I'm drowning after finding out my son has mental health issues. I desperately need help and hope.

[freckles20]

I know anyone who has a child with poor mental health would struggle.

But I can't cope. I'm not handling this at all. I wish I was able to end my own life because I can't cope with how it's making me feel.

I know this is unbelievably selfish and awful, not normal and an overreaction.

I want to be able to exist, to cope because my wonderful boy needs me.

But right now I wish I was dead.

I've got some antidepressants from my GP but I'm afraid to take them in case they push me over the edge that I feel close to, and because I desperately want to be able to support DS when he needs me.

Hi @freckles20, hope you're ok.

I felt exactly the same as you a month ago (just before Xmas) when my DC suddenly announced his mental health issue. I completely crumbled. I was prescribed sertraline. Taking ADs made me feel worse for a few days and then things started to lift. I started on 50mg and got terrible side-effects (of anxiety), so went down to 25mg (allegedly a sub-clinical dose) and felt better.

Have you ever taken ADs before or would it be your first time taking any?

I crumbled after he told me of his issues, but looking back now it seems he didn't notice my own anguish that much (even though at the time I thought he was bound to pick up on it, and the thought of that was an added source of anxiety).
It is very hard, isn't it... Do you have real life help from anyone, and is anyone near you - like the DC's dad?

Is your DC being assessed?
Is there a charity that deals with a particular issue that your DC has, that could help you? I ordered books and read up as much as I could on DS's issue, and called the helpline of a charity (OCD Action, in our case) - that helped. YoungMinds also have a helpline specifically for parents of teens with mental health issues, I'm sure they could have good advice?

Apologies, my message sounds clumsy. Evidently you're not ok... there's a fairly recent thread (I'll try to find it) where MNers share how dealing with their children's mental health make them feel, and they seem to feel like us. Whether the issue has been going on for a long time or has just started and has come as a shock, is say it's normal to massively struggle, so don't feel bad about that (on top of everything else!) x

Hello OP, we are really sorry to hear you are feeling this way.

We hope you don't mind, but when these threads are flagged up to us we usually add a link to our Mental Health resources. You can also go to the Samaritans website or email them on [email protected]. Support from other Mumsnetters is great and we really hope you will be able to take some comfort from your fellow posters, but as other MNers will tell you, it's really a good idea to seek RL help and support as well.

We also like to remind everyone that, although we're awed daily by the astonishing support our members give each other through life's trickier twists and turns, we'd always caution anyone never to give more of themselves to another poster, emotionally or financially, than they can afford to spare.

I wanted to add that when starting on ADs, in the first few days even though they gave me terrible anxiety spikes (heart palpitations etc) a few times per day (and per night), they still did pretty much immediately made me feel a bit better in other ways, in allowing me to be distracted for long enough to have a moment of respite where I could be normal and spontaneous with DS.
It was v reassuring to catch a glimpse that I could slip back into feeling normal again.

@Fawful thank you so much for replying. I'm sorry that your DS has been struggling too, it's so hard to see them like this.

I'm pleased that you found ADs helped you. I decided to take one last night- had a very restless night (not sure of it was just apprehension or the medication), this morning I'm very anxious and my jaw is gurnjng.

I'm feeling so worried about DS. He was clearly struggling when I woke him for online school, so I decided to let him sleep.

I have a counselling session for me this morning, which I'll do from my car so he can't hear. I can pop home afterward but then have a few hours of work that I have to go back out to do.

Parenting feels like an impossible hill to climb atm. I don't really know what it is in particular that he's struggling with as he doesn't open up to me- I just know he's tired with no motivation, sad and fed up.

Hope you're getting tolerable side-effects from ADs, and that this morning's session with the counsellor was useful.
I would tell school, so they are sympathetic to absences and give him a break if needed (they may offer counselling - DS's did) and I would try to get a CAMHS assessment from the GP regardless of waiting times, just to get the ball rolling so that you feel like things have the potential to be getting better.
Good luck

Hi Freckles,
I’m going through similar with my DD. I understand how you feel.
Please be kind to yourself. If you ever want to chat, please do.

My son has bipolar, he's fine on medication and lives a perfectly normal life with a long term partner and has had a full time job for the last 10 years.
As long as he has a diagnosis and is on the correct medication there is no reason why he can't live a perfectly normal life.
I get the odd phone call when he's feeling down but I can always talk him down.