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  1. #1

    Default Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    Oregon:

    (about 6-7 months of time in this story)

    Wife was seeing a PMHNP every so often for meds (cymbalta, adderall, valium) along with all kinds of other "sample" drugs here and there... Along with all of these drugs, my wife would take up to 6 OTC pain meds at a time 2 to 3 times a day along with diet pills, water pills etc. etc... A real cocktail of stuff going on here...

    After a visit to the PMHNP, wife begins to start having real problems getting through the day without thinking someone is 'bugging' her cell phone, recording her conversations, GPS tracking her, remotely controlling here computer (that has no lan connection) etc. etc...

    I'm thinking it will pass, but it doesn't... It gets worse... And worse with each passing month... Up and down, up and down, her emotions... I can never tell which person I'm talking to... My wife, or inspector gadget... When one day she starts to focus on "me" as the one doing "it"... Now I'm the accused... A husband, the only bread winner and now a "spy"...

    I'm at a loss, trying to conduct home business and pay employees along with all the other day to day duties of running a business "with no help"...

    I cannot talk to wife about it, she won't discuss it because she thinks I'm the one doing it, and she won't allow me to visit PMHNP with her to discuss... I have no answers and nobody will talk to me about it because of privacy laws in oregon even though we're married...

    PMHNP is "treating" my wife under the table - pro-bono(sp)... and in about the 6th month of this (elevated weirdness) there's an argument when my wife says to me that 1. "even -PMHNP- says I should get away from you as fast as I can"... She goes on to say that 2. "My father even says you (I) could be dangerous"...

    This is all absolutely absurd... Completely preposterous...

    I can only think that these things were said because of what fabricated stories my wife may have told them...

    I confronted father regarding the "could be dangerous" statement and he didn't confirm or deny it... He says he really doesn't know me... I say, look at what I do, and that will tell you who I am... I marry daughter, I buy house, car and I pay for her lawyers to reverse custody of her son (to her)... A Loving husband that would navigate shark infested waters -- you know the rest... (AND I'm dangerous?) -- these people are now on my $h#^ list for making such reckless statements to a (now) unstable person, potentially adding fuel to the fire (read on)

    About another 3-4 weeks goes by... Wife is really freaking out on me... There's not an hour that goes by without me being accused of taking something, hiding something, recording something etc... And all I can do is try and listen to her... Help if needed... Explain "real world" tech. stuff to her and how "things" work... Buy her favorite coffee in the morning and at the same time, listen to the little person on my shoulder telling me to "watch my back" and just keep my focus, 8am to 5pm, on my work that is in serious decline now...

    She confronts me at my work desk... She thinks I'm in the process of "recording something of her"... She wants to see... I roll back, let her in... She finds nothing... I say "take your time, there's nothing here, I'm not doing whatever it is you think I'm doing..." 10 minutes goes by... She's repeating her steps over and over looking for "things"... She's done, I ask to resume working, I roll up closer to my desk and she's not finished... She thinks that since I want her to stop -- she must be getting close to finding something -- she goes twice as hard... grabbing papers directly in front of me on the desk... she reaches over me grabbing stuff, shuffling things around and I slam both hands (palm down) on the desk... Enough... There's nothing... Stop it!!

    Upon feeling my forearm against her stomach area in effect, guarding my 3 foot wide space in front of me she (as if in shock that I slammed my hands on the desk) jumps back away from me... and I hear a thud... I look behind me and she's on the floor... A shiver tingles my back and neck and I ask "what are you doing".. Why did you fall on the ground?... I'm stunned...

    The next morning, she confronts me with bruises on her arm and claims I did it...

