ProTourist
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Posts posted by ProTourist
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6 minutes ago, Wanda said:
To remember marissa and Jennifer, she’s the mom with no life skills who turned the power on at the wrong apt so when they moved into Houston she had an epic fail meltdown. Sitting on the floor, legs splayed. Daughter had to calmly fix it.
Right, Jennifer is sort of a middle-aged female version of Sean; except that instead of babied by her mother, she was babied by her daughter (begrudgingly).
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Good evening, pounders. My eating habit so far today has been a croissant with vegetable cream cheese and a fish sandwich. There is a cobb salad 😇 waiting on deck if I'm hungry later tonight.
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Just wondering if a new topic will be created for this evening's new Where Are They Now? episode for Jennifer & Marissa and Liz?
I'm looking forward especially to find out how Liz is doing with her walking.
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52 minutes ago, auntjess said:
I've set the episode with extras to record, which I usually skip. I think it's tonight.
Sean's supersized episode should be tomorrow (Thursday) night. Tonight we have a new episode, follow-up for Liz and the mother/daughter team of Jennifer and Marissa. 😀
Thanks for recording Sean's supersize, Auntjess -- would appreciate knowing any additional tidbits on his story. ❤️
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I'm feeling that it's about time to let go of Sean and let him rest in peace. The one item that still nags at me is why Dr. Now would keep sending him back home, when Sean was candid with him that he had no impulse control with food; and it was obvious that his depression kept him from bathing, dressing, and exercising. When you send someone home alone with addiction and depression, how can you reasonably expect improvement? I don't think you can. With all the help and tools that Dr. Now gave him, there was nothing to help with the depression, addiction, and loneliness.
Yes, Sean couldn't stay in hospital or rehab facility long-term, but sending someone like him back to his apartment really was a death sentence. It's hard to believe there was nothing in between rehab and his apartment, no other option at all. <sigh>
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6 hours ago, Giant Misfit said:
You were correct! LB played football and was upset that when he quit he felt his father had nothing for which to be proud of him. And his pic was the one I had inadvertently attached to my memory of Sean's first episode.
Poor LB. His end was every bit as tragic as Sean's. But at least LB had a family (however dysfunctional), a clean home, and a path forward.
Here are a couple of caps of LB Bonner high school football player. I think there is some resemblance with Sean:
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29 minutes ago, AZChristian said:
I was just doing the Cobb salad comparison for prices, quoting someone else. You are correct that nutritionally, one Cobb salad compares closely to one cheeseburger. But what we often see is NO salad of any type, and MULTIPLE burgers for each meal for our poundicipants.
According to Livestrong, "A traditional Cobb salad, with the dressing, contains about 623 calories and upwards of 43 grams of fat. You also get about 25 milligrams of vitamin C, about 57 grams of protein and 3.5 grams of fiber."
Compared to:
"A regular fast-food cheeseburger with a large patty, condiments and vegetables contains 480 calories, along with 24.1 grams of fat, and if you make it a double cheeseburger with regular-size patties, condiments and vegetables, you'll be consuming a whopping 650 calories, along with 35.3 grams of fat, or 54 percent of the daily value for fat."
Yes, I posted the pricing of the Cobb salad (high price) vs. cheeseburger deluxe (low price). 😇 The good thing about the Cobb salad is that it is very low carb, especially if you choose a dressing like vinaigrette. The bad thing about the cheeseburger deluxe is that, between the bun and the side of french fries, it is very high carb. The Cobb can definitely fit into a low calorie low carb diet, especially if you eat two meals as day as I do.
But merits of the Cobb salad aside 😉 any other salad from the diner's menu that might be lower in fat and calories than the Cobb, is still several dollars more than the unhealthy cheeseburger deluxe (the deluxe includes french fries, lettuce, tomato, cole slaw, and pickle). I was just trying to illustrate that eating healthy does cost more if you have deliveries and do not cook yourself. But as someone pointed out, if you eat two or three cheeseburger deluxes, that will certainly cost more than the one salad. 😄
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11 minutes ago, LuvMyShows said:
Plus he took the initiative to seek out Dr. Now in the first place
I think that was his mother's doing, but I agree with the rest of what you are saying. But I do think he had serious mental health issues beyond addiction, be they clinical depression, autism, or other.
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3 hours ago, the-grey-lady said:
I think these are really sad questions, and honestly, I think the answer really is that there wasn't anything more that could've been done for Sean. Yes, Dr. Now might have been able to get Sean into a psychiatric hold, but those are 48 hours, and then he would've been back on his own. And if APS had intervened, what options would've been available to them? They aren't prison wardens; they can't hold somebody indefinitely, and I think it's unreasonable to expect the authorities to imprison someone forever in order to keep them on a diet. Absolutely every option available to Sean required that eventually he take responsibility for his own life, and he simply was not capable of doing that, ever.
