Q. I received a call from the police to pick up my daughters at a hotel as my ex wife was having a psychotic episode. Below are all of the things she has done in the last month. She is now back with her husband. She came over the other day and seemed somewhat normal, but from what I have researched certain types of mental disorders can cause someone to be very manipulative and lie. I worry because she seems to be blaming everything on her parents (to a degree is rightfully so as her mom is extremely manipulative and controlling with her for her entire 36 years of life). I know she says she is taking responsibility, but I worry that she is thinking it is only a nervous breakdown. Here is what has happened. Your answers and input will be greatly appreciated. 1. On 8/11/2006 Teri was taken in by the Sacramento Police department on a 5150 and admitted to a mental health hospital. The reason for this is because she was in the public restrooms reading out of a bible and chanting spiritual sayings. She took apart all of the soap dispensers and had soap everywhere in the bathroom and on herself and was poking herself in the eyes and face. The worker at the Double Tree witnessed all of this. Teri shook her and said we need to be saved. (police report no. 281859, officer DeLeon) 2. She went for a walk on 8/11 at 12:30 am. She came back and woke up our daughters at 2am again and said she was going for another walk. She never came back. Sac PD woke up my daughters at 9am on 8/11. 3. She did not feed our daughters for 2-3 days (8/8-8/11). She had an imaginary person named ?Seth? that they had to find at the hotel before being able to eat. She had the girls keep trying to communicate to the ?spirit gods? to find Seth?s hotel room. They spent a few hours knocking on different rooms late at night trying to find this person that did not exist. 4. She told the girls to get all dressed up (~8/9/06) because she was taking them to a really nice place. They went for a drive and ended up at the airport. The girls said that they stayed in the car for ~ 4-5 hours and did nothing but sit there until 2am. 5. She would not let the girls go back in a hotel and made them stay in the car until they could figure out a certain saying in a movie. They had to figure out this saying by communicating with the spirit gods and getting the answer from them. 6. They have all been in different hotels for the last few weeks. My daughters said that they would spend all day in the hotel room taking tests. The tests were of Teri asking the girls questions and them having to get the answer from the spirit gods. 7. The kids said they would drive around all of the time and the spirit gods would tell her where to go and when to turn. They drove all the way to Nevada and South Lake Tahoe because the spirit gods told her to go there. (Side note ? this is in violation of our custody agreement). 8. She just separated from her husband ~ 4-5 weeks ago. I spoke with him and he said that she went to the post office and sent herself a letter from herself and gave it to him. The letter was written from God and said something to the effect of: ?Jarrett, Teri will be leaving you. She will be working for me now. Do not worry as she will be fine. She has won the lottery and is giving you ~ $20ml. Do not waste this money as you will have two more children and build a brand new house.? 9. She told my daughters that any day now they were going to win the lottery. She said they were going to buy this house that she showed them. Teri told them they were going into a private school and she was giving them each $2K per month. 10. All of her insanity began ~ 2 months ago when the girl?s dog was ran over. Teri bought a Ouija Board and got the girls using it as well to communicate with spirits. She pretended to communicate with their dog that passed, and my father who passed away on 6/27/06. Since this time Teri thinks she and the kids have special powers and can communicate with the spirits. She took my daughters to a psychic workshop that teaches these powers and judges if you have them or not. I am not sure how involved my daughters got in this workshop. 11. Teri was released from the mental hospital on 8/12. She called her friend Steve to pick her up. Steve noticed she was not mentally well and called the Sac PD. They could not do anything because she was not trying to harm herself or anyone else. Steve called her parents and her dad came to get her. She was wandering around in a daze until 3am. She finally got in the car with him and they drove back to Stockton. Her dad said that she was very violent and hostile with him and her mom. She went to sleep at 5am on Sunday morning. She told her mom that she talked to me and was coming over to my house to see our daughters. She never called or came over. She is out and about and nobody knows where she is. 12. Teri?s parents are still concerned about her mental stability and being around the children. After court filing: 1. On August 12 Teri called me from the Sacramento mental facility and said it was all a big misunderstanding?.that she got soap in her eyes and had an allergic reaction. I told her it was more than that and named off a few things. We talked about the girls and their safety and going to school in Elk Grove. She said they can live with me from now on and to go ahead and put in the papers at the court. 2. On Monday, August 13, Teri was arrested in Santa Rosa case #………………….. She went into a home of an elderly couple in the evening and sat on their couch. When the husband came out asked what she was doing, Teri said she was there to pick up her son so and so??the gentleman said there is nobody here by that name. Teri said I know, he is dead but they told me to pick him here. Teri was booked on trespassing and resisting arrest. 3. At her court date the judge said he was continuing her court date to the next Monday August 20th. At that court appearance the judge wanted her to be mentally evaluated and set the next court date to September 13. 4. On Saturday August 26th she called her parents. In short she yelled at them for her being in there and blamed them for everything. 5. On Monday August 28th she called her parents again. This time she was nice and told them that she was never going back with Jarrett; that she wanted to live there; that she was going to go into a program at Kaiser to get help; and that she was going to call the girls as soon as she got off the phone with her mom. She also gave her mom the bails bond number and asked her to get her out. Teri never called the girls that evening. 6. On Tuesday August 29th she called her mom. She again yelled at her for not getting the bails bond to get her out and for not hiring an attorney. And again blamed her for all of her problems. She also had the bails bond call her husband to get him to co-sign/guarantee the bond. 7. On Wednesday August 30th Teri called her husband and told him that she wanted his help and to get her out. She said it was all of her parent?s fault that she was in this mental state. He went there that evening and bailed her out. At this point it has been 3 weeks since she contacted the girls.

