ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — A New Mexico man [Martin Montano, age 26] stabbed, severely beat and kidnapped his mother and another person, then threw his mother off a bridge into the Rio Grande in broad daylight after he said he heard voices coming through the television telling him to go to his mother's house and "get the clones out," according to a criminal complaint....
Records show that Montano was arrested in August 2012 for false imprisonment and battery against his mother. In that case, Montano was seen by officers restraining his mother from opening the door to allow police in and pushing her to the ground shouting, "you have demons in you."
Police said Montano's mother declined to give a written statement at the time but requested information on getting a protective order against her son.
Many of the talking heads placed a great deal of blame on the parents of Casey Anthony and Jodi Arias for not recognizing the severity of their adult child's mental illnesses and seeking professional help for them before it was too late. With all due respect, these talking heads need to do some research and find out just how difficult it is to help a troubled adult, your child or otherwise.
You'll get nowhere unless you have already spent thousands of dollars on psychiatrists, and have thousands more to spend on attorneys and court costs in addition to having amassed a butt-load of evidence why your petition to the court should be granted. If it is granted, your troubled child will hate you and seek revenge at the next available opportunity.
A protective order, you suggest, if you personally feel threatened? Not worth the paper it's printed on because an angry, mentally ill person won't respect it. Your child knows where to find you and no law enforcement agency is going to fund your security in perpetuity. Of course, they'll help once you've been attacked or killed -- oh goody, at least there's that.
If you can't afford (or can't get past) the legal system, then your only alternative is to pack up the family, leave town without a forwarding address and leave the locals to clean up whatever mess your child gets into. You may survive the ordeal but you'll still be held accountable in the public eye for whatever tragedy results from your "failure" to deal with your child.
In the end, no matter what you do, your life is ruined.
I totally agree. People need to stop blaming parents for everything. Those talking heads claiming people should have "gotten help" for Jodi Arias don't know what they're talking about. First, of all she's a sociopath, which is not a mental illness but a way of organizing your mind and priorities that exploits others. So to say one should entangle themselves with her and become her savior by getting her help is extremely dangerous and a guarantee she will prey on such a person. This includes her own parents and their other children whom she had already abused.
ReplyDeleteHad she actually been mentally ill, the situation is just as dire because you cannot force mentally ill adults to be treated other than short term emergency treatment after a violent incident.
Bingo! Very well-written, Ms. Linda.
ReplyDeleteAfter age 18, it's impossible for families to force their loved one to receive needed help.
This is a double-edged sword. For centuries, men could, and would, commit their wives to mental institutions with no valid psychological or health condition. The word of a doctor wasn't needed. A husband could walk his wife, even by force, to the institutional doors, say she's insane or ill and leave her there. Heck, big guys would make a house call to help the poor man take his wife to the institution. The word of a husband (or father) was good enough.
Now families have to watch their loved one commit violence against themselves or others before the system allows the family to help their loved one. This is such a complicated issue; where does personal liberty end?
Sadly, families with children and young teens are also barred from finding adequate mental health treatment for their children. I know of cases in which parents have voluntarily placed their child in the foster care system, not because they don't want to care for their child, but because it was literally the only way their child could receive needed treatment. The child wouldn't qualify for necessary help while still at home (for a myriad of reasons).
While blaming parents is convenient, doing so is often unjust. No reasonable, caring parent wants their child to harm others.
The Arias family presents a difficult problem though; I believe them when they say that JA was a problem child, teen and adult. I believe them when they say they think she's mentally ill (I don't consider her mentally ill but don't consider her mentally well either). I don't think they are proud of their daughter. I don't think they believe JA's self-defense story. I had some sympathy for them ... until I learned of what Mom Arias has done in the past year. The Arias family has gone beyond "supporting" and trying to "help" the daughter they love. They now facilitate the victimization of TA's family and re-victimization TA. They have attempted fraud within the court system. They stalk the Alexander family. They help a vile website to harm the Alexanders.
In the Arias case, I can no longer view Arias' family as victims. The Montano family has truly suffered. For them I can have sympathy and wish that there was some way to have protected Montano's mother from her son and her son from his obviously severe mental illness.
So sad.
Lisa,
DeleteI left you a reply last night which in my all-seeing hindsight [cough] I decided to delete this morning. It contained TMI about a specific example of this topic. I should not have posted it and run even the most remote chance of the family ever being personally identified.
This time around, let me just say that I have seen firsthand the type of physical and emotional damage a troubled teen child (and later adult child) can do to an otherwise "normal" family. There really is no societal support system in place to assist the average family.