Well, I don't know what options are available for younger adults, but with older adults Adult Protective Services will do a lot, as I learned in the case of my aunt. Someone reported erratic behavior on her part to APS, who then sent someone to her apartment to interview her. Based on that interview, and that she had no family nearby to take care of her, there was a court hearing to make her a ward of the state. She had a guardian assigned to her, who took over all the business of her day-to-day life, including assigning a home health aid to her who came to her apartment every day to cook, clean, do laundry, and help her with personal care. Whenever she needed a hospitalization or rehab stay, he made sure she got it. It all worked out very well. Eventually when she was not well enough to remain at home, he got her placed into a good nursing facility where she lived out her final years, and he took care of breaking up her apartment and the disposition of her possessions, finding a home for her cat, etc.
I think if Sean had had a state-appointed guardian -- which I really think he needed between his horrendous addiction and incompetence to take care of himself -- he might have either received more and better home care, or else placement in some kind of facility or group home where he would have been able to live with some purpose and not destroy himself. If Dr. Now could report James King to APS (who did not intervene in his case) why not report Sean? I'm sure it would have been shown if he had.
Someone posted in one of the discussions here not too long ago, that if you want to kill an addict, give him a lot of money. That's just what was done to Sean, posthumously by his mother. I guess that was her way of getting him to follow along after her.
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12 minutes ago, DC Gal in VA said:
Thanks for that quote from Sean about his injury, but he absolutely was on his high school football team.
I recall from his first episode hearing him not only stating that but seeing an actual photo of him included in that show showing him in his uniform standing beside what I assumed was his coach and other players. I remember thinking at the time that he was big but maybe just linebacker/defensive end big. I also recall him saying that, although he felt that his dad was overly critical of him, he seemed proud of the fact that he played football.
At the time I posted that his injury must have been a Godsend to his mom who saw him slipping away from her clutches, having teammates, a life away from her, Hell maybe even a girlfriend at some point and that bitch could not have that. So, with the injury, instead of doing what any loving, responsible parent would do to get their child on his feet again, she let him lie down and give up on any semblance of a life without her, stuffed him with food and turned him into the giant man-baby we all saw.
Nope, not Sean Milliken. The only reference I can find to a poundticipant who played high school football is Chad Dean. You might be remembering Chad, who has been very successful in his weight loss.
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6 hours ago, libgirl2 said:
Those are very good questions. I wondered what he was like before the injury. Being on the football team meant being out among others. He might not have had a lot of friends, but he had to have a few. He also had to have learned some skills in school. How old was he when it happened? 17? Didn't the school get involved?
6 hours ago, Tabbygirl521 said:I wish we knew more about his life before the injury. At least then, he escaped the house long enough to attend school. And he was on the football team. Did he ever have friends? Did he truly NEVER have social skills? He must have known how to shower, etc. in those days. Obviously Mom did a terrible number on him after the injury but what about before? And when he never returned after his injury did, for example, his old coach ever try to get in touch or help? I have so so so many questions.
Would just like to take a moment to correct the misconception that Sean's injury was caused by playing football in high school. Football was not mentioned in Sean's voice-over in the first episode, so there is no reason to believe he ever played, unless there is another source. Here are Sean's words:
QuoteBy the time I was in high school I was over four hundred pounds. And my senior year in high school I had a really bad leg injury. I fell down some stairs, my ankle twisted, and I had two detached ligaments in my leg. And that injury made me bed bound, and prevented me from finishing my senior year.
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I've watched the episode now. My biggest take-away is that Dr. Now's program was never going to work for Sean because Sean couldn't control himself with food when he was at home alone -- especially not once he came into some money. It was impossible for him. Dr. Now should have realized this and should not have kept sending Sean back home to be alone and do the right thing, because everyone knows that he cannot. It's true that Dr. Now could not keep him in rehab indefinitely, but there had to be another solution -- you just can't send a self-destructive addict home alone, even with periodic visits from care assistants.
Was there no city, county, or state agency that could have taken over to prevent Sean from destroying himself? Adult Protective Services perhaps? Anything at all, other than to let it happen?
I still think, as was discussed in the live chat, that Dr. Now should have had a psych evalulation done for Sean, which I think should have put Sean into a mental health facility. Suicide must be illegal in Texas, and when someone is on track to kill himself due to addiction, the law should be able to step in. As Wanda wrote in the live chat:
QuoteMy feelings about him being on the spectrum (I have a sadly extreme amount of experience) comes from his initial story. His childhood stories and photos pinged my radar. The biting was a red flag. The extreme reactions, again, right from childhood if his story is to be believed. 80% of all marriages with autistic children end in divorce. If his father couldn’t handle an “odd” son that could explain his checking out and his mother being over protective. And he could be more towards the aspergers’ end so his ability to happily drop out of life (no social skills), but be quite verbal and intelligent when he wants to be could be explained. Again, just a theory. It could also explain his inability to get himself roused to save his own life because he had convinced himself life was awful, nothing good could ever happen to him, only bad things happen, etc. his Dr appointed therapies were all the wrong ones so they never had any hope of helping him. All he wanted was to be in a safe space.
And as Julyolo wrote in the live chat:
QuoteIMO he needed at least a year of intensive inpatient psychiatric treatment for multiple diagnoses and eating disorder. Grieve his mother. What she took from him. Learn about normative relationships. Discharge to adult congregate setting with case mgmt. and eventual goals of employment and independent living.
