Would a psychiatrist help?

[Rumors1]

I am feeling so crap and deflated this morning as I ended up screaming at DS(almost 15) again last night instead of having the calm conversation I intended on having.
Trying to keep this as short as possible, DS was the loveliest child until he hit 3 years and then the tantrums/meltdowns started. He would follow me around the house screaming at me for hours on end. It was horrendous, nothing I did worked to get him out of them. I ended up having a sort of breakdown when he was 4. I developed a panic disorder and anxiety.

Over the years his behaviour was so difficult to manage. He is very strong willed and stubborn and always tests boundaries. He is very self centered, really struggles to consider other people, he wants his own way all the time.
My brother has all the traits of narcissistic personality disorder. He was a bully to myself and sister growing up, always tormenting us. He was let away with it and the emotional abuse turned to verbal and physical abuse of me as an adult.

Both my parents are very selfish people, only consider their needs and don't consider the emotional impact of their behaviour on us.

Dealing with this in my life has made me want to ensure that DS doesn't grow up like that.

The problem is I don't know whether he genuinely doesn't understand how bad his behaviour can be and its impact on others, or whether he is just being a selfish brat.

Both DH and I have been very consistent in our parenting to try to keep him in line. We have lots of rules in the house which stems from his behaviour eg who has control of the remote, who sits where on the couch each night, who does what chores, who is first for - the stuffing, the pick of the steaks, treats, etc.

My other two will compromise and there would be no need for these rules, but he will always pick himself in a situation.
For example if picking a movie, DS will not agree, the others will choose a couple they are happy to watch and DS would purposely say he didnt want to watch those, even if he did. On a few occasions when DS wouldn't agree to any of their choices and the discussions had gone on for about 30 mins, I said one of their choices would go on and he said fine but he wouldnt watch it and went to his room and sat on his bed for 2 hours.

He is very forceful and has always struggled to listen to others point of view. I really do try to explain how his behavior impact for example on his younger brother who looks up to him.

Last night DS 13 came down to me upset as his brother had told him not to look at him in school or say hello to him.
I tried to calmly explain the why this is upsetting to DS13 and to try to put himself in his shoes for a minute, he went off into his usual argument of why it isn't his problem is DS13 is upset, that's on him, he wouldn't be bothered if it was the other way around, and I am ashamed to say I roared at him that he was a fucking horrible child.

I apologized but the damage is done, the damage is always being done as I cant control myself in the face of such constant stubbornness. Its every day with him and I can manage most interactions calmly but at least once a week I end up loosing it.
At times he is the loveliest child, he is kind to me, hugs me often, tells me he loves me, he is a great help around the house, gets on well in school and shows real kindness at times. But I feel it is on his terms if that makes sense, like he is nice to us because he is happy and it suits him but when we want something and he doesn't then its a hard no.
I do wonder if he has a personality disorder or some issue. On the face of it these things may seem trivial but its just the constant nature of them that is wearing me down. I wonder would bringing him to a psychiatrist help to see if there is anything going on.

My other two are so different, yes they can be stubborn and moody at times but its completely different.

Any advice would be very welcome as I dont want to destroy our relationship or damage him.

It might be worth considering an assessment for ND.

But more importantly it sounds like you need some counselling to learn to deal with your behaviour.

From ages 3 to about 8/9 he would have tantrums/meltdowns lasting up to 45 mins and this would happen a number of times a day. He would follow me around the house screaming and crying at me.
That isnt normal behaviour, I havent seen or heard of another child carrying on like that without some underlying issue.

I think that some of the responses here might be from people who have not experienced this type of behaviour in their children and really don't understand how different it is from normal childhood tantrums and teenage moodiness.

The behaviour you describe reminds me how my older son was in his childhood and teens. In his case, there was an eventual diagnosis of autism. Associated with the autism was an intensely high level of anxiety which he tried to control by insisting on getting his own way, even about the tiniest things. In effect this meant him trying to control me. And with experience of awful domestic violence in my parents' relationship, I found it hard, when he was in his teens, not to experience his behaviour as domestic abuse (this was before he was diagnosed -- he refused to cooperate with mental health services at the time).

