‘Like He’s a Rag Doll’: A Louisiana Woman Says Caring for Her Husband Split Her Family and Landed Them on Dr. Phil
A TikTok video about her husband's care has sparked a wave of support — and a hard conversation about when to let go.
Seeing a loved one lose themselves to a mental health condition is a painful experience. Maegan Barras (@maegan.barras) from Louisiana said that she and her mother-in-law had been caring for her husband, who had been injured after an act of self-harm. But as time went on, Barras alleged that she and her in-law had gotten into conflict, even landing themselves on Dr. Phil.
“In 2018, my husband attempted suicide, and he survived with a severe anoxic brain injury and has remained in a vegetative state ever since,” Barras told TikTok.
It has been eight years since her husband’s attempt. Since then, Barras said that she and her mother-in-law have been working hand-in-hand to care for him. She and her mother-in-law had also hoped to get her husband into rehab.
“I had to move him from three different nursing facilities for him to get even close to getting a treatment,” Barras explained. The treatment, however, was only experimental. Despite her efforts, Barras said that she still wasn’t able to get her hands on the treatment.
“After years of no meaningful improvement or no changes at all, I had made a decision of wanting to bring him home and letting him pass,” Barras said. She supposedly discussed the situation with her mother-in-law, and she initially agreed with the decision. Barras further alleged that they were already talking about the process, as well as pulling him out of hospice care.
How did they end up on Dr. Phil?
“Until the next thing I knew, we ended up on the Dr. Phil Show, discussing his injury and the severity of an anoxic brain injury,” Barras said. At this point, she said that there was already a disagreement between herself and her mother-in-law. Dr. Phil was a talk show known for giving people with personal problems advice on primetime. One notable example to come from this is the “catch me outside” girl, Danielle Bregoli, who has now made a name for herself as a rapper.
“We were being selfish, is what I said. Not just her, but I said myself,” the wife said. Barras said that she and her mother-in-law couldn’t agree on how to proceed after hospice care for her husband. She believes that outside of hospice, her husband’s quality of life would be non-existent and that it would be selfish to keep him for longer.
“We went for a two-year interdiction trial for custody of him, and nothing has changed,” Barras said. Although she does not clearly state the outcome, her caption indicates that she’s still “fighting to be heard.”
Barras continued, “What happened in that courtroom still affects me to this day.” She clarified that she wasn’t coming to TikTok to attack her mother-in-law. Rather, she’s reaching out for professional legal help to advocate for her husband’s rights as a patient.
“I don’t know where to go from this, but I know I just can’t keep carrying this,” Barras stated.
She can’t give up the fight
Several social media commenters have written in support of Barras. Some of them agree that keeping her husband alive in such a state is akin to being “punished.” Others have expressed sympathies for Barras, even sharing similar experiences of losing their loved ones to suicide.
But Barras has also addressed some comments, suggesting that she should move on and simply surrender her husband to his mother.
“It blows my mind how many people say ‘give him to his mother’—like he’s a rag doll,” she said. This is a situation that can test even the strongest of vows, but Barras has made it clear that she’s not giving up on her husband.
(featured images: Erik Mclean, Maegan Barras, Anna Shvets)
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