    I can no longer work... My antenna is now extended... Something MORE is happening here and I'm finding it extremely difficult to get through the day without dwelling on "what in the hell is going on here"...

    a few days later... She falls on the floor again and this time she calls 911... I told the truth to police... I told them of the meds and that she'd been staying up all day and night for days on end over the past week... I told them she would leave at 9am in the morning and not return until 2am at night the previous days... I told them of the absolute loss of contact with reality... They asked me if it was meth?... I said, it seems like it... But I don't know exactly... 30 minutes goes by and I'm arrested. I'm arrested for telling the truth and because there's a mandatory arrest policy in Oregon... I (the husband, the step father, the bread winner the person not on any meds or 'issues') goes to the hole...

    I'm denied counsel because I make to much money... But business has already crashed and I have no money left... I hire the only person I could afford, I pay his retainer, he cashes my check inside 5 minutes at my bank after our initial meeting then about a week later in a meeting where I'm telling him my story... I get to listen to him tell me "I don't believe it, it doesn't make sense"... My world just imploded... He didn't follow up on one witness to my wife’s unusual behavior and didn't check up on one element in my story... The only thing I could do is delay, set over, set over before a plea hearing in hopes "SOMEBODY" would say "wait a minute"... What's really going on here...

    That didn't happen and 3 months removed from the "incident"... I was told to take a no contest plea with 2 years probation or the DDA was going to pile on measure 11 (mandatory jail) charges because my step son was in the house and heard an argument but didn't see anything... That argument was me letting my wife know that if she didn't stop the hallucinations, I'm putting her stuff on the front lawn... I can't take it anymore...

    I signed the no contest plea with 18mo probation and DVIC treatment I don't need, in hopes everything would smooth over and I could avoid putting my own family (wife and stepson) thru a trial where my only defense would have been her mental health condition... Equally as important, I didn't trust the legal system and political climate surrounding DV laws... I feel it's a body of law that purposefully and maliciously targets Men as lobbied and created by NOW... I couldn't stomach the thought of actually being convicted at trial by a jury sympathetic to the happy face my wife would have put on thinking she "caught" the "spy" in her house... I did not want divorce, I knew she didn't 'really' either... I also knew she would have a sobering moment one day having the revelation that I wasn't doing "it" (which already happened)... I did NOT want a trial... I did NOT want to do that to her "again" after the previous 5-7 years of her life, being filled with "real physical abuse", courts, lawyers, custody scandals, fires in the home, evictions etc... I couldn't do that to her... I was going to be different than the other men in her life previously... I would lay this one down and take a punishment for something I did not do...

    And that's the worst mistake I ever made in my life...

    Any course of action I can take on the PMHNP? -- What about her father?.... Slander, maybe liable? for adding fuel to her fire just prior to the super high level of crazyness, and me being arrested?... He told her to call 911 "the next time he does anything to you" but the only problem is that there never was a 1st time... And I've not asked PMHNP personally, but what about any truth he tells her to "get away from me as fast as she can"....

    Looking back... With the 'stuff' she was taking... I feel she did exactly what these other people told her to do... What they should have known is that she's bipolar / tripolar / adhd / etc. etc... on fairly heavy meds for it / maybe a cocktail of all kinds of meds both prescribed and "trial or sample" meds... and should have come to me with the "stuff" she was seemingly making up... (being the "spy"?)...

    I feel my wife was made into a lab rat for meds and I paid the price for it... 2 years later, I have nothing left... House, Car, Bills, Business... It's all gone, or nearly gone now...

  2. #2
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    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    You have no claim against her doctor for alleged malpractice against her; something you haven't even told us that she believes occurred. It would be her injury and thus her claim. There may be a convoluted way to try to argue foreseeable injury to a third party (state laws on these issues can be tricky, and are best done by a local lawyer), your principal injury arose from your guilty plea to a domestic violence charge.

    It's not illegal to tell somebody to call the police if they're threatened with abuse or if they're abused.

    Also, if more than two years have passed, the Oregon statutes of limitation for malpractice, personal injury and defamation appear to have run.

