Anna Haldorson and her son Kyle are pictured in a photo from 2011. Haldorson says her son has been struggling with drug addiction and mental health issues for years.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Anna Haldorson
May 08, 2018 - 6:30 PM
KAMLOOPS - A mother of a Kamloops man says she is losing hope of ever getting her son help for his drug addiction and mental health.
Anna Haldorson says since he was a young teenager her son Kyle, now 25 years old, has struggled with his mental health. Before things took a turn, she says her son was someone who loved to make people laugh.
“He was like a little Jim Carrey, he was always joking around,” she says.
Haldorson says she began to notice stress and anxiety building up in her son’s life when he was 13 years old.
“I remember he and I were sitting on the back deck and he was just so stressed out,” Haldorson says. “He was going to school and he wasn’t doing well, and he just kept crying and crying and he didn’t know how to explain himself.”
Haldorson says she took her son to a psychiatrist where he was diagnosed with attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder, but after he began taking the medication prescribed for him, things got worse.
“When he was 15 years old, he stopped showering,” she says. “His dad is an addict and when (Kyle) was younger, he would always get upset that his dad was leaving him to go use.”
Haldorson says her son began to smoke weed as a teenager and over time got involved with harder drugs. He now he uses meth frequently. Kyle is unpredictable depending on the day, his mood and if he has used drugs.
“He’s been on the streets (in Kamloops) for two years now,” she says. “He’s been classified as being schizophrenic.”
According to a Statistics Canada report, individuals who face a mental disorder and substance abuse are more likely to receive less than ideal health care.
A recent photo of Anna Haldorson's son.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Anna Haldorson
Haldorson says she’s visited the emergency room at Royal Inland Hospital numerous times to get her son help in moments of crisis, but it hasn’t been successful.
“It’s just a repeat in the system that I continue to go through,” she says, adding since her because her son is no longer considered a youth, he is not obligated to stay at the hospital if he chooses to leave.
According to current B.C. law regarding mental health, if a person over the age of 16 is not being held under the Mental Health Act they are not forced to stay at the hospital and can leave against medical advice.
Haldorson says she has tried numerous times to get her son involuntarily admitted, a process that would require a judge or police to make the call for an individual for very specific reasons.
“The psychiatrist is telling me the 'police need to call us', and then the police say 'we need a warrant under the Mental Health Act,'” she says.
Haldorson says the biggest obstacle in getting her son help is his drug use.
“I am being told, ‘we can’t treat him because he isn’t clean,’” she says. “They say that they can’t treat the underlying issue if he’s not (sober)."
In an emailed statement, an Interior Health Authority spokesperson says involuntary admissions under the Mental Health Act do not apply to patients suffering from only substance abuse. Physicians must find the patient has a psychiatric condition that falls under the act.
"An individual cannot be committed involuntarily for substance use," Interior Health says.
Haldorson says she tries to support her son as much as she can, but has come to realize she has little say about her adult son’s mental health.
“When I spoke to the psychiatrist last, they told me unless he comes here and tells me ‘I need help,’ there is nothing (the psychiatrist) can do,” she says.
She made the decision a couple years ago to leave Kamloops and separate herself from her son, something that was extremely tough to do.
“I do realize I have to separate myself," she says, adding she has lost hope of finding a solution.
Haldorson says whenever she can, she goes out to find her son, and drop off clothes and food, but over time she has come to terms with what could happen to him.
“I am just waiting for that phone call to say your son is dead,” she says. “That’s the reality that I have been facing for years.”
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