You have probably tried most of it by now: asking gently, asking angrily, pleading, bargaining, going silent, enlisting relatives, involving the church, hiding bottles or money, and hoping. If you are on this page, none of it has worked yet. What follows is honest about the limits of what a family can do, because false hope wastes your strength, and you are going to need your strength.

The limits, stated plainly

No family has found a reliable way to force an adult into care or recovery. It would be desirable for people to choose to take up care, but often that is not the case. By the nature of mental health conditions, our loved ones’ cognition is affected, and they often do not see the reality of their condition. Acknowledging your limitations as a family member is a good start to accepting what you can and cannot do for your loved one in need of care. This is one way of continuing to support with love and kindness. However, when all else fails, one legal avenue is worth knowing about.

Ugandan law (the Mental Health Act, Cap. 308) provides for assisted, emergency, and involuntary admission in safeguarded circumstances, each route with its own conditions and safeguards. Whether one applies is answered through assessment, and families are usually the ones who set an assessment in motion; the determination itself is clinical and legal, made under the safeguards the Act provides.

Safe Places does not come to collect, compel, or admit anyone on a family’s request. What our clinical team can do is assess the situation and advise on the lawful next step; where that step is one we cannot provide, we will direct you to the appropriate authorised service.

What is actually in your control

How well you understand the condition. Psycho-education exists for exactly this; a family that understands addiction or mental illness responds better and blames itself less.

Where your boundaries sit. Boundaries are not punishment; they are the line between supporting a person and funding or absorbing the illness. Working out where that line falls in your house is hard, and it is precisely what our family programme helps with.

What you carry. Some of what you are holding is not yours: the illness is not your failure, and neither are the choices being made around it.

The door. Refusal is rarely permanent. People change their minds after a health scare, a loss, a quiet morning, or nothing anyone can point to. A family that has kept a door open, rather than burning it down in the years of fighting, is the family whose person has somewhere to walk when that moment comes. You can also tell them, once and without pressure, that when they are ready, a first conversation with us is only information; some people hold onto that for a long time before using it.

Get help that doesn’t wait for them

The family support programme and the family support group are open to families whose loved one is not in treatment and may never be. This is not a consolation prize; families in this situation often need support more than anyone. Call +256 770 700944.

If there is immediate danger

Boundaries and patience are for the long game. If your person or anyone in the house is in immediate danger, go to the nearest hospital or contact local emergency services now.