Is anyone a reluctant carer for an adult child?

[massivestress]

Name changed for this as I’m aware I will sound like a complete cow.
i can’t cope mentally anymore. My ds has a mental illness which has taken over their life. No job, moved out for a couple weeks, couldn’t cope. Has taken over the dining room and is in there 24/7 except to come and eat all the snacks or have dinner if I cajole them.
wont engage with social services, attends therapy we pay for at £200 a session (fortnightly, I’m in debt) as the NHS more severe support is shit and has a waiting list anyway. Is almost 30. Has given up all hope. Doesn’t pay anything to us due to some bloody stupid choices they can’t change now. It’s like my life is over. ive suggested going on the council list - no. Over the years we’ve paid for so much therapy and supported things. I can’t see an end in sight, I’m just stuck now with this person getting older and more and more reclusive.

OP I've done everything wrong myself due to exhaustion and frustration but a perspective on your everyday could be helpful.

Try to think about the end result before you start a communication. For example, cook the dinner, leave it out for half an hour then just cover it and put it in the fridge.

He'll smell the cooking and come for it if he wants it. If it stays in the fridge, well who cares. He won't /can't comply with what you want atm so remove the anxiety for yourself.

I find it much easier for me to have no normal expectations than asking for them and not getting them. Experience has taught me that my one won't do what I ask so it's better for me not to ask.

It's not fair, but it's reality.

I've just had a very sour exchange with my one. I didn't wake up until 9.50am because I didn't sleep well. Normally I'm awake by 6ish and there's the possibility of a coffee with him before he starts roaming around in town and drinking.

He's angry and accusing me of having blocked him and other things. I said ok, let's make a plan and do x tomorrow but he's on a sour mission now.

I didn't bother to say 'perhaps you could have spent the time having a shower and tidying or playing music on your phone, 10am isn't crazy late'. OR ha! It's not normal to start drinking at 9am.

I think it's his adhd that causes this need for constant stimulation and movement but, he's 35, I'm not going to say anything obvious, it's pointless.

Is he still living away from home @Dogaredabomb?

I am finding that I hate everything and everyone and I’m just bleeding all over people like the other kids in my fury and despair. I spent a car journey ranting about it all to one of them which is massively unfair.
carers clubs are pointless - I’m not around to go for daytime meets as I have to work.

I’m not finding things easy. I’m going to get counselling for myself. I went via the NHS and the waiting time is 5 months. I can’t wait that long. I figure I will be speaking to someone not involved and hopefully get some clarity

That’s maybe a good idea, I hope it works out for you as something useful. Do you ever feel guilt at talking about it? People ask how the kids are and I end up pretending or downplaying.

I have told a few people but generally no. It’s too painful to talk about. I’ve got to let off steam somehow though

Exactly this. I feel like I’m keeping a guilty secret all the time.

Yes my one is still away from home, he's in his flat a couple of minutes drive away. It's saved my bacon A LOT.

I understand and sympathise massively about bitching to one kid about the other. I do my very best but sometimes fail totally and then I feel like an absolute worm.

My mother did nothing but gossip maliciously and drove wedges to the point we're all estranged (my siblings). I hate hearing her voice come out of my mouth.

I've found that the Samaritans are useful when you're just desperate to vent.

Re telling people I'm 'lucky' in that my poor best friend has an even worse adult child situation so we don't have to pretend. But other people, no i gloss over it and have stock lies.

My untroublesome one is currently visiting his girlfriend and I've noticed a trend when he does of very minimal frosty contact.

I know that he can't stand the other one and wants him out of his life. I can see that maybe one day he'll cut contact with me to do so.

Has anyone found that their physical health has suffered? I've found that I'm exhausted and my joints are weird, different ones being painful.

I think chronic stress causes inflammation which is a fibro thing. It really does wreck you doing decades of 'caring' (being a hostage.

But yes, mine is out of the house and I'm never having him back. I think he recognises that he's too moody and angry to live with.

He says he wants to preserve our relationship and that he doesn't like taking things out on me so the space allows him to pause for thought.

Is the tier 2 mh thing progressing? Personally I think mh services in the middle ground are very difficult to access.

