Need a way to get rid of a fellow lodger anonymously

Lunchbox

Anxiety and depression can be 'states of mind' within a normal spectrum, but anxiety disorder and clinical depression are mental illnesses and shouldn't be brushed off as emotional states.

It sounds like this individual is a follower of David Icke; https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Icke. Perhaps what many of us would consider unusual, but nothing the OP has said suggests they pose a risk to themselves or others, which means that unless they go and willingly seek treatment (if they even need it) nobody else is going to intervene.

If the OP is uncomfortable, then they should move. Unfortunately sharing flats means you will end up living with people who have beliefs and opinions far removed from your own, and if you're unable to tolerate it the only really solution is to move yourself.

BananaRepublic

tomtontom wrote: »

Your fellow lodger appears to have a mental health condition. You have a mental health condition. Do you think it kind or fair to refer to him as a "nutty batcase"? Would you like it if someone called you a nutty batcase because of your mental health problems?

I knew several schizophrenics, and they were very nice people. I only learnt that one friend was schizophrenic after he killed himself. All were non aggressive. I've shared a house with several aggressive people who were nutty batcases. They probably had emotional issues rather than mental illness. I heard one next door verbally abusing the landlord in front of his family. It sounds like the OP called this person a nutty batcase because he behaves like a nutty batcase. Most people with mental illness do not.

Incidentally, I once reported someone who was aggressive to me at a petrol station. The police worker referred to him as a mental. Not exactly professional is it?

tomtontom

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Basically yep...

and I personally think "anxiety/depression" (even as officially diagnosed) is a long way from having what I would count as mental illness (eg schizophrenia for instance). It will vary a lot. The person I know well that has "Anxiety/Depression" has functioned perfectly normally (apart from an unduly high level of worry about things) for years. Someone else I know seems to just have "Depression" as the label officially applied to them on the other hand - but there is clearly a lot more to it than that and they seem to barely function and I'm guessing we've not been told the "full" diagnosis. They are the person I persuaded the doctor not to "section" - as they have admitted one or two things to me that quite definitely are a long way past just being "Depression" - but they are quite definitely completely harmless to other people.

Someone who thinks computers have something "living" in them is one thing. But someone who sees "lizards" inside other peoples skins sounds rather dangerous to me as to what they might do.

Mind would disagree with you, depression most certainly is a mental illness. OP claims to be too depressed to work, so it would follow that he is suffering from a mental illness, yes?

Mental illness should not be something to be ashamed of, whatever its severity. Sadly it will continue to be so whilst some are so very ignorant about it.

Person_one

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

and I personally think "anxiety/depression" (even as officially diagnosed) is a long way from having what I would count as mental illness (eg schizophrenia for instance).

We don't all get to make up our own definitions of illnesses!

I could decide that I don't 'count' prostate cancer as a real cancer, because it doesn't tend to need as much treatment or kill as many people as say lung cancer for instance.

I'd be wrong though, and quite rightly nobody would give two hoots about my uninformed random opinion.

kinger101

Lunchbox wrote: »

Anxiety and depression can be 'states of mind' within a normal spectrum, but anxiety disorder and clinical depression are mental illnesses and shouldn't be brushed off as emotional states.

In the United States, the pharmaceutical companies are trying to medicalize what would be considered normal spectrum. You get TV adverts suggesting you ask you doctor for pill X if you feel a little bit down one day. I hope we don't end up going down that path here.

kinger101

BananaRepublic wrote: »

I knew several schizophrenics, and they were very nice people. I only learnt that one friend was schizophrenic after he killed himself. All were non aggressive. I've shared a house with several aggressive people who were nutty batcases. They probably had emotional issues rather than mental illness. I heard one next door verbally abusing the landlord in front of his family. It sounds like the OP called this person a nutty batcase because he behaves like a nutty batcase. Most people with mental illness do not.

Incidentally, I once reported someone who was aggressive to me at a petrol station. The police worker referred to him as a mental. Not exactly professional is it?

No, but using terms like "nutty" and "batcase" is not particularly helpful. They sound aggressive yes. But even rational people believe all kinds of nonsense. Homeopathy. Phony food intolerances. Detox. Horoscopes. Numerology. Belief in Lizard People is no less bizarre than believing the position of Jupiter relative to Venus means you'll have some vaguely lucky experience today.

