD (maybe at the fact that I know her sister has POA over her too) but then the Orkin tech came (I had scheduled a 2nd follow-up appointment) and rescued me from it escalating.

Then, I texted her sister about what she did and asked her sister to intervene. Her sister texted back that my roommate doesn't respond to hers (or anyone's phone calls or texts) and asked me to text my roommate to contact her about wiring my roommate the rent money from the past few months. Egads. I then forwarded the text I sent to my roommate, to her sister. So everyone's on the same page.

POSSIBLE WAY OUT: I am going to look at an apartment-available-for-sublease (fully furnished and pet friendly) this Friday. I'd only have to pay $250 for the sublease fee and then next month would take over the rent payments which I can afford on my temp job. Of course, there is the assumption that my application with the landlord will be rejected due to my poor credit score. And no, I have no one willing to co-sign so this is totally hinged on my credit now. I'm hoping it doesn't get rejected. Can you imagine my relief if I get approved? I will be dancing in the streets like the David Bowie/Mick Jagger song.

Maybe considering it's a sub-lease the person sub-leasing won't go into checking your credit history. I will say some prayers for you. Also, if you have to go and first look at this apartment you may get to meet the person sub leasing and if you put on your best face and this person likes you, you may get an ok that way too.

From what you just shared about your room mate, it sounds like even though her sister has POA, she still has found a way to maintain her sense of control. She has figured out that as long as she doesn't seem to be a danger to herself or others she gets to continue to isolate herself in her room the way she has been doing. Apparently she wants to be a hermit and shut everyone out. She clearly must believe that antidepressants can't fix the fact that she is no longer young and the life of the party or in demand to do whatever she had done when she was younger. Her child was probably an ornament and she never could really connect with him, that's sad but it happens. Like in "Mommy Dearest" where Joan Crawford adopted children more as ornaments and never really could connect with them in a meaningful way.

I am sorry Blanche because given what you have shared about yourself having to deal with a person like this must at times be very triggering and unsettling for you. I am glad to hear you continue to be proactive and determined to find your way out of this and forward. What you have been learning a lot lately is how you can't control people like this, the only one you can work on and improve is yourself. In my saying that, I in no way mean to simplify or disrespect how challenging that can be.

Open Eyes the subleaser is an undergraduate student who just graduated and accepted a new job in another state. His lease goes until mid-fall 2020, and he leaves the end of January for his new job. So, he's just a kid. The leasing company's main rental office is conveniently located in the apt. bldg next door to his apt. bldg, so after I go quick tour his apt. I will walk across the street with my rental application and then I have to wait for their screening company to complete their background check (which yes, includes a credit check unfortunately, and prior rental history).

So, I will find out if my application gets accepted hopefully by next Friday. From the photos on his sublease posting, his one bedroom (fully furnished) is quite nice furniture and the unit comes with a dishwasher and also a stacked laundry washer/dryer which is also a bonus.

I feel like this would be the perfect transition out of the current transition I'm living in -- a furnished subleased one bedroom opportunity. It would give me 6 months of peace of mind on his sublease, and at the end of six months, I'd have hopefully found a full-time job, and could renew the lease or look for a new place. But it all hinges on that darn background check company hired by the leasing company who rents out his apartments.

I don't take your observations critically of me, either. It's been a horrible year and a half; caregiving for my elderly mother, now in this forced caregiving situation for a complete stranger who is my roommate until I can find a way to move out sooner than later.

It is extremely triggering and damaging to my mental health. I go to the walk-in counseling center on bad days, and other days just post here or work on my resume or my grad school coursework or watch movies.

She is not my responsibility -- this I know -- so I am not going to even offer to cook her meals at this point. I did tell her I got back from work, and her response was, from behind her door, "Ok. Thank you."

I texted her sister to ask if my roommate responded to her sister's text but haven't heard anything yet. I'm not going to engage my roommate in any conversation unless it has to do with paying her rent, or the mice infestation, or her cat's health/food/litter. I have to take care of myself.