  3. #3

    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    She must not believe it occurred, she can't even recall what she said to 911 and where she was standing / what she was doing... I don't talk to her about it or bring it up (but the subject has come up a time or two in martial counseling in my(our?) church)... I do remember though, and I've never listened to the tape or read the police report... IMO, the eye that altered, altered all...

    She's the one having her mind altered in this timeframe, (recordings, GPS tracking, bugged phones, cameras, remote control of computers with no network connection?) And I'm seemingly, effectively out of the loop via privacy laws... Then during that time of "no contact" calling all the time telling me she "now knows she's made a huge mistake?"...

    "Now" I know about no contest pleas... This is my first experience with the law, I don't even have a traffic ticket, not that 'that' means anything... My plea was no contest, (not a guilty plea) meaning I wasn't going to put my family through it... I now know, what "no contest" really means... My lawyer told me I'm not saying I'm guilty or that I did anything wrong, but will accept the punishment the court gives me... (in this case, 18months probation, a no contact order and DVIC...)

    It's not illegal to tell somebody to call the police if they're threatened with abuse or if they're abused.
    I know this, your statement is absolutely true in 'most' circumstances, But I would submit that it's not illegal to tell a mentally unstable person to jump off a bridge then either... I think the "telling" person would have a little "splain'in" to do at that point, yes?

    Thank you for your reply too sir... You are being helpful to me which I very much appreciate...

    b.t.w... Shortly before my no contest plea I went to see a pretty high profile lawyer in my state for a second opinion... She guided me through a few questions I had (not really trusting my retained lawyer at that point) then soon after, notified me that she would be happy to 'watch my case from afar', to update her as often as I wish through emails, phone calls and at a seemingly much reduced price too for the amount of infomation I was pouring into their inbox... My case was to be uploaded to an online file... I would contact via phone from time to time over the last 16 months and she seemed to have knowledge and context to what I was talking to her about so I thought it safe to assume she was reading my tea leafs from time to time as well... Which has come in handy...


    Beyond that... It hasn't been quite 2 years yet... that will happen in the months to come early next year...

  4. #4
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    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    No. There is no court in the nation that is going to give you damages because your father-in-law told your wife to call the police if you beat her. And that's before considering the fact that you were convicted of battering her.

  5. #5

    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    Well, that never happened... But thank you for your comments though.

  6. #6

    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    With such an escalating pattern of behavior, it's pretty obvious that she needed to be seen for evaluation of escalation mental illness. By the 3rd or 4th paragraph there were enough red flags where I would have notified local law enforcement and asked them, for her own safety, to put a mental health hold on her so she could GET that evaluation, even involuntarily, by a neutral third party. Hindsight is always 20/20 - but there's just no part of living with someone with the myriad of issues you've brought up that were ever going to just suddenly fix themselves. Especially once "physical" things, like falling, start happening - there is NO good that is going to come from it. It's an accusation just waiting for a place to happen and if you're the only one there when someone with massive paranoid tendencies gets hurt...guess who is going to get the finger of blame. The problem is that since you waited UNTIL something physical happened, that creates some BIG credibility issues. Police, courts, and juries just don't believe that a spouse sits by and doesn't take protective action to get someone with her issues into a safer situation, but instead says things like:

    I told them she would leave at 9am in the morning and not return until 2am at night the previous days... I told them of the absolute loss of contact with reality... They asked me if it was meth?... I said, it seems like it... But I don't know exactly...
    No different than family members who know that a loved one has alzheimer's, yet allows them acces to the keys, then is outraged when they get up on the interstate and kill themselves or someone else. When intervention is warranted, and no intervention comes, then one of two things happens: either (a) you make yourself look bad for NOT doing what needed to be done, or (b) your account of the REALLY over the top behavior on her part looses all credibility, because normal people don't just sit back and put up with that without DOING something - whether that something is getting a power of attorney and putting her in a facility where she can get help, or working to get a mental health hold, or even going so far as divorce. But SOMETHING.


