My sons behaviour is breaking my heart

[mae33]

I lost my temper. my 23 year old has been with us for over 6 months, its been hard work. he came to stay after a nearly successful fatal suicide. its worse than you can imagine. he got the help he needed we fed him up, we encourage and supported, we worked closely with his crisis team he got better, he got a job, he lost the job, after 6 weeks, he won't get up he won't help out. we got him more help, he started to help out a bit, but won't get up it takes us 4 or 5 attempts, then another 2 hours to get him dressed, when he helps its so slow and poorly done its beyond frustrating. but we have made some progress and it keeps me going. however 3 weeks ago I needed a huge operation on my shoulder, right in the middle of a renovation of my business premises, they have to be completed for me to start working again in 4 weeks, so I can pay the mortgage. my son has put in minimum effort even after I begged for help and today I lost my temper, really lost it when he won't get out of bed and apparently everything is all my fault. I foolishly said get up and help or get up and move out. of course he left in tears and now I feel worried sick and beyond guilty. having a hard time reconciling my raging emotions.

Some people do use suicide attempts as manipulation, my ex certainly did, ending up in ITU after one he did when I tried to end our relationship and sadly he eventually did succeed with a subsequent partner. You need to look after yourself, he is an adult. As he is your son it must be difficult for you, I found it hard enough with a husband but you matter too and you need to care for yourself

It sounds like he is getting a lot of support from many and you are not.

You are also important and need to be looked after but sadly expecting support from him, in any form, at the moment might be outside his current capabilities and represent more wishful thinking on your part.

Who can support you right now? Do you have any friends or family who can help physically while you heal post op and counselling to go through what you are going through with your son?

Depression can make people madly self centreD .....that's just part of the overall picture ...

Depression is not feeling a bit fed up...it's the kind of health crisis where you take no pleasure in stuff you enjoyed and find it difficult /impossible to function normally.

I think the team saying he's using it as manipulation? No one who I've met over years who was suicidal said...I'm doing this so x will happen. ....theyve just been at the end of their tether

As someone once said...suicide is the permanent solution to temporary problems

I think the team saying he's using it as manipulation? No one who I've met over years who was suicidal said...I'm doing this so x will happen. ....theyve just been at the end of their tether

Unless you have professionally met and dealt with a greater number of suicidal people than the mental health crisis team her DS is seeing, perhaps your experience is less helpful for OP. Like others say, if they're saying no medication and that it's manipulative, then perhaps it's a personality disorder that no amount of her support will 'fix'. In any case, we don't know the details, what we can see is a family who has tried very hard for over a year, and are now putting their own health and home at risk. This situation isn't sustainable, family needs to offer a life raft, but at this point it sounds like he's going to take the whole life raft down with him. Good luck op

Sympathies, OP! People on MN are so quick to virtue signal and stick the boot in. I understand where you're coming from. Honestly? I'm so done in by my son I have extensively researched how to bring about my own end in the next 5 or so years after my daughter leaves home because I cannot go on like this with my son and it'll all I can to try to make it till then but you can better believe I will make damn sure I succeed. Living with someone like this is the sheerest hell I've been through and I've been through some utter tragedy. They bring you down and yeah it's like living with a fucking Dementor. It's not tenable and I applaud you for sticking with it as long as you have. I can't do this.

@JessieTalamasca. I really really hope you're ok. Have you anything in terms of support??? It sounds a really hard situation for you too.

OP, I'm sorry you've received less than supportive messages on here implying that you need to educate yourself. They're obviously more intelligent and empowered than ourselves....

Mental health symptoms does not have a one size fits all unfortunately. Yes! Some do use threats of suicide as a source of control and manipulation. I experienced this intensely for a long period of time myself and I was constantly on a knife edge over it worrying and that was the intent of the person who used this on me. This person could of been lying in their bed watching a film or having dinner when they were messaging me their intent to kill themselves and it was all my fault. So absolutely can be used a way of controlling someone. (I have not spoken to this person in 5 or more years and they are living and well).

No-one ever truly knows what is going on in people's minds. The OP is physically recovering and cannot mentally heal with the continual struggle of managing her son. Have some bloody empathy. They have the weight of the world on their shoulders.