I read online that 45 minutes after doing a creative activity (draw, paint, write, music, etc) one's cortisol levels drop dramatically. So, time to start doing more creative things to keep myself at peace while I try to get out of this horrible, horrible situation.

Yes, my roommate has cleverly created a loophole for herself to avoid going to an inpatient facility, by not acting homicidal or suicidal. Does that mean I still feel safe? Nope. It's like living with my mother after her stroke when she developed dementia.

I didn't feel safe there either because I was taking care of my mother 24/7; she would "sundown" and wander out of her apt. between midnight - 6 a.m. or I'd wake up after hearing her fall off her bed, or she'd fall off her toilet at 3 a.m. and I'd have to call the fire dept. to request a "lift assist" which the firemen who showed up, told me was a common occurrence at my mother's 55+ bldg, where other elderly people live, who'd fall or sundown.

Your description of my roommate similar to Joan Crawford aka "Mommy Dearest" is actually close. Her friend of 40 years told me, that neither my roommate nor her husband had their son tested for autism when he was 3 and started showing autistic behaviors (stimming, scripting which he did when he was here this summer briefly). Her friend is appalled by my roommate's parental neglect, but told me that my roommate's always put herself first, above even her ex-husband.

She's a narcissist who also is supposedly kind-hearted, won't hurt a fly, fights for women's rights. Um, I find everything describing my roommate after "narcissist" hard to believe. Because, if you had a toddler who was rocking, stimming, and scripting, YOU WOULD TAKE HIM TO THE DOCTOR.

But according to my roommate's friend of 40 years, they just ignored her son's behavior (which they still do now). Maybe my roommate's extreme dysthymia (ongoing depression for more than two years....) will never go away, and will morph into hoarding (her basement is a mess already).

She sure has the house for Hollywood parties. She knows lots of famous people and ran/runs in all "the" circles. A few of them stopped by her house this summer whom I met. (I didn't ask for autographs, either.)

Her behavior over the past five-six years is no secret to these "people" I've been told. She has a group of enablers/caretakers who open her mail, bring her food, and take her to appointments (if they are lucky enough to get to get her to leave her house).

I feel sorry for those people. Why do they enable her? She's clearly not doing anything to improve her situation. She and her ex-husband worked in LA for 25 years in "the scene" and she has the emmys on her baby grand piano to show it.

Why do I feel like the narrator from The Great Gatsby living here? But in my novel, Gatsby is an agoraphobic woman with dysthymia who borders on homicidal/suicidal behavior yet so she avoids becoming an inpatient (which would obviously help her; she rejected outpatient treatment accord. to her sister who would have my roommate driven to outpatient appointments, only to call a cab and leave the outpatient hospital/center).

I heard its very common for people with serious mental illness to fall through the cracks of the mental health system for one reason or another It seems that this very well may be true for the woman who was your roommate. A lot of times patients who are involuntarily commited is because of their health insurance. IDK if this is true in her case As for her not keeping jobs a lot of mental health consumers's employment history is really spotty. That's pretty common . One way of combatting this fact are rehab centers called clubhouses. I was a member in West Phila. PA until the local community MH center closed it down. Never found out the reason.

mugwort, what do you mean by "club house" exactly. I've never heard that term used to describe inpatient psychiatric facilities before.

It's good that you are talking about things here and at the walk in. It's very understandable that you worry about your own mental health. It's very unsettling living with a person that is unpredictible and clearly mentally challenged in some way and you did go from your mother becoming more and more mentally challenged to suddenly facing homelessness and now with this mentally disturbed individual. Basically, you have been exposed too much to situations that have created frequent hyper vigilance in you the last year and a half, and actually possibly longer than that.

It can seem like narcissists are constantly popping up and people can begin to be one disappointment after another. However, what you are beginning to recognize is that a lot of people have insecurities and may exhibit some naricissistic symptoms because that's all they know how to do when they face challenges in others or struggle within themselves.