If you're functional and able to access your gp you can kind of do it yourself. If you're off the reservation you can get sectioned. But being pretty ill but not sectionable and there's nothing worth jumping through hoops to access.

OP have you tried filling in a form for social housing? You can make them 'homeless at home' (ie they stay in your house till there's a flat. They won't like it but they're currently stabbing the lifeboat.

Hi all

Reporting back in on ups and downs here. I did book and have been to two one off sessions with a counsellor, a family therapist, for myself. Obviously the ideal would have been to go with my son, but can't get him to come, so going, ranting and getting some independent sense on what is going on and what I might do to change the dynamic seemed the next best thing. She let the first session overrun by an hour (:)) so she clearly could see the need, and that it wasn't straightforward. I'm not entirely sure she is the right person for me long term, hence why I'm only booking one offs right now, but it was incredibly helpful to feel I could give someone the full picture without feeling ashamed or embarrassed, and to get a knowledgable more expert insight. So I would really recommend it. She had some good one liners on my other carer responsibilities for elderly parents, and when similar triggers arise now, I hear her voice saying 'don't replay Buttergate', and that helps give me perspective.

It helped massively too to get independent validation, what I'm carrying is too much. Some of these situations (with the elderly parents) are me being given the runaround. I need more nourishment. It is ok to live my life. And that is worth its weight in gold.

I have got a bit bogged down in useful, helpful, but somewhat contradictory books which I am halfreading... So in case they help anyone: You are not alone in this, supporitng a loved one's mental health; Codependency no more; and Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents. Obviously these are related to my issues, but there are lots of overlaps in what they say, and are helping me unpick my triggers more.

I also got the police involved last week when son hit me twice. Yes he was overwhelmed, but still not acceptable and I felt I needed to give a clear boundary. Police were excellent, I'd said I wanted them to be calm and clear but to give him clear warning. They were clear with him this was domestic violence, if they were called again he would be barred from the house and prosecuted, and in general they would have pressed charges in this situation. I have been telling closest friends in confidence, and this is also a seachange as previously I have been embarrassed for them to know what is going on. But being open about these things and how we are struggling does feel a relief, even though seeing their horror brings it home.

Has anyone had any good support in working out what is going on for their loved one/how to get a pathway from it? DS had an adhd diagnosis several years ago, and is now, for last 4 months, on medication and I am getting him to take it daily. I do think it is making some difference. However he is very withdrawn, isolated, mainly in his room, watching conspiracy theory videos. And I moved 2 years ago, so he knows no one here, having returned with a breakdown.

I am wondering if he also has autism, which is now becoming clearer as the Adhd is medicated? Psychiatrist is just focussed on medication not on path to wellness. Occupational therapist, a year ago, came up with plan for him which is so unrelated to where he is at. Or is it mainly overwhelm at uncertainty of life after graduation, and the work involved if were to work out what might do workwise and apply for jobs with likely risk of rejection right now? Feels like we are falling between many chairs and so things just bump on day to day, hoping for a miracle to hit us. I can't even get him to come out of house with me, even for a walk after dark, and there is no one else. I am wondering about, when there is any spark of an upturn, aiming to hire a male student as a mental health support worker to hope to encourage/accompany to outside activities. It is so difficult/impossible when you're feeling low about yourself to go to things alone, - I hope having someone of his age, even if they are paid, might make a difference. But who knows, and it is quite a way from where we are now. Any thoughts much valued.

Re therapy, it's good to have someone who roughly understands what you are experiencing - carer's network may be able to suggest people.

I have seen several therapists over the years- usually tied in with therapy gor my children - and uninformed therapists, bringing their own ideas about child/parent relationships, can be really unhelpful.

I adopted - the damage therapists were doing by bringing their personal views about adoption in was considered so bad that the Gov introduced rules that therapists could only do adoption therapy if they specialised in it and registered with Ofsted.

But when it was non adoption therapy, I noticed that we were seeing people who sometimes really didn't understand disability, mental health problems.

Now I know that there will be therapists who will say it doesn't matter, that anyone should be able to bring anything to therapy. But in my experience it doesn't always work like that.

You don't want to be arguing with your therapist or having to educate them. Be aware.