I agree with both of them.
I appreciate that Dr. Now did not give up on Sean, but what is that expression when you keep doing to same thing time after time but you expect it to have a different outcome? The time Sean was sent home and gained 188 pounds in two months was the beginning of the end -- he needed an entirely different type of treatment by then.
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2 hours ago, Suzywriter said:
Has any other poundticipant had 3 episodes?
Sean has had four episodes actually, as have the Assanti brothers. There are some others who have had three episodes.
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7 minutes ago, DivaLasVegas82 said:
I disagree. Even in a psychiatric hospital, there has to be a desire from the patient to want to get better. I never saw that with Sean. He wanted everyone else to do the work for him, which is why when he went home on his own and didn’t have a team of doctors and nurses catering to him, he would always gain the weight back and refused to keep himself clean.
But there are lots of people who are committed involuntarily, such as after an unsuccessful suicide attempt. They don't all get better, but some do, in part due to the use of medications along with the intensive therapy. I'm not saying that Sean should have been committed; he could have signed himself in voluntarily.
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1 hour ago, DC Gal in VA said:
I wish, I wish, I wish that had been an option but............. as we have seen before, unfortunately with dearly departed Kelly when she was in a rehab facility, those types of facilities cannot prevent a patient from ordering in as much crappy food as they desire. Crazy but it is what it is.
The point of placement in a psychiatric facility would not have been controlled diet, but for him to receive the intensive psychiatric care that he needed, if he were going to have a chance to turn his life around. And I think that care would likely have started with meds for his depression. Once they started to work, he probably would not have had so much craving for food.
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1 hour ago, CrazyInAlabama said:
For Dr. Now's program to work, or a psychiatric facility to treat him successfully, the patient has to want to get better. Sadly, Sean doesn't want to get better.
But there are psych medications to help turn that around, to treat the depression chemically. That would likely have been one of the first steps.
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1 hour ago, Julyolo said:
IMO he needed at least a year of intensive inpatient psychiatric treatment for multiple diagnoses and eating disorder. Grieve his mother. What she took from him. Learn about normative relationships. Discharge to adult congregate setting with case mgmt. and eventual goals of employment and independent living.
Bingo! We have a winner! Thank you.
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6 minutes ago, JudgeyMcJudgyPants said:Sean started everyday out as a failure.
I think depressed people tend to do that.
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From the live chat:
QuoteI’ll never understand why people use the “I can’t afford healthy food” bull crap excuse - especially when they’re only supposed to be eating 1200 calories a day. Eggs ($2), lettuce ($2 bag) frozen vegetables ($1 bag) and protein/meat. A mega-size fast food meal the poundticipants eat in one sitting would cover a few days worth of groceries. So annoying! I wish I could drag these folks to the grocery store and give them a shopping lesson.
If one were going to cook/prepare meals at home, then yes I would agree. But if one cannot or is unwilling to cook and is doing deliveries, then healthy meals definitely cost more, at least where I live. Here is a typical example from a modest diner in my neighborhood:
Cobb Salad: $19.25
Cheeseburger deluxe: $12.50
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1 hour ago, Wanda said:
My feelings about him being on the spectrum (I have a sadly extreme amount of experience) comes from his initial story. His childhood stories and photos pinged my radar. The biting was a red flag. The extreme reactions, again, right from childhood if his story is to be believed. 80% of all marriages with autistic children end in divorce. If his father couldn’t handle an “odd” son that could explain his checking out and his mother being over protective. And he could be more towards the aspergers’ end so his ability to happily drop out of life (no social skills), but be quite verbal and intelligent when he wants to be could be explained. Again, just a theory. It could also explain his inability to get himself roused to save his own life because he had convinced himself life was awful, nothing good could ever happen to him, only bad things happen, etc. his Dr appointed therapies were all the wrong ones so they never had any hope of helping him. All he wanted was to be in a safe space.
Agree completely, thank you.
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1 hour ago, Hellga said:
His attitude is what did him in. He had no wish and no will to live. And I will take my gasoline-soaked everything, because my only thought about it is "good riddance!".
I don't think a death wish can be corrected with an attitude adjustment. Neither can addiction. IMO Sean needed a very good in-patient psychiatric facility, where he could have received the kind of intensive mental health care -- with or without meds -- that would have given him a real chance at recovery. Sean really did need a care facility; he just didn't realize about the 'mental' part.
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1 hour ago, cmpbl said:
Dr. Now he needed psychiatric help.
Yes -- this!
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52 minutes ago, DropTheSoap said:
I agree, I don't think Sean is intellectually unable to take care of himself. It seems like it's metal health issues that he's not really dealing with.
I agree as well. It's that type of intensive psychiatric care that Sean needed and did not receive. Dr. Now should have realized by this point that his program wasn't working for Sean, couldn't work for him, and requested a psych eval when Sean was in the hospital. If he had received treatment in a psychiatric facility, that could have been the one thing that might have saved him.
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S07.E25 Jennifer & Marissa & Liz LIVE CHAT
in My 600-lb Life
I'm 58 but I don't know what it means! 😢