What to do when your son with mental illness and gambling issues steals money from you?

[Donte]

A friend's son returned to live with him last year following his divorce. It has been difficult as he is often angry and depressed. However, the son has been helping my friend with the shopping as he finds it difficult to manage. He recently discovered that $15,000 has disappeared from his savings. The son is the only other person with access to my friend's bank account. My friend thinks his son may have taken the money to go to the casino as he gambles a lot or used it for drugs. My friend has been having problems sleeping. He hasn’t told anybody about his concerns apart from me. He isn’t sure what to do.

Financial abuse can be the type of issue that people feel most comfortable talking about in public. However, it often is connected to other issues that are equally destructive. I am not aware that the Greek community experiences these issues any more than other cultural groups. However, as we very well know people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds are less likely to seek support. This situation is typical of the issues that can be involved with adult children returning to the parental home who have experienced issues with drug and alcohol addiction or problem gambling. This often occurs following divorce or relationship breakdown.

What would you recommend to someone in this predicament?

[geoff]

hi Donte, I knew an elderly friend I was looking after, he sadly had cancer, but his son was his POA, however he was a gambler, alcoholic and a gambler and caused so many problems that's why I started looking after him.

His son took his dad's card and withdrew his life savings about $3500 and then every fortnight would take out money so he could buy drugs, drink alcohol and gamble leaving his dad with no money, as his rent was taken out before his pension went into his account, that's when I came into the equation.

I had known the dad for a long time but lost contact when my depression hit me.

He told me what happened, so I had to change the pin number every few days and hid his card, that's when his son became violent towards his father.

An AVO was taken out but his dad still let him live in the house, but the police were out to get him not only because he lived there but for other incidents that occurred downtown.

The son was ok when he was dry or sober, never the less his dad's card was hidden away and the pin changed. Geoff.

[Donte]

Thank you Geoff for sharing this.

Some great strategies for consideration. It’s diffucult with some older people who still feel their duty is to help their children. They often get abused but cannot fathom to put intervention orders against their offspring. Unfortunately false cultural notions and expectations tend to perpetuate the problems and enable the problematic behaviors. I agree that some tough love is needed as there’s a very fine line between caring and loving and taken for granted.

[Donte]

Some adult children may have a sense of entitlement around their parents’ assets, an idea that the money and possessions are somehow theirs already. This can be a complex relationship as in many families the parents recognise they have had to depend more on children following migration. Parents may feel the transfer of assets is part of making this situation more equal. Parents have often encouraged a sense of entitlement to allow their children to enjoy what they couldn’t in their own lives.

Following migration to Australia, families from many cultural backgrounds have faced the issue of children developing drug and alcohol issues or becoming problem gamblers. There can be high levels of stigma around talking about this issue which is a growing problem for culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

As the parents get older and more dependent, if the addiction issues persist for their child, an abusive situation can develop and that can affect mental health. This is particularly the case if the adult child returns to the family home, as many do, following divorce or relationship breakdown.

Stigma around their child’s issues can prevent people seeking help, as can the fear that telling someone can make the situation worse or cause problems for the adult child. Complex feelings of love, guilt and responsibility may also prevent an older person from seeking help. Many older people in this situation do not want to take legal action, they want help for their adult child. They may need support to set boundaries around protecting their own rights and wellbeing whilst maintaining a relationship with the adult child.

Stigma and unchallenged attitudes that exist at a family and community level can have a profound effect on whether or not a person seeks help. It may be seen as inconsequential to laugh at jokes that make a person feel uncomfortable. The community may indirectly collude with the abuser by prioritising their interests above that of the victim. Keeping the family together can be viewed as preferable to protecting the rights of an older individual, particularly women. Conversely the family and community have the potential to support a person experiencing elder abuse to seek help through providing a social lifeline.

[Hayfa]

Hi Donte'

What great and relevant information you have provided, thank you for sharing and this is actually a very timely story. Many of our readers may not know that beyondblue is delivering a pilot program on the ground in Melbourne's city of Greater Dandenong. The program is a peer led program supporting people with low intensity mental health concerns like anxiety and depression, Greater Dandenong is the most culturally diverse city in Australia with over 64% of its population born overseas, so as you can imagine, over 90% of people receiving our support are from CALD backgrounds.

