Middle-aged son wanting to live with parents

[DogBedPillow]

I don't want to disclose my specific relationship to this, but it's close and involved. Completely clueless as to best course of action.

Autistic adult son (50. very high IQ, but struggles in lots of ways) has very problematic relationship with parents (aged 80), in which he controls and monitors them heavily. Parents have always struggled with boundaries with him. Son has lots of mental health and physical health problems, is genuinely in a bad way, and is now saying he can't care for himself any more and needs to live with parents. Parents are offering a LOT of help (financial, practical, etc - right down to organising carers, etc, if needed), but he is saying the only thing that will do is moving in with them. They are 80 with their own health problems, and really cannot cope with being live-in carers (they are already carers for him in that they drop him food, do his laundry, organise his house; he lives locally). The man says that if he can't move in with them, he will kill himself.

(NB please don't suggest getting him sectioned. This absolutely cannot and will not happen. He know exactly what to say to whom. Also please don't suggest mental health support. He has accessed everything on offer and I don't think there are ant substantial unexplored avenues).

Any advice? Please remember that how the parents view him is as their vulnerable, deeply depressed child.

I would advise the parents that moving him into their home won’t solve the problem. It might temporarily alleviate a crisis, but at best it will postpone the problem.

With him in his own home and them having a place of mental respite, they are in a better position to help him. They are also better positioned to help him now than they will be in a few years when they might be forced into care themselves. At that point he could be left floundering.

There is always the chance he will do something drastic. It won’t be their fault. All they can do is their best to help. That best is helping him stay independent or helping him find a stable group home. Moving in either them will always be temporary and they have no control over that.

It's literally never occurred to me till this thread that social services could be involved. Will consider this. Thank you.

Need to get adult social care involved and get him into some kind of supported living. Its going to be difficult though if the parents just agree to house him. Is he reslly going to kill himself or do you think this is just to play on parents? Parents need to be on board with social care.

You have nothing to lose by giving adult social care a call and say that you are asking for general advice and tell them what your concerns are. They won’t barge in but will at least speak to you. They may offer to pay them a visit, not on the onus of keeping adult son out but just to see if there if they have any care needs.

My bother kind of did this to my mum, a number of years ago and he trashed her house. He also applied for UC under her address even though she is retired and receives a pension.

It took me years to get my mum moved into a nursing home and him out of her house.
He is landed with paying a considerable sum back to DWP. Good!

You all need to leave him to his own devices. Can parents move at all to a place he does not know? Would they move into a ''retirement'' or care home? Or just leave for a few weeks and lock up - lose contact with him? He needed medical help and a restraining order. Anyone can say they will kill themselves if you don't do xyz but it is emotional blackmail even if they do.

I expect he wants to move in with them so that when they die, he can continue to live in the family home and it won't be able to be sold

Where does he live now ? He needs to stay there . Is there anyone he will listen to like social workers ? To explain to him that 80 year old people can not be Carers for him . That you were considering that they may have to move out themselves for proper care and no he can't be their Carer . And explain that if he continues to express suicidal thoughts to everyone that you will have no choice but to have SS involved and they might possibly section him or place him somewhere he has no choice in .

Threatening to kill themselves is a classic behaviour that abusive men use to control and manipulate people around them.

You could tell him to phone The Samaritans or another helpline if he feels like that, call the police for a welfare check or otherwise ignore him.

It would be a bad idea for his parents to say yes to this. I would fear for their safety and wellbeing. He needs to be assessed and placed in some sort of care home or supported living facility. Contact social services and report the safeguarding concern re your parents as well as him and his threats. You will be advised further and they will be able to offer support. Support is out there - don’t listen to the naysayers. My profession takes me close to the care sector and they do an amazing job. Don’t give up.

Bluntly, your parents aren't going to live forever and they will want to see him settled in a suitable living arrangement before they die.

Him moving in with them will delay finding the long term solution he needs.

Emphasise to him that they might only live another 5 years, and then what? Better to explore options for his long-term living arrangements now. ,(And hope he doesn't say his plan is to kill himself after your parents die.)

https://www.wearehourglass.org/action-elder-abuse-now-hourglass

@TinyBlueDent the parents have tried to do that by offering to pay for carers. He doesn't want that.

How did you guess?! That is precisely what he says he will do when they die....

Your brother is the same as my brother. My mum didn’t know what was going on.

I so wish, that my brother, my mums son, could have been in her home with her and cared for her but in his condition, it wasn’t possible.

I found the whole process very traumatic. At times I had to step back, for my own well being.

There is so much I can’t say because you don’t splay all of your life out on MN and you cannot in order to protect yourself and your family because you never know.

