I understand my family might read this

I absolutely agree!!

It is just such a shame that her son has had to go through all of this.

Absolutely. I would stay well clear.

Part of some mental illness does create a complete inability to understand the impact on others. In some cases there is a very real incapacity.

OP’s needs/illness might feel so pressing that she is unable to consider other people at all at the moment. It’s not selfishness - she may be very caring of her son when she isn’t mid episode.

And get off Chat GPT, it is not good for anyone’s mental health and particularly not for someone with a mental illness.

I think the problem here is that until you are willing to accept responsibility for your actions, nothing will change.

Your posts are incredibly self centred and I feel so much sadness for your son.

So sorry you are unwell. Your son is right though, he needs to protect himself now because you aren't able to help protect him from you. If you turn this on him, or try to excuse your behaviour, he will shut you out completely. Send him a message saying you love him, and focus on getting well. I hope you both have other people to support you.

Your son has also been through a traumatic event (probably many during his life time with your MH) and he needs to be cared for too op. He is barely an adult, and he is certainly not trained to deal with you or anyone else experiencing vivid hallucinations.

Consider how terrifying it is for him, living with you? He can love you and still feel overwhelmed himself.

I can not understand why you haven’t been offered anti psychotics. Meds are available. Many people live almost normal lives with the right meds, I agree you need a private second opinion urgently.

But SO HAS HE, I know YOU had the psychotic episode and you are dealing with the aftermath but your son saw that and now he is also dealing with the aftermath , if it was scary for you, it was scary for him. Minimising his trauma and feelings is extremely unfair and expecting him to be the one to help and support you is also unfair, you both need help and support. Where is his coming from?

OP, whether you realise it or not, your behavior is incredibly emotionally manipulative.

Insisting that you'd feel better if he was there, that he should be providing more emotional support and that your inability to contact him at will is making you feel worse is an incredible amount of pressure to put on anyone, let alone someone so young and especially from their own parent.

You need to make this a focus of your therapy as a priority. It's extremely unfair to place that burden on a kid who has just spent some of the most naturally difficult years of his life dealing with an extremely mentally unwell parent.

It may be easy for you to write off the things you've said to him as a result of your illness, but he will likely carry those memories forever. People in emotionally unregulated states often say things they don't mean, but they'll equally say things they absolutely do mean due to a lack of inhibition. How is he supposed to know the difference here? How are you?

Your son sounds like he has extracted himself from an unpleasant situation as soon as he's had the means to do so. You need to respect his distance. Once you've worked on making yourself better, you can work on mending fences if he's open to it.

So has your son- seeing his mum in that state is a traumatic event for him.

You are not his safe place right now, so you cannot expect him to be yours.

It's all very "me, me, me".

Think about how this situation has impacted your 18 year old son. Think also about how your mental health has probably impacted him over his lifetime.

Basically, he's "being there" for himself right now. He can't "be there" for you too.

He is 18, expecting to him to have a perfect response seems petty.

Is the to and fro the bigger picture ?

My DM had psychotic episodes and I could not get away fast enough at 18.

She definitely thinks I'm high and mighty and sensitive sometimes, and to be honest she's not wrong, that's how some people can view me, I've learned as I've got older when to shut up, how to phrase things better, how to avoid miscommunication.

But really, zoning in on this character flaw at this point in time, when you've done something upsetting and need to focus on getting better, is silly.

Could you find a different focus for your energy?

By all means apologise and let him know you love him and will focus on getting better, then do that, and remember he may feel sensitively about this for a very long time.

As an adult with more life experience, you can be the bigger person.

I don't think it's helpful to think of it as him making it into a fight between you even if that's how it feels to you.

You are still struggling and you are unwell.

But he wasn't unaffected by it.he will be experiencing a range of heightened and complex emotions because you're his mum, he loves you and parents are supposed to be a safe space at any age. His safe space has been damaged.