I got so worn down that I shouted at him a few times, even told him to fuck off once. If you are being relentlessly followed by someone, if they are blocking your line of exit, crowding you physically, throwing things, etc, naturally your stress levels get so high you can't be Mrs Perfect.

The only help I can offer is to say: Yes, I see and understand that your son's problems are real, and I urge you not to let your own experience of abusive people in your life trap you into what might well be the wrong framing ('stubbornness', 'narcissism', etc) for his difficulties. When my son got past the difficult teen phase of his problems, a much, much more caring, gentle and considerate side of him started to flower. It had always been there, of course. Just strangled by his anxiety and immaturity. He still had awful problems, but I gradually learnt that I could let go of the awful sense of being physically and emotionally pressured by his need to evacuate the pressure of his own feelings.

I know one poster suggested telling my younger boy to ignore him, why, why should he have to deal with being treated badly by his brother - thats just victim blaming and ignoring his upset.

Why does he need to acknowledge his younger brother in school? Many teenagers I know wouldn’t associate with their younger siblings in school. It’s not victim blaming to tell your younger son to keep back from him in school.

The tantrums sound to me like the meltdowns that an undiagnosed autistic child would have, so a psychiatrist could be useful in seeing exacty what is going on.

I really think you would benefit with some support with your parenting. It is not okay to call a child 'fucking horrible'. I know how challenging kids can be but that is awful and abusive behaviour from you.

Thank you @ReadWithScepticism I am so glad to hear that your son is in a better place and you are managing better too.

@peasepudding I get that, thats why I posted this morning, I am trying to get help. I feel sick with the guilt, I'm crying all day.

Both my parents are very ill at the moment, I am dealing with an autoimmune condition, I'm run ragged, its not an excuse but I'm overwhelmed and acknowledge I am handing things badly. I love my son and want to be a better mother to him and not f*uck him up.

Sounds ND to me also, look up PDA and ask at GP about a referral for diagnosis (very likely autistic).
Most autistic boys don't "mask" as much as girls, ie the girls can present as "non autistic" to fit in when they want to, then boil over at home due to the pressure. He may be more like this than the typical "male" presentation of autism so harder to identify and diagnose.

So older son is mean to younger son but instead of me addressing it with older son you think the preferable option is to go to younger son and tell him he can be bloody awful at times too (not true) and turn it back on him to give me a reason as to why he wants to be able to say hello to his brother in the school yard?

Seriously?? And I am the bad parent!

Ok.

So I worked in education for twenty years. Your son's behaviour is not unusual for teenagers. It's possible he may be ND and it's something you could look into but the examples you have given are normal for teenagers.

Very challenging behaviour for 13 years olds includes:

Setting fire to their house
Running away repeatedly
Taking drugs and selling drugs as part of county lines
Posting naked pics of themselves online and meeting up with random people they met online
Repeated violence towards parents and siblings.
Self harm
Eating disorders

Your child is exhibiting some stubbornness and verbal aggression. I get you are finding it difficult but this genuinely is not very challenging behaviour.

If you have strategies that work to help you deal with it (who sits where, etc) then keep using them. Beyond that you might find it helpful to lower your expectations - if you post other examples then maybe this might not be the case but honestly one sibling ignoring the other at school is not worth your time and effort.

I'm sorry but I totally disagree with you.

The only help I can offer is to say: Yes, I see and understand that your son's problems are real, and I urge you not to let your own experience of abusive people in your life trap you into what might well be the wrong framing ('stubbornness', 'narcissism', etc) for his difficulties.

This is excellent advice.

I'm among those who think he sounds ND. One of mine was/has been a little bit like this, on and off. If there's a line between ND and NT, he's on it. (He is nearly 17 now and has absolutely mellowed and matured).
At the same time, OP, I think your childhood is making his behaviour (for want of a much better word) triggering to you and inducing you to struggle in the face of it and label it things it isn't.