[Deleted User]

My 19 year old has aspergers. Its also likely he has ADHD and anxiety (presently awaiting funding for further tests as they can only take place out of borough) but the tests he has had indicate strongly he has these conditions.

We are soon to be evicted. This has been on the horizon for 15 months, he was told at the last minute that he couldn't go back to college so he's lost all structure to his life. He now has waking dreams, hallucinations and at time acts quite 'dotty'. He's been assessed for psychosis, doesn't have it but they were quite happy to recommend anti psychotic drugs.., all of which have nasty side effects. We went to his GP spoke about medication because he's having problems sleeping, with anxiety and but said that we were concerned about the side effects of anti psychotics and were concerned that such strong drugs could 'knock him out' and actually reduce what coping mechanisms he has.

The GP agreed and prescribed an antihistamine. Even that knocked him out. After three days I had him crying broken heartedly for over an hour in a way I've never seen before because he didn't feel normal even compared to his 'normal'. We decided to stop the medication and just try to cope as best we could without. Medications that 'sedate' do seem to 'sedate' coping mechanisms as well. Diagnosis isn't the be all and end all. Neither is medication. If a stranger saw my son at his worse, they'd be expecting him to have quite different diagnosis to the ones he has.., and probably feel quite threatened. It takes a lot of love, repetitive talking and understanding to get him through these periods (and I'm in the process of being diagnosed with much the same labels so I often wonder if this makes me the best or worse to be around him lol).

I've always known the buck stops with me, so I have my own 'moments' that seem quite strange to others.., but I just pick myself up and carry on, normalising as much as humanely possible because my sons depend on me. Its hard but I think its the best way to be for our family. I concentrate on the fact that me being the way I am allows me to empathise as a positive. But I definitely do have my 'not at my best' moments too as I am also diabetic and struggling with that (but I do my absolute best to control it).

The OP doesn't know what conditions this person has, doesn't know if he is 'known' to mental health services (MHS) or not.., but it might be worth placing a call to the vulnerable person unit of social services to raise some concerns initially. As far as I am aware they don't give names out but you could ask questions about this. Raising concerns with the LL is an option, but I can't really see a LL caring too much as long as he's getting the rent paid. I'm afraid, even if the tenant did get help from MHS, the service is so broken, I'm not sure how beneficial they'd be. I know the help we've been given isn't really 'helpful'!

G_M

deannatrois wrote: »

...... Raising concerns with the LL is an option, but I can't really see a LL caring too much as long as he's getting the rent paid. I'm afraid, even if the tenant did .......

This is a lodger, not a tenant.

So

a) the landlord is sharing the property with this individual, so surely has more to care about than just the rent? and

b) has been described as being scared of this person - what landlord wants to continue to share their home with someone they are scared of?

OP should be supporting the landlord........

moneyistooshorttomention

That is indeed true - ie that OP should be supporting the landlord (with this being a lodger - and not a tenant).

The landlord is also living with this going on in their own home.

Many years back I took in lodgers and daylight gradually dawned that there was "something" with one of them and I wasn't quite sure what it was. That "something" manifested as him going to the loo without bothering to close the door first (ie I could "hear all" - yuk!). He then moved onto eating in front of me in a very noisy way without bothering to shut his mouth whilst chewing. That was still, in my mind, in the realm of behaviour that is unacceptable but would be deemed "normal" by some.

He then moved onto speaking to himself in the house - even though he knew very well that I was in at the time. That speaking to himself was done at "shouting" volume too. At that point I thought "There is more going on here than he just doesn't know how to behave properly. "Something" is going on with him".

At that point I started feeling threatened. Fortunately for me part of his increasingly illogical behaviour included handing in his notice. By the time he "came to his senses" and tried to retract it I wouldn't allow him to do so and he had to move out as he had said he was going to. It was at that point that the attitude of his previous landlady made sense to me (ie she was someone I knew vaguely/was on friendly terms with) and I could understand why she had seemed keen that he moved out of her place.

Maybe the landlord is currently in a position where he can't quite figure out what to do and isn't a strong enough person to just give this guy his notice (ie out of concern as to whether he would "kick up" about it - as in literally maybe)?