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.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately oddly enough.

No not OCD or bipolar. Often on the autistic spectrum.

I do like what someone said about being pleased to see their child. It’s just so tense, I’m going to try, like others, to look pleased to be near them.

Be careful not to look too pleased or you'll be accused of taking the piss 😂

😁 first laugh for a couple of days

Well, I'm having a shit day today despite my best intentions. Apparently I burp near windows and have a window obsession and I do this deliberately to isolate him.

It’s rubbish isn’t it, you start doubting yourself all the time.

I know! It’s such a bloody fine line. I usually try and make my face light up but keep a quietish voice and say something “hello Darling”.

You burp near windows? That would be hilarious if it wasn’t for the fact that they’re struggling so much. I’m sure adult DC who have left home have no idea how much their DM’s are burping or even where

My other non gastric faults are that I'm completely blind and deaf and to compensate for this my sense of smell is over developed. I'm typing with my nose.

Oh @Dogaredabombits bloody awful isn’t it. I feel so guilty about the amount of resentment I have and how messed up I feel by all the accusations.
currently listening to the tap running as he washes his hands endlessly while my water bill goes up. Runs between the loo and the tiny en-suite using all the hand wash and the water. Boiling, just minutes on end of it pouring down the sink. I get told to F off and he starts all over again if I say anything. I’ve tried to say it costs money and it’s very stressful but they don’t care/can’t stop.

That sounds incredibly stressful. He needs to go to the doctors without delay. I think you’re going to have to play really hard ball. You go
to the doctor with me. I make the appointment and sit with you helping explain. Or he’s out . Tell him he’ll have to go to a homeless hostel.

Turn the WiFi off, turn off the hot water. Don’t buy him food, whatever will hit hardest .

Do you have a DC that often threatens to kill themselves @Incrediblysad? I’m just wondering if your advice worked in your situation?

Can you write an email to the doctors? You are allowed to do this, and send it so that someone sees how bad this situation actually is. It may well be that at some point he is sectioned. You become so used to this being your “normal” that all sense of what’s really normal becomes obscured. You need urgent help, you shouldn’t be shouldering this alone. Call a mental health crisis line if you need to.

@massivestress@Octavia64@PoppySaidYesIKnow& @Incrediblysad

Just thinking about you all. Sorry if I’ve missed anyone out who is going through this with their DC

I did both of these things. I got no reply at all from the doctor. I went in about something else weeks later and asked her if she’d read my letter. She angrily responded ‘what do you expect me to do about it’.
Crisis team came out once and did an assessment. Nothing else, no follow up. I gave up in the end. All my son got was a few weeks of CBT.

Gawd, I have just stumbled on this thread. I have my own failure to launch and it’s been hell. Mine is 23 nearly 24. Has nearly completed a degree, but with a failed first year at a different uni and a return home every year at the second uni which happened earlier and earlier in the term. Diagnosed with ADHD and autism at 19. BPD has been mentioned. Also has sleep apnoea. 🤦🏻‍♀️
Drinking has been an issue since 18 and first suicide attempt a few weeks before leaving for uni at 18.
September 2024 it became really apparent that the drinking was really serious. Boxing Day 2024 was a disappearance and serious suicide attempt, police. January 2025 the same. We did an alcohol reduction with him then and he was in a better place by March. Then it went out the window. Suicide attempt after suicide attempt, drinking. Ugh. The stories I could tell.
He and we pleaded for him to be sectioned and they refused. We had to keep feeding him alcohol until a detox place could be arranged so that was from August 2025 until March 2026. He is currently sober but has had the most serious suicide attempt yet after becoming sober. Still recovering from that one.
No friends, no hobbies apart from sitting in the dark online. House has been trashed and it stinks. He does nothing.
we moved him out last July into a flat. He managed 3 weeks before jumping in a river, getting in the bath with a toaster and going on a massive bender. Been back here since and we are still paying for the flat.
He is having DPD counselling and there are some fragments of change but partner and I are now both medicated after both becoming suicidal.
the pills, chiropractor and reflexologist we both see are keeping us alive. I have no hope that things will improve.
sending best wishes to all of you in the same boat

I k have no words of wisdom to offer you @Hellodarknes55but you do have my utter sympathy. Hopefully you can find some support in this thread

Oh my goodness how absolutely awful. I know what this is like. It absolutely destroys your life.

