Instances where adult children pose a threat to parents

[Anonymous]

Funny, if that adult kid of his got on DCUM and complained about his parents, the overwhelming response would be supporting him and how his parents were "boomers who never take accountability." They would be called toxic and he would be encouraged to cut ties.

Too bad he didn't.

[Anonymous]

Solutions? The problems of mental illness are all slightly different in the major categories like bipolar, PTSD, brain injury and dementia. Substance abuse I’m not sure what to do if it’s the only issue.

I believe the biggest barrier for serious mental illness is when the patient has anosognosia, or lack of awareness of their own illness. Until you’ve seen someone with the lack of awareness you’ll think it’s denial. It’s not. They do not think they’re ill. Videos of their ill behavior won’t convince them either. Some psychiatrist in the 1950s had three patients with Jesus beliefs and all three thought the other two were crazy, but not the speaker! These types of patients are by far the hardest to treat and have them stay on meds. On medication persons with schizophrenia and bipolar can avoid delusions but will still have mental challenges and low energy.

And our legal system assume that the person knows what they’re doing and states their desired preferences. Legal help for desperate families to gain guardianship in severe cases with regular court review. Removal of crazy HIPAA barrier to family access. Stop housing the mentally ill in jails.

Stop wasting time on stigma awareness of mental illness. Everyone knows about these serious and disturbing attacks.

[Anonymous]

Can parents do anything differently during childhood or are some of these kids wired differently and it's only a matter of time?

[Anonymous]

At what ages did the child first present with violent tendencies? (and what was done about it at the time)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can parents do anything differently during childhood or are some of these kids wired differently and it's only a matter of time?

Some people show signs early but the vast majority have zero signs before age 18.

You’re not going to parent your child out of bipolar or schizophrenia mental illness. It’s very offensive to families with a mental illness sufferer to suggest that poor parenting or a hidden trauma caused mental illness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At what ages did the child first present with violent tendencies? (and what was done about it at the time)

It. Does. Not. Matter.

At this point, the child is an adult and either chooses to be violent or is unable to control his violent impulses. Neither is parents’ fault.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/15/who-is-nick-rob-reiner-son

I've read some DCUM posts in the past about parents being worried for their own safety or feeling threatened by their adult children and seeing more comments on some of the news articles reporting the son's arrest. Does anyone have other examples or experiences and when do you know that the child is capable of such violence?

Yes, unfortunately, in our old neighborhood, a son killed his father.

And another boy killed his psychiatrist.

Both were mental illnesses.

Also the Hoggle mother who killed both her own children. She was sick way before becoming an adult.

Our mental health system sucks and now there is zero hope for that system given the current administration.

Can you elaborate on what is needed to improve the health system?

DP. There are two large issues: accessibility and funding. There are too few programs and providers to accommodate the existing needs. And it is difficult to get funding to pay for care if you can find it.

A third issue is that it’s hard to find appropriate care in that people don’t have a sense of what is out there but are often left to their own devices to find what’s necessary. It’s completely unlike other areas of medicine. I mean when you get cancer, a doctor determines your treatment protocol. With MH care, you’re on your own. For example, when mine needed a long term inpatient, the psychiatrist told me that but had no list of programs for me to look at - I was on my own. If you’re not resourceful, you might not find what you need.

Fourth issue is that so much with psychiatry is trial and error. It can take six weeks for medication to work and if it doesn’t you move on to the next. In one year my child had 13 different medication combos and none worked. Plus if the mental illness manifests young, there are whole classes of medication that can’t be prescribed due to age.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can parents do anything differently during childhood or are some of these kids wired differently and it's only a matter of time?

Some people show signs early but the vast majority have zero signs before age 18.

You’re not going to parent your child out of bipolar or schizophrenia mental illness. It’s very offensive to families with a mental illness sufferer to suggest that poor parenting or a hidden trauma caused mental illness.

My brother had lots of outbursts in his mid-teens, but psychosis didn't start until 20s. Conventional wisdom held that viruses in utero may predispose some to schizophrenia and schizoaffective disorder, especially boys. Now there is a link between marijuana use and schizophrenia, possibly somewhat causative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/15/who-is-nick-rob-reiner-son

I've read some DCUM posts in the past about parents being worried for their own safety or feeling threatened by their adult children and seeing more comments on some of the news articles reporting the son's arrest. Does anyone have other examples or experiences and when do you know that the child is capable of such violence?

Yes, unfortunately, in our old neighborhood, a son killed his father.

And another boy killed his psychiatrist.

Both were mental illnesses.

Also the Hoggle mother who killed both her own children. She was sick way before becoming an adult.