He will be angry and that is understandable. Angry that his mum is ill; angry at his mum for the person she became while she was at the worst of his illness; confusion because his mum doesnt feel 'safe' for him right now; scared of what this means for his and his mum's futures (both his mum's personal future and the future of his relationship with his mum). And these won't be easy emotions for him to deal with.

I've phrased it like that to try and show you what it will likely be like for him. These are his feelings, his emotions and his experiences. To try and help you see how it might be for him feom bis perspective.

My daughter is 19. She's an intelligent, mature and responsible 19 year old tbf but she would not be able to 'be there' for me, especially in a time of such crisis, and it would be incredibly unfair of me to expect her to be.

It's not personal to you in terms of it being a punishment or a reflection on your as a person but his experience. Of course, it feels personal to you because you are his mum!

If his phone is “ringing out and ringing out”, how often are you ringing him?

You are still trying to control him, by making him contact you when he doesn’t want to right now.

You need to back right off for a bit. Send him something saying “I’m so sorry my behaviour whilst ill has impacted you, and our relationship. I love you and am going to do everything I can to get well and stay well. Love Mum” and then leave him be.

Take your meds. Keep taking them. Do not stop them without medical agreement, tapering and supervision. Keep yourself busy and find appropriate support avenues that aren’t your son.

My words might sound harsh but they are your best chance of a) getting well and b) not driving your son away in the process.

This.

He really doesn’t owe you anything OP. Nobody is saying it is easy to be the one going through a crisis like this but it is also incredibly difficult to be on the other side of it as a friend or family member. He is looking after himself, that’s all you can expect him to do.

...the slack you feel others should give you for you being ill also needs to be extended towards them.

This. In fact you need to be giving him a huge amount of slack as you will not have been able to be there for him and properly engaged in parenting throughout your crisis/crises. Yes, it will have been too much for him to cope with, and still is.

That hurts to admit to yourself, I'm sure, but it's the truth and if you can accept that you will likely be better able to understand why he's not able to pour out emotional resources for your benefit right now.

OP, respectfully, if you’ve had recurrent episodes of poor MH for several years, including one or more psychotic episodes, he’s had a lot to deal with in his teens. His resident parent wasn’t parenting, but had turned into a frightening, unpredictable stranger. You don’t seem to grasp this.

A friend of mine has a son the same age as yours, and had a very bad few years when her generally well-controlled anorexia got bad, to the point where she was hospitalised and her organs were shutting down. Even though her son had a resident dad and an older sibling to protect him and explain things, and my friend was still calling him daily from hospital to chat and checking how his school day had gone and being ‘normal’, she’s still very much repairing the damage done to that relationship. It’s not his job, as a traumatised eighteen year old, to support her.

I think you need to focus on getting support and working on your recovery, but also to be realistic about the fact that the work on repairing your relationship with your son needs to come from you.

I am sure what happened yo you was extremely scary and very difficult and I am glad things are better but I don't think you are really appreciating the impact this has had on him, watching someone, especially someone you love dearly, have a psychotic break is utterly terrifying, truly, and almost certainly, your memories of it will differ to the reality. He needs some time and some space to deal with it an will be, very fairly, protecting himself.

Kindly, you are not his responsibility, it is not his responsibility to be there for you, it is important you both have people there for you but that likely won't be each other for now. The language he is using could mean something or could mean nothing, he is only 18, navigating his way through a traumatic experience. It's awful being 29 ant watching someone go through it, 18 must be incredibly hard.

With kindness, he's only just an adult and it is extremely unfair for you to expect him to 'be there' for you through something as intense as this. That's not his responsibility.

Wishing you well in getting better.💐

Having lived with someone who had a psychotic episode you won’t have proper recollection of how you treated those around you. Your memory of events will be massively different to actual events . You need to understand that it’s hard to be around people who suffer this but also that the other people need to take their time to recover. I know it’s hard but you need to keep reminding yourself you’re getting better and the slack you feel others should give you for you being ill also needs to be extended towards them .