Family Strife

So, unfortunately, my grandfather is not doing well. Many of you already know that he has bi-polar disorder, and was diagnosed with that almost 17 years ago, the summer I was 12. He had a complete break that summer, and was institutionalized for a long time that summer. At that time, he was put on lithium (a heavy duty anti-psychotic). The lithium worked well for him for about 15 years. However, about 2 years ago, he started showing signs that it was not working for him anymore. He would not sleep for days on end, get extremely excitable, and have screaming fits towards my grandmother. His doctors decided to try different meds, ones that had come onto the market more recently. The upshot is that none of them have worked for more than a few months at at time.

In the past year, he has had to be institutionalized again 3 times. The mental problems are starting to affect him physically. He will not eat, and currently weighs a whopping 120 pounds (and is about 5'9"). He got out of the psych ward earlier this spring and my grandma wanted to take him out to their cabin in Pennsylvania, near my aunt. They should not have gone.

A couple of weeks ago, he took off on their golf cart for several hours. My grandmother, who is not handling this situation well, didn't call the police or anything. She called my mother and my uncle to ask for advice. They both basically said, "What are you calling us for? We're 500 miles away, call the damn cops." Well, he came back 3 hours later, after having driven his golf cart NINE MILES into town and back on the highway to buy flowers. My grandma basically said, oh well. It's almost as if she wants him to get hit in the road so she won't have to deal with it anymore.

Well, his doctors here in Michigan told Grandma that he needed to be institutionalized again. So, on that Sunday, my aunt and cousin who live out there tried to get him in the car to take him to a psych ward in Scranton. Before they could, he locked himself in the shed, threatening to kill himself. The cops had to be called, and he was forcefully taken away in an ambulance. He's been in the ward ever since.

This situation is causing major strife in my family, between my grandma and my mom and her siblings. Already, factions are forming, and people are getting angry. There is a lot of resentment towards my grandmother because she is not making the best decisions. Also, my mom and uncles, who live here in Michigan, really resent my aunt out east because she has not come to help them with the situation, and somewhat wanted not to have to make those tough decisions because she wanted to be "the good child," or his favorite for once in her life. Well, now that he's out there, she's finally just realizing what most of us here have known for years: that this situation sucks and has no good solutions. She's having a fit over the way he's behaving, but the fact is that we've been dealing with this for 2 years now. At Thanksgiving last year, which was here at Brian's and my house, he could barely stand up and was incomprehensible. This has been an almost constant thing.

I have my opinions on the subject, the main one being that he should never leave the hospital. He's threatening violence and is in very bad physical shape. My mom doesn't want to accept this, and and I understand. It's her father. But no matter what happens, I am very worried what this could do to our family. I do not want this to split us apart forever.