In reading what you share Blanche, I have a feeling that you DO handle a lot of situations fairly well, you have fashioned a suit you put on to protect yourself in different situations. Yet, once you get distance from the situation you need to vent out how poorly the other person behaved where you had to put on that protective suit just so you could get through the situation you faced. You must be approachable if someone who knows this woman you are living with has told you all these things you have shared here.

Do you know why it helps to distance and spend time doing art projects, even just sitting with crayons and coloring in a coloring book? Why art therapy can become therapeutic? It's because when someone engages in being able to sit and create anything on their own that doesn't have to be judged in someway, it gives that person a way to have a sense of control. Having a creative outlet of somekind is always helpful and calming.

A lot of people in performing art's fields experience breakdowns did you know that? Even Dolly Parton who seems to have this cheery warm disposition about her recently shared that she had a breakdown and struggled badly with depression and withdrew for a while. The thing about acting, if that's what this room mate did, is that a person can get used to playing a certain role, it's like being handed a coloring book and slowly getting good about coloring within a preset laid out picture. If something happens and the person suddenly loses that laid out picture/structure they grew so used to living/coloring in, that person can actually fall apart mentally as is the case with this room mate.

It's not surprising other individuals in that field have stopped by in an effort to reach out to her either. I think these individuals in some way can sympathize with how vulnerable a person can be in that field. Yes, it's disturbing and unsettling for you, yet at the same time Blanche, it's also educational. Yes, in a way you are like that man who wrote about Gatsby, very good analogy. Ironically, Gatsby was another person who did not want realism, but instead wanted the magic. Perhaps we are all wanting that in a way, constantly looking for a magic that we can escape to away from realism. Cary Grant said, "Everyone wants to BE Cary Grant, even I want to BE Cary Grant".

Oh, I know, it's very hard to see that when just trying to not be homeless and instead figure out how to be independent and be able to work and support yourself. It's definitely hard to see the reality of that woman's world when you don't have the kind of luxury where you can just hybernate and have others do things FOR you like she is doing. That is like being so very hungry and walking past a busy fancy restaurant and listening to people complain about the service or the food they are eating or just complaining about a lot of nothings while stuffing their faces with rich food in a warm fancy environment.

You got a roof over your head and did not realize WHAT you were getting yourself into right? Well, this environment is so messed up Blanche that these people did not even think about considering your credit history. Actually, they are lucky you are not some crazed dishonest thief or god knows what else. Actually, THEY got lucky with YOU. Did you ever think about that Blanche? Here you are putting a stopper on YOUR door when you could be some crazy that is capable of harming this room mate. That has happened to a young singer/rising star Selena was it where in the choas of her rising career she ended up being killed by this crazy woman assistant who gradually took over and then got stranger and stranger. Actually, Blanche, these people don't even realize your actual value and that you are not the kind of person that would do something bad and you have not gotten very much respect from what you have shared either.

Actually, that is something you might consider sharing in that while you are currently experiencing financial challenges that can reflect in your credit you ARE a person who is honest and is just trying her hardest to get back on her feet, you are certainly not the take and skate kind of person.

She's not an actress, if that's what you mean although your comparison to Mommy Dearest was spot on in terms of the way she treats people esp. her son and ex-husband like ornaments., to make herself look good publicly. When behind closed doors, she's really a train wreck. She worked in Hollywood for 25 years in another capacity than acting, let's just say that. I won't go into the gory details.

I agree with your observation that I've gone from one invalidating situation to another this year that has kept me in a perpetual state of hyper vigilance for sure. But I haven't cracked yet!

And you're right, none of these people around my roommate have acknowledged that I'm actually not a crazy psycho roommate, but a considerate (albeit walking on eggshells all the time) person.

That background screening company doesn't measure people's characters, just their credit score, and rental history so that part of the apartment search is just out of my control. Nothing I can do about it. I'll find out next week if I'm approved for that sublet furnished apartment or not. Hopefully, I will be.