It really does take over your life. So many families in absolute crisis and the support is woeful.

This is a good idea actually. Thank you.

@Hellodarknes55 thank you for sharing, it’s so rubbish feeling so isolated maybe we can all draw some solidarity from each other. I’m so sorry you are dealing with it all, and the impact on us as parents is just not acknowledged anywhere.
@Incrediblysadim sorry your GP was useless, i will still think about contacting them but maybe lower my expectations

I’d be looking to utilise the private psych to prescribe medication for his ocd and depression that are resulting from his autism/audhd as a start. He probably has demand avoidance, rejection dysmorphia and paranoia too and there’s definite executive dysfunction alongside. There’s a fb page called sunflower parenting support that is full of mums like you/us and there’s a wealth of knowledge and experience on this. Don’t take any of it personally, take away demands and let him recover from his burnout, definitely stop shouting at him and figure out what style of communication suits him. Build his confidence in slow steps, figure out his triggers and help him cope better by putting strategies in place. The lack of alone time will be causing social burnout. All this is very common and your parenting is paramount to his recovery. I drive miles with my daughter, sometimes in silence but often she yaps away about how she feels and we figure things out. He needs you op, he’s not having a good time either.

Warmest wishes to all on this thread. It is so dire, and you/we are showing such grit, courage and love, in the hardest of situations.

One of the things I read when DS was a teenager spoke of the importance of modelling hope, ie ourselves as parents saying calmly to them, 'It won't always be like this.' Of course it works much better for things like teenage heartache than situations like this, but I am reminded of it again. One of the things I find so hard now is that the external triggers to leap on possible hope, eg start of term, start of holidays, etc have gone, and my self-manufactured attempts, 'Look the days are getting warmer' don't work very well. But since this thread I have restarted saying with calm confidence, even if I have no idea if it is true or not, things like, 'Look I can see how hard it is for you. I love you dearly. It seems to me that x and y are going a bit better this week. This is progress. It won't always be like this.' I do believe that being seen, having your experiences reflected back to you, can be profoundly healing in general, have no idea if it carries over to situations like this, but what do I have to lose?

I've been thinking about the earlier posters point about looking happy to see them, and remembering from earlier parenting stages the importance of catching them being good at something so to have something to praise. I have been trying this for a few days, trying to be calmer and more accepting/not pushy and, together with the good weather and new meds, it does seem to be having a tiny difference. DS is out of his room more (which is a mixed blessing but hey ho), and engaging more with me (on conspiracy theories but again, hey ho.) I've started writing down the small things which are happening which are helpful and better than the worst of his spells, and a bit like a gratitude journal, that has helped me to relax a bit and see a tiny bit of movement. E.g. he is now eating, he is now sleeping somewhat, he is now taking meds (with much pushing). Sometimes he washes. He is no longer actively suicidal.

Again thanks to some of the posters on the thread I've tried to reframe my attitude to the conspiracy theories. I do find them profoundly upsetting (and can't help feeling them a reflection on my parenting), but also wonder if my DS is using them a bit like when a teenager to push away from me/my beliefs. So rather than my kneejerk response of lighting the touchpaper and shouting, I am now trying to listen, sometimes watch some of the videos he shows me, and discuss them calmly. eg 'Yes I understand you're worried about x and y, but the influencer does a wild leap here to a and b. From my perspective I'd think its more about c and d, and of course we know people A and B who prove that isn't so.' Of course for this to work I need to be calm and not too triggered, so I'm also trying to withdraw more explicitly to my bedroom when its all too much, but saying calmly that I find it wildly upsetting, rather than shouting 'Someone with these views isn't welcome in this house' which was the previous version...

Have been hoping to find things which we could do together as learners, if I could ever get him out of the house. As a first step getting DS to bring some of his music downstairs and we are singing and dancing together too it. I did customer service training a long time ago, where they said that putting a pencil in your mouth before a difficult call (take it out again first), makes you sound smily and tricks the brain a bit. So maybe us singing and dancing together can trick the brain that things are a bit more positive, and it certainly gets him more activated than the conspiracy theories. Again what do I know, but wanted to share my flailings, and renewed small signs of hope thanks to the grounded, insightful, fellow sharing on this thread, in case they might help others.

What a great post.