Taken in isolation it may seem that way except there is a history to this, clearly I am not just reacting to his incident on its own. This was just one of those "straw that broke the camel's back" moments.
I have two other teenagers, I expect arguments and moodiness, this is a different level.

Thank you, I agree that my childhood is affecting me. We had a lot of shouting and arguments in the house, a brother that was allowed to torment us (after he was finished punching me in the head and kicking me in the stomach and back, my mam asked what I did to provoke him).

I had terrible role models for managing difficult behaviour. I struggle with having being brought up in the environment and want to do better. I fear my DS turning out like my brother.

My DD has a very poor relationship with DS due to his behaviour, I really try to get her to see the good in him and excuse his behaviour but then I worry I am acting like my mother did in excusing bad behaviour. If I understood why he acts like this, I think it would make things easier to manage and bear.

Op you are having a tough time and you have lots of posters kicking you when you're down. It sounds really stressful and I wonder if your son is enjoying winding you up and getting your attention? Can you take him out for breakfast one-on-one every week and create an opportunity to talk and have positive attention?
My sister behaved very similarly to how your son did and my parents completely ignored it, unfortunately she didn't mature out of it and consequently as an adult she has very short lived relationships and lots of difficulties in her career. I think if our parents had noticed and corrected her bad behaviours and praised her positive behaviours she would have become a 'normal' if disagreeable adult.
My advice would be, don't despair or give up just try and find something, anything to like about him and build on that. And give yourself a break, you're only human.

I'd suggest your brother is autistic, your son is autistic and quite possibly at least one of your parents is too. NPD and ASD can look surprisingly similar and asd often runs in families. If your DS has ASD then he'd probably have loved to be an only child - mine does! - and I would say not wanting to be talked to at school by members of his family is completely normal. If you punish DS for this then you are punishing him for potentially being autistic.

You need to talk to him about why you keep losing it and telling him he's a fucking horrible child, you might find he doesn't seem to care that much about what you said. I talked this through with my ds and he said that if it happened to him he'd probably be more thinking about whether he won or lost the argument! He is stubborn and contrary just like yours but you have to get him on side and work with it rather than fight against it. My ds would cut off his nose to spite his face!

I think you really need to rethink your whole parenting. Your ds will need a lot of down time alone, family video nights are probably really not his thing. This might well be why he is being difficult over them because he just plain doesn't want to do them. I would stop expecting ds to fit into NT ideas of 'polite and nice'. don't excuse his behaviour if he is rude or nasty but don't make it into a huge thing either. 'That was rude ds' is just a reminder and doesn't set up a conflict. Tell your other ds that if his brother doesn't speak to him at school then he's best off ignoring him back. This will work for both of them.

Stop expecting him to be able to put himself in anyone else's shoes because that just isn't possible for him as a potentially autistic teen.

I would consider that he’s probably ND and would try to adjust your parenting to a style that would suit him better.
Ross Greene and The Explosive Child is your friend.

This makes a lot of sense to me OP.
In the kindest way, I think you are looking at this through the lens of being abused by your narcissistic sibling and you are seeing traits in your son that aren’t there. You’re probably terrified of being put through it all again and so are on high alert for anything that may even hint at someone else being narcissistic… it’s all self protection. But I don’t think you need to protect yourself from your son.

You are hyper sensitive to his behaviour due to your treatment growing up by your brother.

He sounds a pain but he is 15, leaving home in the not too distant future , also probably his focus is out of the home and his friends.

have a rota if who chooses what - he sits in his room for two hours -so what.

Thanks guys and thanks for the book recommendation.
DH and I have always said he probably has some ND issue. I think my dad has something, my sister likely has ADHD, my brother has something so runs in the family.
Other people dont see it as he reserves it all for us, which is probably some level of masking.

I love him and he can be such a lovely child, I just want to do right by him and make sure he can have meaningful relationships and learn to compromise.
I watch a lot of videos on facebook/Instgram about parenting ND children and try to put the tips into practice. Its just the daily nature of trying to do it the right way I struggle with. I run out of patience at times.