Working in Hollywood and even the fashion industry can be VERY toxic leading to the "Mommy Dearest" type personality or having to deal with them constantly. Another example is Amanda in "Devil Wears Prada". Have you seen that movie? Meryl Streep did an excellent job playing Amanda, nailed some very narcissistic character traits.

If she is around 55 and worked in the Hollywood atmosphere for 25 years, that means she was only about 25 when she got into that environment. That is a lot of often very narcissistic influence and high drama to spend 25 years involved with. Not to mention there is a lot of alcoholism and drug problems in that world as well.

Well yes but if she was already a narcissist, then it must have been a comfortable environment for *her* don't you think? Her FB profile is chock full of her hob knobbing with celebrities at events. I think it was definitely her scene. Not as quick paced here in the Midwest but I've mentioned in my earlier threads where I was in her kitchen when her ex-husband was over, arguing with her about not paying her son's child support to him b/c she has a lot of money. I don't know if she has a drug or alcohol problem because she never leaves her bedroom and keeps her house pitch black, even when I'm there and try to turn other house lights on.

Honestly, I don't know as people can be pretty complex. It's not a black and white easy thing to identify or quickly label. Maybe she was the bread winner and tried to have that ideal family and ideal life and it all just fell apart on her and she gave up and withdrew. Seeing that she is expected to pay child support must mean that she was the main provider and her child and husband were both dependents. Her husband may have even been cheating on her (maybe with a younger woman even) which again would be another hit to her needing to have this ideal life with THE guy that stayed devoted to her.

I have no idea what my roommate is, or what triggered or initiated her ongoing depression for the past 5-6 years. No, it's not an easy thing to identify or quickly label, but there are clues in her behavior for me, since I became her roommate 5 months ago, that lead me to believe she shuts down when life doesn't go her way. And, I am the opposite. When life doesn't go my way, I go into overdrive to try to fix my life.

Tonight I went to look at the sublease furnished apartment and was thoroughly disappointed. First, the entire apt. building reeked...just reeked of cigarette smoke. I have asthma so that was an immediate "nope" for me. But also, the online reviews of the apt mgmt company were TERRIBLE and when I met two of the leasing agents, and saw the interior of the apt. bldg, I suddenly believed the reviews. Slum lords came to mind. No lights in the hallways, broken thermostats, broken washer/dryer units. The student's 1 bedroom was fine but it reeked of cigarette smoke from the the surrounding units of smokers and the hallway.

I felt bad for the student. The final straw was the way the two leasing agents handled the sublease contract (had I gone through with it). They wanted me to pay $250 sub-lease fee (which is actually the student's responsibility), plus his deposit, THEN I learned that the reason the apt was $100 cheaper was because the student was desperate to get someone to take over his lease and was willing to pay the extra $100 himself every month until his lease runs out, while the person who takes over his lease pays the remainder of rent. Um, no thanks. How would I get that in writing if it wasn't part of the original lease. So many red flags with this I had to walk away from it.

Oh ((Blanche)), sorry the apartment was such a disappointment. Doesn't sound at all like anything that can provide you with a "safe" little haven for yourself.

Have you looked to see if anyone might be looking for a house sitter? Sometimes people need someone to just live in their home while they are away for an extended period of time. And if you don't mind animals sometimes people take extrended trips, even travel for business alot and need someone to stay in their home and feed and care for their pets too. Actually, one place you may want to try is to stop and chat is at realtor's offices as they often know people that may have something they may rent out cheap if they find the right person they can feel safe about. Just thinking, nothing ventured nothing gained.

I'm going to avoid house sitting because it's not reliable or stable. I am online looking for more sublease apartment options. I think subleasing will be the best way to get out of my roommate's house because there's no deposit plus one month's rent involved in taking over another tenant's lease. Just the application fee. I already asked my cousin who is a realtor for connections to subleasers he may know, but he didn't know of any.

I came across this article today about a roommate who lived with a roommate who has bipolar disorder and suffered psychotic episodes. I hope that my roommate's depression doesn't progress to the same level.

What It’s Like When Your Roommate Has a Psychotic Episode - VICE