    30 minutes goes by and I'm arrested. I'm arrested for telling the truth and because there's a mandatory arrest policy in Oregon... I (the husband, the step father, the bread winner the person not on any meds or 'issues') goes to the hole...
    Being the bread winner, husband, step-father are irrelevent. If those things made a difference, almost no one would ever be arrested for domestic vioelnce. You were arrested because you're the only one home with her, she's got injuries, she's implicated you, and in her paranoid state, she has all the makings of a victim in fear.



    then about a week later in a meeting where I'm telling him my story... I get to listen to him tell me "I don't believe it, it doesn't make sense"...
    99% of the rest of the world will agree with him, as I mentioned above.


    My world just imploded... He didn't follow up on one witness to my wife’s unusual behavior and didn't check up on one element in my story...
    Guess who the BIGGEST witness of her behavior is? You. You LIVED with her, as her spouse. So regaredless of what other strange behavior other people might have witnessed, you witnessed more of her behavior than anyone else, and the lack of action, (you took none of the steps outlined above), much less of documentation of any action, like a rational person would have attempted, makes your version not-credible. Even if true, which I'm not disputing. But your LACK of reaction to these issues is as extreme as her actual behavior.


    The only thing I could do is delay, set over, set over before a plea hearing in hopes "SOMEBODY" would say "wait a minute"... What's really going on here...
    As Judge Judy is so fond of saying....if it doesn't make sense, it's not true. In your case, they've got a person with injuries, with only one other person there, and the victim is a mess. That describes a typical DV case. There's no REASON for them to question otherwise. Every ACTUAL abuser in the world tries to claim the exact same things you're saying...and their cases move forward for the same reason that yours did....because long term intense mental health problem cases typically have BOATLOADS of documentation. When that's not there, then Occam's Razor takes over and the simplest explanation is considered the right one.

    That didn't happen and 3 months removed from the "incident"... I was told to take a no contest plea with 2 years probation or the DDA was going to pile on measure 11 (mandatory jail) charges because my step son was in the house and heard an argument but didn't see anything.
    You were OFFERED a plea, and a licensed attorney, looking at the possible outcomes based on the state's evidence against you (considerable) and the defense's evidence in your favor (little to none), and made a recommendation. Defense attorneys don't MAKE a client accept any deal. You could have taken it to trial, but I'd have to agree with your attorney - you had much more to risk that way, and very little history of common sense action that a jury would have been looking for to acquit you.


    .. That argument was me letting my wife know that if she didn't stop the hallucinations, I'm putting her stuff on the front lawn
    Which wouldn't have helped anything, and would in all liklihood been illegal anyway.


    ... I can't take it anymore...
    I'm kind of surprised you tolerated all of this as long as you did, really.


    I signed the no contest plea with 18mo probation and DVIC treatment I don't need, in hopes everything would smooth over
    THAT is the biggest thing causing you problems throughout this mess. These things DON'T just smooth over or make themselves better. The hands-off approach doesn't work for things like mental health issues, medical issues, possible abuse of medication issues.


    and I could avoid putting my own family (wife and stepson) thru a trial where my only defense would have been her mental health condition...
    Which was risky, because unless there's a lot you haven't told us, very little of any mental health condition was DOCUMENTED.

    Equally as important, I didn't trust the legal system and political climate surrounding DV laws... I feel it's a body of law that purposefully and maliciously targets Men as lobbied and created by NOW...
    NOW only wishes they could take credit. It's a body of law that rose up to combat the fact that domestic violence related deaths are overwhelmingly women killed by men. So before that body of law is going to change, either women need to catch up and start killing a lot more men, or men need to start killing a lot fewer women.

    I couldn't stomach the thought of actually being convicted at trial by a jury sympathetic to the happy face my wife would have put on thinking she "caught" the "spy" in her house...
    I'd agree. You had a pretty good chance of that happening.