OP is supporting living accommodation an appropriate suggestion for your son?

Can you ask the Crisis team about organizing an adult guardian if you’re not confident that he can make adult decisions?

insidev I really hope the OP comes back to see that not everyone has just attacked her on this.

I really hope so too. It's nice to see the tide turned to the empathy and support from so many posters. That's the real mumsnet to me. I hope she comes back and sees this and knows she can get understanding and support here.

God, I cant believe how people can be so critical of the OP.
Do any of you have experience of caring for someone 24/7?
It's ok to tell her what she should or shouldnt be doing from the comfort of your own lives but really unless you have walked her path you really have no idea.
She sounds utterly broken to me (as does her son) I know nothing of MH services in NZ but if this was in the UK I would be begging for supported living options.

I think perhaps the problem is that you are imposing expectations on him which most of us would reasonably expect from a son whose mental health is OK and each time he lets you down ,it is a huge emotional blow to you, even though you suspect that's what he will do.
Let's just say you experiment by starting from a point of having no expectations of him for the next six months and try to put in place some alternative support for yourself. He is not actively making your life impossible, it is his lack of engagement in the family which causing you such emotional pain. Constantly demanding of him that he demonstrate ho much he loves you may not be wise at the moment.
Try and make a practical plan in your head eg.find a few relatives to cover while you have a couple of days rest. If he asks for things from you, (for example , a meal) just tell him you are too ill/tired and he'll have to do whatever it is himself. His response will tell you whether he can't or won't help himself.
If you have a small support network, try local charities.I would imagine there must be some temporary help out there. In these circumstances it is hard to find out whether someone's lack of commitment to the family is wilful or because of an illness. Many people in your situation become desperate and throw their relative out. You need to be kind to yourself and discover the limits of how little/much he is prepared to do.

Are pps reading that he did this for 18 months with his big brother until his big brother's marriage was at crisis point and has now been a further 6 months with his mother, who needs to run her own business and get through major surgery in addition to taking 2 hours (!) to get him dressed?

2 years of this is a long time. I think that get up or get out (and engaging with the crisis team to be clear on where things stand first) might actually be the reasonable response at this point.

Often what is labelled 'manipulation /attention seeking isn't. ...

Of you spend time,scratch beneath the surface there is a whole lot of tangled trauma /complex history. ...

It is just not as simple abd unhelpful to label it as 'manipulation '

OP It's unethical leaving you with such a stressful situation with no easy way to cope.

Your entire family are doing their best. ..and still this is not enough to help yur son.

You and your entire family are at risk of carer breakdown.

You need him to have a well thought out formulation/diagnosis from the CMHT psychology /psychiatry so he can get targeted treatments.

mirrivan I don't understand your post at all- equating asking the son helping with asking a dog to help you move house? And the guilt tripping of the OP is quite mean. All the posters berating the OP for not being understanding enough what about her mental health, or are the families of those with depression not allowed to feel tired or stressed or need something back?

I think a lot of people don’t realise that MH issues don’t preclude someone from being manipulative. My ex best friend was like this. She was bipolar and was hospitalised during a couple of manic phases.

But she knew how to manipulate me by warning me that she could get ill again when things were going badly. I ended up loaning her money which she never repaid, for which my DH has never forgiven her.

She was well capable of looking after herself but knew how to persuade mugs like me to bail her out.

Sorry if I sound cynical. I have MH issues myself (PTSD and depression), so I know it can be tough to deal with that, but it’s no excuse for treating people badly.

Very true, Lizzie, and also that you simply cannot force an adult to engage with therapy, source it for them, etc. when they're not sectioned and you have no PoA. There's a lot of 'march him to' 'get him to' 'you need' but the point is that it's difficult to impossible to access viable, consistent, effective help for children and adolescents with MH much less adults. There's a lot of 'have you got 'support'' thrown about but the bottom line is that there's usually is no real practical support for those caring for those with MH conditions, just talking. Well, I can talk from now till the world ends about how my son's behaviour and condition affects the entire family it doesn't make any difference if there's no respite, no serious and continuous treatment and the like.