Our mental health system sucks and now there is zero hope for that system given the current administration.

I think I know the cases you are talking about (David Winters and Vitali Davydov?). Both were schizophrenic. I am not sure what the answer is, but in at least one of those cases I'm not sure there's anything that could be done.

Vitali Davydov, the one who killed his outpatient psychiatrist, was found not guilty by reason of insanity and committed involuntarily to Clifton T. Perkins, where he then killed his roommate a couple years later. He was found incompetent to stand trial for that crime. To my knowledge, he has never regained competence in the ensuing 15 years. So he was at least competent to stand trial for the first killing, even though he was judged insane at the time of the crime, and then by the time of the second killing, despite years of forced treatment in a maximum security psychiatric hospital, he was too mentally ill to even be capable of understanding trial proceedings. His schizophrenia had only gotten worse.

I think there are some cases where the illness is so profound that nothing at all would have helped, and Davydov is probably one of those cases. Schizophrenia is an organic brain disease and his seems so severe and treatment-resistant that our current medical science is sadly incapable of helping him. He's institutionalized and being treated forcibly with whatever they have, and has only gotten worse. He can't be held accountable for his behavior and all we can do is lock him up to keep him and others safe. It must be an absolute horror for his family to watch the disease destroy him.

[Anonymous]

Good friends of mine adopted a teen who ended up being so violent she almost killed the adoptive mother. They had to put her in a therapeutic boarding school in PA, it was so sad for everyone involved.

[Anonymous]

My nephew developed a drug addiction by 15 years old, he has Anxiety and ADHD. He's also highly sensitive and, because they medicated late, he would refuse his ADHD meds and you can't make a high school kid take a pill. He is in his mid 20s now, has been in 2 or 3 different lockdown and out patient (ha, those are useless) drug programs, has been sober, then descended back into using, causing psychosis and SEVERE aggression and hallucinations - that was scary and he had to be removed from one parents' home to another due to fear of what he'd do. (Holes in walls, benches and tables destroyed, but no humans or animals physically injured) (divorce was thrown in for funsies somewhere in the middle of all of this)

He is clean now, and starting to pick up the pieces, but it hasn't been a year since he's been sober, so we are all hoping, waiting with baited breath, and hoping some more. And the Reiners could have been my family, and that's very scary. I think we won't let our breath out until he's been sober for 3 years.

[Anonymous]

Someone in our neighborhood was stabbed by their adult son. He survived and I believe the son is still living with them. I cannot imagine.

I work in an elementary school (sped) and I've seen multiple instances of kids making death threats against other students, teachers, admin or parents. It's honestly terrifying.

[Anonymous]

Pray that kind of unstable adult child never finds us.

[Anonymous]

I’ll make a comment that NoVa city governments provide zero, I mean zero, help for families struggling with violent adult children with mental illness. No training, no support, nothing. Just call the police and hope for an arrest. You can’t even call 988 and get help—the ill person is supposed to request aid themselves.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://www.theguardian.com/film/2025/dec/15/who-is-nick-rob-reiner-son

I've read some DCUM posts in the past about parents being worried for their own safety or feeling threatened by their adult children and seeing more comments on some of the news articles reporting the son's arrest. Does anyone have other examples or experiences and when do you know that the child is capable of such violence?

Yes, unfortunately, in our old neighborhood, a son killed his father.

And another boy killed his psychiatrist.

Both were mental illnesses.

Also the Hoggle mother who killed both her own children. She was sick way before becoming an adult.

Our mental health system sucks and now there is zero hope for that system given the current administration.

Can you elaborate on what is needed to improve the health system?

DP. There are two large issues: accessibility and funding. There are too few programs and providers to accommodate the existing needs. And it is difficult to get funding to pay for care if you can find it.

A third issue is that it’s hard to find appropriate care in that people don’t have a sense of what is out there but are often left to their own devices to find what’s necessary. It’s completely unlike other areas of medicine. I mean when you get cancer, a doctor determines your treatment protocol. With MH care, you’re on your own. For example, when mine needed a long term inpatient, the psychiatrist told me that but had no list of programs for me to look at - I was on my own. If you’re not resourceful, you might not find what you need.

Fourth issue is that so much with psychiatry is trial and error. It can take six weeks for medication to work and if it doesn’t you move on to the next. In one year my child had 13 different medication combos and none worked. Plus if the mental illness manifests young, there are whole classes of medication that can’t be prescribed due to age.

We live in FFX county, and our psychiatrist called the hospitals to find a bed. I am not diminishing your struggles, but it is all very specific to a doctor and a patient.