Trigger for self harm
I think this is more of a vent but happy to hear any advice or if anyone is experiencing similar..
My 80 yo father in law has a long history of mental health issues, mainly depression and intrusive thoughts.
Up until the last few years MiL has managed this herself, she would sometimes mention "I've had a bad week with Fil", but not much more than that, nothing was ever hidden or a secret but she insisted she was fine and we were to get on with our lives and she would let us know if it was anything serious. He was occasionally admitted to a psychiatric unit but this was only every few years and he went in voluntarily, stayed a while until he was "better" then came home.
More recently though MiL is struggling to cope and/or FiL is getting worse (its hard to say) there were a few times where DH had to spend over an hour on the phone trying to calm FiL down or had to go round and make sure he was safe. Earlier in the year MiL slipped and fell hurting her knee and hand which meant we had to provide a lot more care for them, washing, housework, cooking, running to hospital appointments - it was chaos but we managed it and she's recovered now. Unfortunately this seems to have triggered a decline in FiL's condition and a few weeks later DH got a call in the early hours from his Mum to say she's had to call an ambulance as FiL had taken an overdose in the night. We managed to arrange for him to be admitted to a psychiatric unit (A&E wanted to send him home 🙄) where he stayed for a few weeks.
He seemed to do be doing okay but then at a family birthday a few weeks later, he unexpectedly took a turn, started pacing muttering about the thoughts in his head and had to be physically restrained as he was trying to walk out into traffic. I took DC home and DH took MiL & FiL home and stayed the night with the view to getting him readmitted if he was the same in the morning.
DH called home last night his Dad answered the phone and he could hear his mum crying in the back ground, he spoke to her and she was really upset, saying she couldn't cope with him any longer, she'd had enough etc etc This is becoming a more regular thing now, I think my poor MiL has just had enough and knows she cant cope with him. She told me recently that she sometimes sleeps in her clothes encase she has to call an ambulance in the night 😔
We can manage helping them with the regular things like ordering their shopping, admin, hospital visits etc as this is fairly minimal (and thankfully have some flexibly with work) but its the unpredictability that is starting to take its toll, we feel like we are on edge waiting for the next "episode" We have a 5 year old DC and both work full time, we also do some bits and pieces for my Dad (mainly just a few errands a week and his admin) so life is already busy.
Sorry I don't really know what I expect people to say...but it helped to type it out