What potential mental illness or illnesses could this person have?

Question

I have a family member that takes the concept of laziness to new, unprecedented levels. They re the kind of person you describe to someone and the other person says, "They can t be that bad," but they re actually worse.

This family member is morbidly obese because they refuse to move physically and now their legs won t work. They got a taxpayer funded mobility chair that they wreck and bang aroudn like crazy. They find it too frustrating to get up and down in the bathroom so they just go on themselves and refuse to bathe. Of course they don t keep their taxpayer funded apartment clean. They spend all their time playing video games and watching cable.

Recently this person fell out of their chair and passed out, and they were not found for more than 24 hours. They are now in intensive care with a litany of serious issues including dead skin and dead muscle from immobility and uncleanliness (and sitting all the time). My extended family is now expecting to have to pay for nursing home care for them but I want to speak up, finally, and demand that something be done about their mental state. I fully expect my family to push back on the mere suggestion of the existence of a mental illness here, so I want to have my research in place first. What kinds of conditions and areas of mental illness could I look into as starting places?

k am · Answer

I have CFS, which is very real.

Anonymous · Answer

Even if you are able to do the research yourself, it is a very difficult (if not impossible) task to accomplish.  Fighting against family to have a patient tested for mental illness is something I have experience with.  First off, there are safeguards in place that protect the patient's rights, to the extent that if he or she has the ability to communicate their wishes for treatment, they cannot be committed against their will.  Secondly, you need to be a direct relative (meaning parent, child, spouse or sibling) to be able to request a psychiatric evaluation.  To that end, you cannot offer up your observations or ideas on what type of mental illness the person has.  That is up to the findings of the attending doctor and the psychiatric evaluation.  So it is actually counter-productive to do research on psychiatric illnesses in this circumstance.  I understand your frustrations, but, there are very few things you can do beyond having the patient evaluated.  If you can convince a close relative that the person is dangerous, they may be able to Baker act the person into a facility, but if the patient is physically ill, it may not be feasible until they've recovered their health to some degree.  Unfortunately, not all people who are mentally ill get proper treatment.  I am not saying its right, but this is just one of the many problems with the mental health care in this country.

Patricia · Answer

Everyone who is morbidly obese has underlying mental illness/severe depression problems, so they eat to fill a void in their lives or to try and make themselves feel better.... using food as a source of comfort.  It's like hoarding, only using food instead of collecting mountains of junk.

You can't demand something is done about another person's mental state, because NO ONE is able to help a patient change their mental state unless the patient wants to change.  A therapist or mental health professional can only help those who wish to help themselves.  Not sure why you have some idea a person can be forced to change... ?

It doesn't matter what YOU look into -- you aren't a diagnostician. This is what a psychiatrist does.

Anonymous · Answer

Depression, Bipolar Disorder, Anxiety Disorders, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, PTSD, ASPD. That's just a short list. Dementia is also a possibility, given the age of the individual involved.

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What potential mental illness or illnesses could this person have?

4 Answers