My mum, 80, is now in the early stages of dementia diagnosis. Consultant diagnosed her with PTSD initially. But now she is in a lovely nursing home, and she laughs and gets
taken to the seaside and I get calls telling me she is resident of the day.

It wasn’t easy but I did everything I could. @DogBedPillow you have to contact the elderly care services and don’t take no for an answer.

Speak to your parents continually, calmly with no antagonism. Don’t take your brother on. If you can get him the help he needs, do it but it most probably it is to much for you.

I feel for my brother, he does at least work, but I have to know my limits. And I have to look after my mum.

I have a brother who is agressive, depressed and sometimes suicidal. There's nothing I can do. Recently when I needed my mum, she couldn't help me because he was in a crisis. For the last few years I just kept away.
I feel some members of my family are drowning, and if I get too close they'll grab my hand and bring me underwater with them.
So I don't.

I'm so sorry that you're dealing with this @DogBedPillow. I have some understanding as I also have a relative who says that he's going to kill himself on a fairly regular basis, he's used that tactic all his life. For my own sanity, I've had to grow a hide and accept that if he chooses to do it, it's not my fault, he's an adult who makes his own decisions.

Set his threats aside and consider what's best for your parents. They're 80 with health problems and they absolutely cannot care for him. I agree with PP's that getting Adult Social Care involved might be a good move as it'll mean that other people will be keeping an eye on the situation. He's already being controlling with technology, etc. and it'll only increase if he moves in.

Remember, a person can be mentally ill AND v. selfish/manipulative, the two aren't mutually exclusive.

Sectioning “this absolutely cannot and will not happen”
why??????
it sounds a distinct possibility to me
phone adult social care tomrorow and get some urgent advice

Social Care is a must and it will be difficult to actually highlight severity of the situation but you must do it to safeguard your parents - this how I would approach it. Yes, he is vulnerable but at this point you parents struggle and this is unhealthy dynamic whereby they are coerced into doing something. You need to explain your concerns re you parent's emotional, mental, physical and financial wellbeing. truth is noone on this triangle is able to meet his needs.

OP, neither of my DPs made it to 80, and at that age, there is a serious risk of some debilitating health condition that would leave your parents utterly unable to look after their son, even supposing they are able to now. Someone needs to explain to the autistic son that it’s simply not feasible for him to move in with his elderly parents, and that as time goes on, in the natural order of things, he needs to be living somewhere safe for him so that if his parents need to, say, go into care, he is not left homeless. It’s really not fair for him to threaten suicide if he doesn’t get his own way, and he needs to be made to understand this. If he is depressed, he needs to see a doctor and to be put on medication. It seems that all the adults in this triangle are vulnerable, and it is a situation that needs the intervention of outside agencies to be able to find a solution.

Tbh this is going to sound callous because I love my sister (who is autistic) but the worst thing that ever happened was my sister quitting her job during Covid and she is completely dependant on my mum. She won’t go out for food shopping, she just orders in. Won’t get a job. Has completely, totally regressed. I’m aware that this will be something we will have to deal with in the future as siblings now because she is totally not independent and won’t ever be. If you are not yet in this situation, I would fight this with everything I had, I think it would in actuality be awful for your brother as much as it would your folks. BTW my sister also makes the same threats which makes it impossible to expect progress and makes us all feel guilty for feeling terrified of what the future holds for us.

Making threats of suicide like this is abusive and manipulative behaviour in keeping with his other controlling behaviours. It is not typical of autism, and is a sign of an abusive personality. The parents in this situation are at great risk of elder abuse if they let him
move in. I would do whatever I could to discourage it. You may want to call an elder abuse hotline for more advice.

Definitely Adult Social Services and supported accommodation for your brother. Your parents are vulnerable. SS will have seen this scenario many times before and be able to advise on which routes are best for all involved.

They won’t be.

Why? Because both your parents have full capacity (unless you have omitted something?)
and you say you brother genuinely does have needs.

This is simply aging parents wanting to support their son. The fact that it likely isn’t going to go well…. Is not something that social services would get involved with UNLESS the shit hits the fan ie both parents lose capacity and there’s evidence of abuse

It won’t. Not even close.

These threads are so frustrating. Loads of posters with absolutely no experience and not involved in this at all in real life speaking so definitively

OP, don’t waste your time with SS simply because they won’t get involved with something that might go wrong when your parents have full capacity.

Instead just keep a close eye on what’s going on and be there for your parents. It is all you can do

Unfair to make the op responsible for stopping it happening or suggest that she can. That’s not on.