Court Fines Mother For Phoning Son Too Much

An Austrian man was forced to take his mom to court for stalking after she called him incessantly over a two-and-a-half year period. The 73-year-old woman, who would phone her son up to 49 times a day, was fined 360 euros ($478) by the court in the southern city of Klagenfurt. "I just wanted to talk to him. I can't talk to my son, nor my daughter. I've never seen my grandchild — who is already 15 years old," she told the court.

Comments

Well, really

[cephalien]

She's bat**** crazy, obviously.

I can't blame either one of them for not bringing grandchildren around for a 'nice visit'.

Ten minutes later, they're in the oven.

Re:Well, really

[unlametheweak]

Unfortunately monetary (or even criminal) penalties will not help this woman, nor will it likely stop her obsessive/compulsive behavior. The son needs to get a new phone number and make sure that he only shares it with a very small group of highly trusted individuals.

I've dealt with people like this (as a schlimazel), and from my experience anti-psychotic drugs (alone) don't seem to work either. I would think operant conditioning would help in such cases, but the medical profession seems to be more interested in drug therapies, and to a lesser extent social counseling like group therapy.

Re:Well, really

[stonewallred]

Lol, operant conditioning. Hook line voltage to the phone and when she dials his number, it sends full current through her head. You adversion along with ECT. Double win.

Re:Well, really

[Anonymous Coward]

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy is usually more effective for OCD then medication anyway. Antipsychotics are not the drug of choice though, an SRI such as Clomipramine is usually the most effective.

I think its quite abhorrent that it seems that you, and others in this thread think that the son should abandon his Mother and not let her see her Grandchildren because she is mentally ill. That is pretty disgusting. If any of you have children, would you want them to treat you the same way as this man treats his Mother?

And to stonewallred who seems to think ECT has any sort of effect on obsessions and compulsions, your wrong.

Unfortunately it seems that /. is becoming more like 4chan every day.

Re:Well, really

[unlametheweak]

I think its quite abhorrent that it seems that you, and others in this thread think that the son should abandon his Mother and not let her see her Grandchildren because she is mentally ill.

Nice flame. You obviously never lived with people who have had mental illnesses because your attitude speaks volumes. I would certainly not let any of my children be subjected to the kind of harassment and insanity that stalkers exhibit.

And once again, to emphasize, it would be helpful also if the medical profession had some empathy and intelligence as well because they often treat mental patients like customer service reps treat customers; with canned solutions like drug therapy.

Re:Well, really

[BeanThere]

It's not a mental illness merely to want to see your grandchildren (even extremely badly) or to become angry at being denied this simple thing by your very son. I bet if you subjected most "normal" people to this, a significant percentage would exhibit behaviour you might deem to be "stalking", and then treating those people as freaky "stalkers" no doubt makes it worse --- have you ever considered that maybe we "create" stalkers by *treating* otherwise normal people as if they're freaks? Of course you get true nutcases, but these are actually rare, I suspect most cases are caused by paranoid imaginations turning into self-fulfilling prophecies. Our "OMG change the locks" hyper-paranoid culture is alienating. Calling someone a bunch of times if you're legitimately angry (e.g. being denied seeing your own grandchild) isn't necessarily "stalking" by a long shot. The summary and articles are light on details, but 49 times in one day is just the worst case scenario, it's difficult to gauge how bad it really was, but it could be that the son is just being an asshole here.

Re:Well, really

[laughingcoyote]

Maybe the son is being an asshole, and maybe not. If my mother were acting that way, I would have serious reservations about her being around my kids too. Regardless, however, he is the parent, and asshole or not, he has the right to say "no" and have that respected. Calling someone 49 times in a day is harassment, regardless of the provocation, just as hitting someone is assault even if they were provoking you.