What To Do When A Loved One Refuses Help & Treatment?

What To Do When A Loved One Refuses Help & Treatment?

https://www.restoredminds.com/5-Rules-For-Recovery

https://www.restoredminds.com/ocd-assessment

One of the most difficult situations I encounter is when a family member is trying to help someone who doesn’t want help (or doesn’t think they need help). And while there might be great intentions behind trying to force a loved one to get help, it generally drives both parties nuts.

And the longer this conflict goes on, a larger and larger strain grows on the relationship and in the homelife. Which is why in this final part of our series I wanted to discuss some things you can do (and should consider) when someone you know is refusing to get help.

Enjoy!

TRANSCRIPT

(00:07):

Hey there. And welcome to this episode where we're going to talk about what to do when a family member won't get treatment or help for OCD and anxiety. Now, in this episode, we're going to cover just some kind of basic things. And really these can be applied to any situation in which a family member isn't, um, isn't really getting help. And you're the loved one who is accommodating and taking care of them. And, um, you know, kind of ultimately stuck in this loop where, you know, it's just like, Groundhog's day for you, right? It's like the same accommodation behaviors, the same rituals and, and your life is essentially kind of consumed with preventing or trying to prevent them from being in a chaotic state. Like, I mean, that's like the best way I can explain it right as your church trying to manage chaos. Right.

(00:54):

But the problem with doing that is, is that over time, what happens is, is you have to do more and more and more to manage that chaos because everything you do, the person builds tolerance too. So you have to work harder and harder and harder. And eventually all your effort and energy is just, um, expended because you're just trying to accommodate right, this, this other person. And if the person's not getting help, especially for something that they can get help for such as, you know, OCD and anxiety, what happens is, is that there's eventually a resentment that builds and resentment, you know, it can just lead to all sorts of bad things. And so, um, you know, in the, in this series we've been talking about kind of from a loved one's perspective. So in the last couple episodes, I talked about some signs that you might notice that a person is dealing with this.

(01:40):

And then we talked about, you know, um, some things that you can do to start helping them, right. You know, as a loved one, one of which is not accommodating. And then, you know, in this episode, I want to talk about what to do. If the person is just adamant that they're not gonna get help. Right. And, and what you can do from your end. So, um, the first thing I want to talk about is education. Now we've talked about education, how important it is for help. And again, our goal in this, in this particular stage, in this particular problem, we're in, um, you know, kind of the first stages of change, which is really taking the person from pre-contemplation to what's called contemplation, meaning they aren't even thinking about change. And we want them to get them to start thinking that, Hey, maybe there needs to be real change to happen.

(02:26):

And so how do we do that? How do we bridge that gap? Right. And that's what I want to talk about in this episode. So first thing is education. We need to educate ourselves and we need to educate our loved ones. Now this can be parents educating children. It could be children educating parents. It could be spouses, it could be brothers, sisters, friends, um, boyfriends, girlfriends, all of it, right. Education, right. We both need to be educated on a what the problem is and B how to, how to resolve the issue, right? Like what are the options, right? Because just being aware of a problem, doesn't, that's not going to it better. Right. We can be aware that someone has a drug problem. That doesn't mean that if there's no change made, it's just gonna, you know, grow and grow and grow in the same way.

(03:07):

Like if someone really is struggling with OCD and anxiety, that problem is going to grow. If we don't address it, almost always, it very rarely, you know, just resolves itself. Um, now in some cities, in such some situations, that's true. But if you're listening to this upset, I'm guessing that that's not the case for you. And, and with most people I work with generally speaking, that's not, it's not how it goes. So, um, so education, right? We need to educate ourself on the problem. We also need to educate our loved ones on the problem. We also need to educate ourselves on what the solutions are and then we need to start moving towards solutions. So, um, you know, that, and that can include, you know, again, books, courses, right. And, uh, you know, support groups, right? All those things are great. And over restored minds, you know, we have a ton of different resources for that.

(03:55):

Everything from, you know, online trainings to live group calls and, and, uh, and everything in between. So, um, but then after that, you know, once we've edged, once we've gone through the education process and the person that you, you feel confident that they understand what they're dealing with, they understand the options. And they're just saying no, right? Like that, they're just adamant that they're not going to do it. Well, then at that point, it becomes about you making sure that you're not doing anything to perpetuate that cycle. Right. Like I talked about in the last episode, no accommodations. And, and these are after very clear, very direct discussions. Like I'm not going to accommodate this anymore. And the reason we're going to do that is twofold. One, you know, for your own wellbeing and sanity, right. If a person's choosing to go down a path that's destructive, you do not need to go with them.

(04:45):

Right. And I know that's really hard to hear. Okay. I mean, especially if you're a parent, like I'm a parent, I, you know, it's like, I understand that's hard to hear, but the reality is is that you can't let them just keep pulling you down. Right? Like you have to take a stand and say like, look, I matter too, it's not just that my, you matter too, as the loved one. And the reality is is that if the person is just adamant that they're not going to get help, well, then you can at least do your part to make sure that you're not accommodating them because of that is going to help them one, because anytime you're accommodating and you're just making it worse. And number two is that it starts to shine a light on like how dependent they are on you, which ultimately allows them to see like how big of an impact this may be having.