Just yesterday we tried to support a very distressed mother from Afghanistan who was not coping because she was worried about her son who is heavily addicted to drugs. She claimed her son wanted help and explained that for the last couple of weeks they had been passed around to different clinics and doctors and her son submitted to testing but he was told to go wait at home.

During our session with the mother, we witnessed her incessant crying in distress and during this she received a call from her son looking for her. She revealed her whereabouts to him and asked us to extend support to him if he consents, her son arrived and she tried to talk to him to sit down and speak to us. He was clearly agitated, glassy eyed and jerky body movements, he was not loud or aggressive but kept begging her for money, she relented and gave him $50 and in the blink of an eye he had stormed out of the centre promising to come back to be with her in the centre.
Our hearts broke as we watched her remain solemn faced and sad in the centre waiting for his return so that he may get some help. 3 hours later she realised he just wasn't coming back and so she thanked me and left. Before allowing her to go, all I could possibly offer her was our number to call us back and a number of the Primary Clinic for Alcohol and Drug Service for her son to call and check in for the service.

I remember the mother explaining the shame she would feel if her cultural community found out about her son among many other problems she was facing from this situation. How can we get it right? When will there be some type of seamless service that can offer the right help at the appropriate time rather than send someone to 5,000 different wrong doors?
A situation like this is so hard for anyone let alone someone with limited English and relatively new to the country.

Hayfa

[Donte]

It is very sad indeed Hayfa.

I know many families who send their adult children back to their homeland to live with relatives in the hope that they will stop using drugs only to find out that there are more drugs and readily available in their country of origin. So their children get straight into the same scene upon landing in their parents' homeland. There are no easy answers for this. We just have to support the families and educate them to not enable the behaviour by giving them money or making it easy for them. There are so many reasons why people get addicted to substances or gambling or sex or anything else and their lives are out of balance. I believe in harm minimization and reduction of risk to start with, so if you're going to use drugs, do it safely and don't risk your life. I think once we remove the stigma and do away with the fear, we can have open discussions about these hard topics. But morality should go to side as it never helps anyone.

[Donte]

If you or anyone you know needs help:
Lifeline on 13 11 14
Kids Helpline on 1800 551 800
MensLine Australia on 1300 789 978
Suicide Call Back Service on 1300 659 467
Beyond Blue on 1300 22 46 36
Headspace on 1800 650 890

[Donte]

People with gambling issues within the community are often perceived as failures not only as individuals but in every facet of life. We see them as weak, irresponsible, unreliable and manipulative.

Due to the above factors community members are reluctant to even admit there is a gambling issue.

Tribal community dynamics (collectivist culture), have led community members to insulate this issue in fear of public/community opinion and judgement. In a collectivist culture when one member of the family has an issue, the whole family, including relatives, are stigmatized and made to feel responsible for the 'failure'. It is a matter of family name and honour not just an individual affair.

Traditionally Greek cafe' hangouts have been considered as dark places where mostly males only frequent, and are labelled as useless, lazy and washouts. They tend to gather for hours on end on a daily basis gambling and playing cards, smoking and drinking. The reputation of those is one of the worst in the community.

Since the establishment of Crown and gaming venues in Victoria there has been an acute influx in female culturally and linguistically diverse community members presenting serious problem gambling issues.

Shame can act as a barrier to seeking help. Even where gambling help services assure anonymity they can't always engage with these individuals as they live in fear of information being leaked to their community. Even if an interpreter is available, often, people are wary of who knows who and that the interpreter will find out about their problem gambling and tell someone they know. Fear of asking for help from ethno specific organizations and charities/church exists for the same reason - Stigma.

This means that relatives of these community members are unable to provide assistance to the gambler until the situation reaches crisis point and beyond.

Once a community member has been identified as a gambler this has direct impact on the entire family's prospects in business, marriage, and social status.

There are countless examples of a gambler's entire family and relatives being isolated and ostracised from the community unable to participate in events and/or attend church, weddings, christenings, funerals etc.

Non-English speaking communities desperately need to be presented with factual information in their own language about the causes/triggers of addictive behaviours and problem gambling and to de-stigmatise it within their communities.

[Binin]

I don't think I'm going to write something like this, but I had this happen the other day. My son stole 1700 dollars out of my wallet.

[Binin]

I had to put my son in treatment