    I did not want divorce, I knew she didn't 'really' either... I also knew she would have a sobering moment one day having the revelation that I wasn't doing "it" (which already happened)... I did NOT want a trial... I did NOT want to do that to her "again" after the previous 5-7 years of her life, being filled with "real physical abuse", courts, lawyers, custody scandals, fires in the home, evictions etc... I couldn't do that to her... I was going to be different than the other men in her life previously... I would lay this one down and take a punishment for something I did not do...
    All of which is noble, honorable, considerate, and totally understandable. The problem is that no amount of love, honor, etc. can CHANGE another person - and just like if you have a pet that you've loved and cared for it's whole life, that pet CAN be a danger to you if they're hurt - same principle applies. You chose to stay in a situation where there was increased chance of YOU getting hurt - and it happened.


    Any course of action I can take on the PMHNP? --
    Like what? They gave appropriate advice. If there's ANY claim, it's your wife's claim to make.


    What about her father?.... Slander, maybe liable?
    Nope.

    for adding fuel to her fire just prior to the super high level of crazyness, and me being arrested?... He told her to call 911 "the next time he does anything to you" but the only problem is that there never was a 1st time...
    Nope - he has every legal right to advise ANYONE to call 911 if they are having any kind of problem with anyone.


    And I've not asked PMHNP personally, but what about any truth he tells her to "get away from me as fast as she can"....
    They are allowed to have, and voice, that opinion to a patient - in fact, they have a DUTY to do so if that's actually their opinion.

    Looking back... With the 'stuff' she was taking... I feel she did exactly what these other people told her to do... What they should have known is that she's bipolar / tripolar / adhd / etc. etc... on fairly heavy meds for it / maybe a cocktail of all kinds of meds both prescribed and "trial or sample" meds... and should have come to me with the "stuff" she was seemingly making up... (being the "spy"?)...
    Look, your wife's got a cocktail of mental health issues. They don't just go away like the common cold. SOME of the issues MIGHT be manageable with meds...some of the time....other times, they may not be....mental health treatment and medication is often a crap shoot at best, and persons with multiple diagnosed issues that exhibit or persist into adulthood tend to have long term problematic outcomes. Bi/tripolar is infamous for needing CONSTANT monitoring and meds changes, depending on reactions, over-reactions, circumstances, etc. and even THEN, blowups are common. Sounds like there may also be a hefty dose of paranoid schitzophrenia in there too.

    There just may not be a nicer way to say it, but you hitched your life to a person with a LOT of issues, whose prognosis is iffy, at best, and remained passive about much of it until it blew up on you. Not all things that have an unpleasant outcome give rise to a lawsuit against people that talked to, treated, or otherwise interacted with the person whose behavior is at the root of the issues. And, as Mr. K. has already pointed out, even if there HAD been at one point, waiting too long to DO anything about it, means you're probably out of luck now.

    Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, and while love can conquor much, it doesn't conquor everything, and it isn't a recognized treatment for bi/tri-polar nor any other diagnosis in the DSM-IV.

  7. #7
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    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    The problem is the drugs. Did you know that Managed care organizations emphasize drug treatment over counseling for behavior and mental problems because it costs less? Yes. The health system is a mess. What your wife needs is counseling not drugs. And I am sorry but, I think you have mental problems too based on your posts.

    I am wondering why you don't just divorce her? or trial separation.

  8. #8

    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    In "sickness" and in health... Need I say anything more... And, IMO a few more of us should not take those words so lightly (or not include them in yours)... No, I'm not 'mental' at all... I mean and do, what I say. Some may call it stupidity. But I call it integrity. And even though government stole it from me, it's not for sale and I answer to no-body except God, her and my customers.

