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What are my options for helping my Homeless Dad

thankYou5New Contributor14 Oct 2025, 5:17 pm AEDT

What are my options for helping my Homeless Dad

TW: mentions of violence and abuse

My Dad struggles with paranoid scizophrenia and an inability to recognize his delusions or recognize when he has made a mistake. He believes the whole world has wronged him and that's why his life is so messed up. I am an adult and he is in his 50s. The reason he is homeless is that he beat my uncle unconscious in an unprovoked attack. When my sister and I had visited him in the past, we found ourselves constantly defusing the atmosphere because of his intimidating body language and tone in his voice.

My Dad doesn't respect boundaries and so I set hard boundaries on him. He doesn't know where I live.

Before I fully forget about him I want to reach out and see if anyone has any kind of solution? He has had the CAT team called on him in the past but it is hard to say if it helped since it encouraged an even greater desire to let everyone know he is sane and doesn't need help at all.

I know I cannot help someone who doesn't recognize anything is wrong with themselves personally.

It's just hard to watch my Dad crash and burn like this. I heard someone say that "hell is a bottomless pit". So if there was something I could do, I'd rather know now instead of in retrospect.

Another thing to is that he makes threats over text to different family members and since I think he is unpredictable, I think I should start some corospondence with the police.

Also I'll send this thread to my sister who is also an adult, we both in our twenties. We're both pretty desensitized to this.

Thank you for reading this

2 replies

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In response to: What are my options for helping my Homeless Dad

rav3nSenior Contributor14 Oct 2025, 5:37 pm AEDT

Re: What are my options for helping my Homeless Dad

hey @thankYou5 welcome to the forums!

thank you for sharing, and i'm sorry to hear how tough its been supporting your dad. creating those strict boundaries must've been hard, but also important for both your safety. i can see that you and your sister care about him a lot, it's never easy seeing loved ones suffering. i hope you and your sister have been looking after yourselves too and getting support in the process.

i don't have lived experience around paranoid schizophrenia but i'm sure other community members who do will chime in soon. i am here to listen though 💙

p.s. i've just added a TW to your post to help the community engage safely on the forums. hope that's okay 😊

In response to: What are my options for helping my Homeless Dad

AlwaysMyselfSenior Contributor14 Oct 2025, 8:33 pm AEDT

Re: What are my options for helping my Homeless Dad

@thankYou5 I can't offer any helpful knowledge (not my area of experience), but I did want to hopefully encourage you and also let you know "I hear you".

The fact you still want to ensure you have done as much as possible to engage the best supports for your dad shows how caring and forgiving you are.

I am glad to hear you are also putting you own safety first, and implementing the boundaries required. I know this is not always emotionally easy to do when you care for someone else's wellbeing too. As you wisely said yourself - you can't help someone who doesn't want to accept help.

I wonder whether the 1300 Respect (DV helpline) may be able to help provide any information or advice re: the threatening text messages?

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