A. Thank you for the incredibly detailed account of your family situation over the past few weeks. It is hard for me to say definitively what your ex-wife is suffering from. Based on your account of the events and your description of her behavior, I would say that she likely suffering from schizophrenia rather than bipolar disorder. Please know, however, that there is no credible way for me to know exactly what her diagnosis is without meeting her and evaluating her symptoms, behavior and history extensively.

I have known and heard many similar stories much like what you have described in this e-mail about your ex-wife’s behavior among people with schizophrenia. It is not uncommon for them to believe they are receiving messages from God (magical thinking). It is also unfortunately increasingly common for them to be arrested because of their behavior. Sadly, jails and prisons are now defacto mental hospitals and repositories for many people with severe mental illness. Pete Earley, (a former Washington Post reporter and now author) who recently published a book about his son’s experience with schizophrenia and the events that led his son to be arrested, wrote about a similar instance in which his son was arrested for breaking into someone’s house and taking a bubble bath. I would strongly encourage you to read Pete Earely’s book Crazy: a father’s search through America’s mental health madness. It is one of the best recent books written about how hard it is to get mental health help for people with severe mental illness in this country and why many mentally ill persons end up interacting with the criminal justice system.

It is not uncommon for people with schizophrenia to blame others for putting them into the hospital. In fact, 50 percent of people with schizophrenia do not know that they are ill. For these 50 percent, the problem is not with them it is with other people. That means that no matter how many times they are hospitalized, no matter what havoc they have caused, no matter how many hours you spend trying to get them to make the connection between their behavior and why they ended up in the hospital (or jail), they never seem to realize that it was because they have an illness and it was their behavior that landed them in the hospital (or jail). Without this awareness of their illness (called agosognosia), many people with schizophrenia will not comply with medication or other suggested treatments. It makes sense that they would not comply since why should they, there is nothing wrong with them; it’s other people who put them in the hospital. I am familiar with many cases of people who have been hospitalized 20 or 30 times and still never believe that they have schizophrenia and truly do not understand why they are in the hospital. Not realizing they are ill is not done deliberately. It is caused by damage to particular parts of the brain in people with schizophrenia. To read more about lack of insight (anosognosia), please click this link: http://www.psychlaws.org/BriefingPapers/BP14.htm

I hope I have helped to shed light on your situation and have answered the question (s) you have asked. Please write again if you have any more questions. I will be glad to answer any question I can. I wish you and your family the best of luck.

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Last reviewed: By John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on 9 Sep 2006