    You are correct (and thank you for your input) It "is" the drugs causing her behavior... It "is" the drugs that caused this... AND it "IS" the laws and policies lobbied by women’s groups (gay/lesbian?) as instituted by governments that maliciously target "men" and only men, in this newly formed area of "corrupt" and unconstitutional law... I have a hard time understanding how something - of, by, or "for" something is allowed to stand in this country without recognizing the expressed implication of intentionally targeting the polar opposite when only two exist. (male, female - hot, cold - up, down - wrong, right - violence, peace etc..) And maybe "they" did, but didn't really care what logic says knowing the useful idiots (us, the people) wouldn't do anything about it anyway... (nothing new here huh?)

    Her "care" was not managed in any way really... She was used as a human test rat. 1st. by the drug companies that design these mind altering drugs and 2nd by the nurse who prescribes them and not 'just' because of the prescriptions but moreover and in addition to, the "samples" she received on a regular basis... [[ Here, let's try this... have some of this, and take a little of that... Give "this" a shot too... And let's see what happens... I'll give you 3 or 4 refills on each and enough samples to last for months, then come and see me 'sometime' or whenever, and tell me how it went... ]] is not my idea of 'managed'

    And I can honestly tell you divorce is precisely the incorrect answer. In my opinion, she’s not done anything wrong really… It’s the drugs… I happen to know (doctors in my family) that these meds, have the ability to make someone honestly believe things, feelings, conditions etc. that absolutely are not reality. Footsteps in the attic stuff - people crawling through 8" HVAC ducts from the roof, - video's of "shadows in the dark"?... It's all very real to her and I've learned (now) to not challenge this reality of hers or point out the mistake in her logic... It's as real to her as the sky is blue to you and I and government believed her... (so did my 1st lawyer) Any other time, that's how she comes across...

    She tells me the file he keeps for her is kept 'outside' the file cabinet... In his desk... Sort of odd, which I somewhat believe beings it's all under the table stuff... He only started 'charging' her fee's recently within the last 12-18 months... (how ironic I suppose?) Beyond that, I’ve also heard a few times that he say’s he will burn her file before he turns it over to anyone… (Little odd there too maybe?)

    No, counseling 'is' the answer and is a huge part of the real treatment... I'm sure of that... Yes, we’ll stay married and I’ll fight my battles on a different playing field, -- from a chair -- in the largest room in my house… The room for improvement…

    In the meantime, I say give war a chance... With a smile of course… Playing the peacemaker got me this far…

  9. #9
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    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    Now that you know it is the drugs, are you still letting her go to this 'free' nurse? Just get her off drugs and seek counselling. Both of you. Her file being outside means that the doctor took her file out of the cabinet ready on the table by the time she sees him. But I can understand her 'conspiracy' theory given her condition. Her doctor's comment is also not unusual. Your wife has a mental condition and HIPAA law has a VERY strict privacy and confidentiality policy regarding medical records especially without the patient's authorization and especially about mental health records. You also obviously has strong feelings about homosexuals. The right term in your sentence is 'feminists'. Though I know that term also is not really favorable. It seems you both need space for awhile. From what you are saying, right now your situation is very very toxic. It is healthier to maybe let her live with her family for a week while you regain your sanity.

  10. #10

    Default Re: Legal Recourse for Effect of Drugs on Spouse

    I feel strongly about everything, there's no point in fence sitting... I favor nothing with special laws and policies attached to it... I believe in (and practice) equality... Beyond that, my wife can't stay with her parents.. Split family and bio parents cave to what steps want, or say... So she lives in our house and I stay with my parents a short distance away... Nobody wants this setup... But it seems there's too much power in the hands of one person who's not a lawyer or a judge and it's just wrong... IMO... Which is currently the situation we'll just have to live with for only a few more weeks.. At which point the prob. is up... And we're free to "figure it out" on our own...

    As for the file and the nurse?... I hear he doesn't want to see her any longer and the real quote from my wife on where he keeps her file?... "He keeps it behind the sofa" (next to his desk) which 'would be' unusual, and I don't know I believe any of it really...

    thanks for the input as always though...

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