(05:28):

Right. So eliminating accommodation, um, you know, is, is a huge, huge step. And then, um, number three is, is that we need to set very clear boundaries for the household. So if the person is adamant that they're not going to get help, you have to have clear boundaries on what's expected in the household. If you guys are going to live together, because you know, what's going to happen is, is that eventually when you stop accommodating, you set really clear boundaries. Life is just going to happen. And there's going to be a natural impact of not getting help. That's going to just emerge, right. It might start happening with problems at work. It might start happening problems at school, right. You know, uh, relationships, you know, and, but your boundaries at the home need to stay. So if the person is responsible for rent and actually putting responsibilities on the person, right.

(06:20):

Because one of the first things that people do is they take all the responsibilities of the individual that's struggling and they just put them on themselves. And again, that breeds resentment, right? It works in the short term, not in the longterm. And again, our goals are always long-term success here, long-term recovery, right. And long-term health. And if you are taking on their responsibilities, you need to give them back their responsibilities and treat them as someone who, who is responsible. You know, and again, this is going to vary case to case. I'm like, I'm kind of just talking very broad generalizations. These are going to have to be again, tweaked, according to what's going on with your particular life and your situation. Right. But these are the kind of steps that I would go through if I was working with you. One-on-one right. Um, so, so once we start putting, you know, giving the person responsibilities and drawing clear boundaries, like if that person's responsible for rent, they need to be held accountable for rent, right.

(07:13):

Because this is a real world, right? Like, I mean, like that is, that's just the reality, right? Is that if we take all the responsibilities away and accommodate what happens is that person lives, that person's life becomes smaller and smaller and smaller, and they just get used to living this very coddled kind of safe life. We don't want that. We want to challenge them. Right. We want them to push themselves to see what they're really capable of. And, um, so we, we don't want to accommodate, and we want to set boundaries. And then ultimately this is the hard part. Right. But as loved ones, we need to let real life consequences, catch up with the behaviors that they're engaging in. Right. Just like anything else, right. Things that we do have consequences in life and we have to face them. So if the person is always late for work and you're driving them to work all the time to try to get them there on time and you're waking them up, it's like, you might need to let them be late to work.

(08:04):

And then actually have the fallout of that. Because again, and this, and that might sound like, you know, Savage and so mean. Right. And it's like, I can't believe you would say that, but it's like, look, real life happens. Right. And in, in, at the end of the day, you can't be responsible for someone else all the time. Right. It's not sustainable. And if, if that person is choosing not to get up and go to work on time and they end up losing their job, okay. You know what, like that sucks. But sometimes they, the person needs to see external things happening in their life to show them that how real the problem is. You know what I mean? Because sometimes what happens is, is that they just are convinced there's no problems, but when stuff starts happening in their life, because they have to do all these accommodating behaviors for four, six, 10 hours a day, that's when they start to see it sometimes like sometimes that's what it takes is to see the things happening in your life that are actually the real problems.

(09:03):

Right. Of, of doing this and, and, and dealing with this stuff. And, and then that will oftentimes propelled them to say, look inward and be like, look, I really need help with this. Right. Cause they can start to put the, um, the dots together in their mind, like, well, look, I have to do all these morning rituals and I was late to work. And so this is really the problem right now. They might tell you that you're the problem because you've been accommodating so far, don't, don't buy into that. Right. Put the responsibility back on the individual, it's their responsibility to take care of themselves and to get, to get help. Right. And their health is their responsibility. Always remember that. And I'm finally in like the last stages of like, if you know, the ramifications are happening and essentially the person's just like living in your house, not doing anything, not contributing.

(09:48):

And you are just fed up. You know, there are certain times where it's appropriate to draw the line and say, look, I can't live with you anymore. And they need to move out now for, for a lot of times, parents, this is really difficult. Right. And I've, I've been a part of these discussions. I've helped facilitate these discussions with families. And, um, you know, it's, it's always a hard discussion, but at the end of the day, if the person, if you've created an environment where the person just has no responsibilities, right. And no, nothing to be held accountable to, there's a secondary gain at that point for that person to just not get better because they don't need to do anything. Right. And the, and this is where, what we talk about secondary gains and treatment. We need to look at the secondary gain of not getting help.

(10:33):

Right. Because if you've gone through the education, you've drawn boundaries, all the stuff we've talked about, and the person's just still not wanting to get better than at this point, there's clear secondary gains that this person's banking on from not, not making corrective decisions. Right. And not, not taking this on and really in getting help. Right. So, and, and, and I've seen, uh, I've seen it happen where literally, um, I was, there's this one mother who, who had to ask her son to leave the house. Right. Put them in a house or a room you're entered a room, right. For like a few months. And then that was his like big turning point in his treatment. Right. Like he turned everything around at that point because it was like life really like, you know, she, you know, shined a big light into his eyes and like, Hey, look, this is what's really going on.

(11:18):

You owe rent in 12 days or you don't have food now because you're not cooking it. And that's really sometimes what it takes for people to like wake up and really start getting help. So, you know, these are some practical things, again, it's gonna vary case to case by case. I'm not saying these are like, just blanket, do this, you know, like a checklist, but really just these kind of phases are what we do, you know, to really help someone kind of move from that. I'm not going to get treatment to considering treatment. So hopefully this was helpful. And if you found this helpful, you know, please we really appreciate your support by liking subscribing. And we also have some resources available for you [email protected]. And there's some links right down below in the notes that we'll take you over to some of our guides, as well as some of our premium trainings. And I'm in live support groups as well. So, you know, whatever, wherever you are in this, you know, we, uh, we do want to support you. And so, um, you can check out those links services [email protected]. Thank you so much for hanging out today. And I wish you guys the best and have a great week talk to you soon.