How would you handle a relative who is this mentally unwell?

[HermanTheWormm]

Female family member with schizophrenia. Apologies for being vague.

She has recently been discharged home after 4 weeks as an inpatient following another relapse into not taking her medication.

I saw her last week she seemed much better but she turned up at my house last night out of the blue and was completely out of her mind.

She was shouting and swearing at passers by, urinating at the side of my house, talking complete garbled nonsense. I didn't know who it was until I opened the door at which point she came right forward and stood in the door way.

My DC were behind me trying to push past to see her whilst she's causing a scene. It was really stressful and to be honest it scared me. She wasn't being abusive to me, just passers by but it scared me.

I couldn't get rid of her for about 15 minutes.

I've spoken to her CPN who can't say much due to data protection but said the home treatment team had been trying to visit her and home and she wasn't opening the door. They'll try again today but can't force her to engage and their hands are tied unless she's proven to be a danger to herself or others.

What on earth do I do if she comes back like that again? Do I call the police? Would you do that? I didn't last night as having the police here would have caused even more fuss. I don't want my DC having to deal with all of this.

I barely slept a wink last night. I'm worried about her / what she'll do.

If you call the police they should arrange an AHMP to come and assess and they may section her again. Does she have any substance use issues?

Home team can’t judge how much of a danger she is if they’re not managing to see her so I’m not sure how they’re making that decision not to escalate. She needs help. I’d phone the police on 101 next time.

No substance abuse issues at all no, although it certainly looks like that when she's not well. She is completely incoherent. When well she's such a well spoken and polite person, totally against racism etc. The things she was coming out with yesterday I'm surprised nobody else called the police.

I tried to downplay it to the children by saying she was just being a bit silly. I didn't know what to say.

Noted about 101. I did suspect that's what I should do / should have done.

Yes, I would call the police to remove her from your property. I know if feels awful, but I think they're the only service that you'd get a response from.

Call the police. They do have powers to remove her and get her assessed by a MH team.

If she is that unwell that she is ranting and raving and so on, you can't actually help her, can you? The police can remove her to a place of safety and get her properly assessed and that is the quickest way for her to get the treatment that she so clearly needs.
Even quite young children can understand an explanation that someone is behaving oddly because they are unwell at the moment - you could say that she has a poorly head/brain. They don't need to be shielded from the idea of mental illness (but they don't need to see it in action if you can avoid it for now!)

Sorry, it sounds a tough situation for all you.

On the children note, I think it's best to be honest, if they've witnessed anything. "Her brain is sick so she's acting strange, the doctors will try to help her get better". That's much less scary for them than not understanding why their relative is being aggressive and garbled.

Dear OP
I really feel for you. As others have said, however difficult, you do need to call the police. The situation won't get better for a long time, and it would be better to have a system in place for any possible future events. It helps to decide what you will try to do and how you will cope with this. MH Services are somewhat limited and can't really be relied upon. Think about where your support will come from in the future.
I speak from experience, MIL is absolutely insane and very nasty with it. Over the years, we have had to set endless boundaries. Impossible to enforce but we have limited our exposure to it.
Don't let other family members, who don't have to deal with it, make you feel you are exaggerating etc.

You need to stop downplaying it and realise this is a medical emergency. Mental health services are so stretched that if you understate the problem they will do nothing. It sounds like she would benefit from depo medication. which they can sort out but only if you ring the police or an ambulance next time and tell them just how bad she really is. In that state she could get herself killed by walking out into traffic or something.