OP, I feel very very sorry for you both. It's horrible nursing someone with depression - it's a thankless job. And it's equally horrible to have depression. But as someone who has had it on and off all my life, I do know that it is a very physical disease. People don't realise that. It's not that he won't get out of bed, he can't. Physically, to get out of bed, you need certain chemicals in your brain to spark the physical instruction 'get out of bed.' When your brain lacks those chemicals, you just can't translate the urge to do it. That's why some people 'freeze' and go comatose during depression. (I do. I can stand for hours trying to make myself put shoes on to go to the shops and buy food, But the mental instruction seems to get trapped and short circuit somewhere so it never makes it to my body, and my body just won't move. It's very creepy and very disconcerting and it's horrible that everyone around you thinks you're just a lazy lump when actually you are using all your willpower not to fall asleep on the kitchen floor.

Look up 'psychomotor retardation' .

I'm not saying you should have the patience of a saint. It's unbearably frustrating to live with someone who behaves this way. But they are no more responsible for not jumping out of bed than someone with a broken leg. The brain is broken. it needs fixing before normal functions resume.

OP I cannot believe people are giving you a hard time. I presume they have never been in a similar position. I have with my own son and it ruined our whole family’s lives to the point of me and my daughter needing years of therapy herself to overcome the effects of his manipulation. My son has BPD and can be very manipulative. People saying that it’s not manipulation it’s called mental illness obviously don’t have a lot of experience as it is hugely known that people with certain disorders are hugely manipulative.

All my love and hugs to you OP as it is so horrible and at times I wished I wouldn’t wake up so I wouldn’t have to deal with it. This will probably get me flamed but the only way we all started to turn a corner was for me to be less engaged with it. When he came to me in floods of tears screaming and punching things and swearing he’d kill himself because somebody had told him he couldn’t use their car or have their cake I started just disengaging and nodding and making the usual ‘oh dear’ ‘oh no’ noises. This surprisingly gave him far more motivation to recover than when I was sobbing and telling him my life was falling apart.

I do not blame him at all of course, he is a gorgeous wonderful person now. But people cannot ignore how good manipulation and attention can feel when you are mentally ill.

even depressed people can make someone a cup of tea

not necessarily...

The posters on here who have called OP unfair and all about herself should be absolutely ashamed of themselves. You are talking to a woman you don't know who has gone through years of looking after her son in this state and simply doesn't know what to do and you speak to her in that way? And you call her unfair? Talk about a lack of self-awareness.

I also hope OP comes back. It sounds like an awful, heartbreaking situation, for all concerned. I don't know what to advise although having been seriously depressed and suicidal myself at one point in my life I do know that actually trying to focus on others around you rather than yourself can be quite helpful. I actually credit my survival in part to some quite harsh words from one of my close friends.

If you come back OP, can you clarify, is he on any meds now? And have any made a difference at all? I don't know about the NZ system but is it possible for him to have any kind of residential care for a while?

And to you

He's motivated to get out of bed when it's something fun he wants to do. I completely understand, OP.

Have you looked up Pathological Demand Avoidance? My young adult son displays the symptoms and I suspect he had it, he behaves in a similar though less extreme way to your son. It's a red letter day if he ever lifts a finger to help at home, he even hates to say please or thank you. He will do more for friends.

So calling it "depression", it sounds as though DS needs to be treated as an invalid.
Whereas calling it "manipulation", it sounds as though it is all his fault, he should pull up his socks and in fact he is behaving very badly etc etc.

In Personality Disorder, the truth is somewhere in the middle. A person may need help and support, and may be unable just to get on with his life right now, but retains responsibility for their actions, and might be able to learn better coping skills with therapy. It is worth asking Crisis whether DBT is possible.

Whatever the problem, cutting right back on drugs and alcohol is likely to do good.

Unless you have been in this situation. Is is truly impossible to understand. I have been struggling for years with a son who had severe depression. It has isolated me because I am tired of people making judgements about him or me without the slightest clue of what the reality if day to day.
I either don’t mention it or talk about it too much. It dominates my life. It feeds into everything I do or don’t do. It’s altered the family dynamics for the worst.
There is no help out there apart from some counselling on the NHS after a wait if a year and a half, or perhaps CBT. Otherwise.. nothing.
Those who are judging... just don’t.

Has not had depression