Yikes! not ready - she turns 18yo in less then 2 months

[helpangel]

Suddenly just got hit with a wave of panic - with her only in 11th grade for some reason I was thinking going to have another year.

will need to contact ssi and find out about her reapplying as an adult

transfer all her services over to adults - psychiatrist, endocronology, GI
wonder if neurology should stay on? guess ask when see neuro next week

need to call lawyer and see if can somehow get control of medical decisions & finances

medical has already been a problem twice in 6 months (17yo can deny treatment here)
January got her to go to psychiatric hospital because I was going to have them revoke her bond if didn't
Last weekend passing obstruction at home when couldn't get her to go to ER (GI wanted admitted)

I put this thread over on this forum because I figure a few of you are thinking if I had only .... before they turned 18yo.

Don't worry about machine gunning me with too much information
I appreciate any advise as my 27yo never had this severe of issues going on.

 

[Kathy813]

I don't have any advice. My difficult child didn't turn 18 until the day that she graduated from high school.

I just wanted you to know that I am thinking of you during this difficult time.

~Kathy

 

[DammitJanet]

Since it is 2 months until she turns 18, I would contact SSI and talk to them about changing her to adult status. It does take them a bit of time. They may want to have her be seen by one of their doctors again. They will also probably want updated doctor reports. You will probably still be her representative payee.

Im gonna tell you now that she probably isnt bad off enough for you to get guardianship of her through the courts. The best thing you could do would be to sweet talk her into letting her sign a power of attorney over to you. It could be limited to medical since you would already be her representative payee. Or you could just do a general POA to cover yourself for anything she should do.

 

[helpangel]

thank you for your responses it's a comfort to not feel so alone. I have a call into her MH CM that I need to speak to her and we see her psychiatrist in about an hour, I'm going to talk to her psychiatrist about this as psychiatrist has been with her since she was 6yo. Angel is severe and always going to need someone looking after her (16 psychiatric hospital stays, 4 medical hospital stays). If she misses a dose of psychiatric medications she goes into psychosis that can take weeks inpatient to break, even taking her laxatives she still gets life threatening constipation.

I just can't believe I let all this stress get to me. ME the person who doesn't do pity parties & can usually find humor in anything and I feel like I'm falling apart. The stress and exhaustion are really taking their toll and I need to figure a way to snap out of it because these kids really need me to survive a few more years. It's taken over 3 hours to pull myself out of bed - mixture of nausea & exhaustion. I think a call to insurance to find out if they have an urgent care clinic I can run myself thru tonight when things calm down might be a good idea.

 

[DammitJanet]

I just want you to be aware of how amazingly difficult it can be to get guardianship of an adult child UNLESS that adult is willing to allow it. They pretty much have to be either completely unable to care for themselves such as a person who is non verbal and cannot ever be left alone at all or so completely mentally unstable that a psychiatrist would deem them incompetent. That would be a hard line to jump.

 

[BusynMember]

I don't know how hard it is to get legal guardianship of an eighteen year old because my eighteen year old agreed that I should have it and did not resist at all (he has a form of autism). But he is still in school and we are also going through all the legal stuff you are, helpangel. In his case, he is already 19 and is due to graduate this June. It's such a bureaucratic maze! But he is getting really good supports for is situation and it is worth it. Doesn't mean it hasn't given me a few "ulcer" moments though...grrrrrrrrrrrrrrr