The best therapy i had was with a woman who had worked previously at a special needs school. I knew this from her bio. She absolutely understood where i was coming from without me having to go into long explanations. I found her via the carers network.

I would second having caution re therapists, they're not all as good as each other and some of them can be harmful. Especially if they are not disability asd/adhd mh informed.

And I think there's something about being a carer, by choice or otherwise. I can feel quite enraged at suggestions that very much miss the point.

I mean suggestions by professionals who should know better, not friends or lay people who are trying to be supportive.

Ive posted elsewhere in a forum and the responses are so different, kind of keep trying, create a home for them, get therapy to cope - I feel really bad that what I want is legal advice to get him out, and a will that is iron clad in the event he is still here when I die and can’t claim some kind of dependency and end up with the house.

Dont feel bad. Nobody else is in your situation.
Why do you need legal advice to remove him from the house? does he have any claim to the house? If you have other children transfer the house to them already.

Because I want all of them to inherit equally. I don’t want him still here in 30 years and then making a claim for a greater part of the estate or that it’s his home.
the reality is that unless he wants to, I’m stuck with them. I can’t actually emotionally throw him out, and he isn’t functioning in anyway to live elsewhere. They also don’t want to live elsewhere they want to just stay in their room 24/7 now and avoid life.

Im confused, do you want legal advice to get him out now or only in the event of your death?

People don't understand about the will and house etc. I've decided what I'm going to do is sell my house, give my untroublesome one half and move to the arse end of nowhere and leave that house to the troublesome one.

The untroublesome one wants to buy with his girlfriend so I'm going to give him his 50% to put into that.

Then the naughty/ill one can have what i buy for myself in its entirety.

I'm lucky that my house is paid off but unlucky in that it's very cheap.

So very very much in finances, misery and attention has already gone to the naughty/ill one that I'm damned if the other one will lose out again.

OP I know you don't think you can do it, but think about social housing for your one. Otherwise you're going to crack.

I wish my one had just one friend, I'm his only contact in the whole world. I've made every suggestion under the sun and it falls on deaf ears.

The waiting time for social housing is years long particularly for a single male; I should have done it for ds years ago when advised by a friend but naively thought we’d help him ‘get there’

We came home recently to ds smoking weed in the garden-yes I know for some this is a relatively minor issue but we’ve explicitly said no drugs anywhere near the house. Plus, this is why he’s lost so many jobs. I also think he’s not properly off anything harder either.

He’s got to go, we’ve told him he’s got to go but he’s still here-despite our offers to help him. I’d really rather not chuck bin-liners full of his things on the drive & change the locks but I fear it might come to that.

I meant to add that I don’t talk about the situation to others. My close friends know the situation but that I don’t wish to discuss it. Otherwise I’m very vague-yes, he’s fine, job hunting is so difficult blah blah

That's very tough. However my experience is that no one understands anyway and actually that makes me feel even more isolated.

im like that. What’s the point, or you get helpful suggestions from well meaning people with functioning children. It’s so isolating.

@Bababear987its two separate things, how to get him out now but without literally throwing him on the street/changing the locks etc and also if he ends up being here when I’m dead how to prevent a claim against the estate for the house/a bigger share.

I sent an enquiry to a solicitor yesterday and I’ve told the others that’s what I’m doing without being explicit. More my will will be all of you and if anyone is still living here the house gets sold and you all get 1/3.

My nephew got a lovely flat from social services under the mental health team - eventually. It does take ages but what i would say is to engage with as many services as possible so you can document stuff, so there is a paper trail. It can mean calling the police if a child is violent - they will remove him and you can refuse to have them back. My sister in law did this re my nephew - he was given a room in a YMCA and then in a shared living facility and now the flat.

I know carer sessions as often during the day, but if anything looks remotely helpful I would try to go even if just once as the other carers will have so much info on local services and pathways.

Re the house, you set up a trust for his share.

My one said something to me once that gave me pause for thought. He said 'why does me being depressed make you angry? '

I would guess you are not angry about the depression, you're angry about how he behaves towards you. Carers are expected to absorb things infinitely and it is deeply.unfair and unrealistic