Help please at the end of my tether with 18 year old ds

[Benji13]

It’s 5am I’ve been awake half the night and just don’t know what to do.
It’s a long story so I’ll try to summarise. Ds was 18 in October and is in 6th form college. He’s a naturally lazy kid but very bright and funny. He’s always been super laid back until about 2 years ago when he was doing his GCSEs and got quite stressed. He did little revision but aced them due to his ability.
He started 6th form,made some good new friends and seemed to settle.
After a few months it became clear he was not enjoying it and had little motivation. He also became very low. We have tried to talk to him but he insisted he wanted to carry on at college.
Any how he went back in September to his final A level year and it’s been a disaster. He has been diagnosed with moderate depression and is in citalapram, has weekly counselling (which we pay for) and has had time off college. College have been supportive. We have told him to just drop out that college can come later to do what’s right for him. No pressure. He’s insisted he wants to carry on there and has been going since jan again. College called yesterday he’s prob been to 50 % of lessons since jan. Thry are not happy. He’s supposed to go to weekly pastoral meetings but has not turned up to any.. we thought he was at college all the time. Where is he going? We are both at work in the week working hard.
I feel so bloody angry. We’ve done everything in our gift for the last few months as we have been terrified. His suicidal threats have been awful
We are constantly doling out money to him so he can keep socialising. I’ve been giving him driving lessons money but really do think he no longer has them but says he does, taking my money . I have found weed paraphernalia which he just denies. Rules are bent such as tonight he played a gig ( he’s in a band) and I said no mates to come back here and crash as I don’t feel very well and at 4.30 this morning back they have all come. I’m fuming. They are banging about drunk.
Dh and I are truly at a loss. We need to have a sit down and serious talk but we are scared of tipping him over the edge. His counsellor has told me he is no longer ‘in crisis ‘ in her view but needs a lot of work in his self esteem.
All his mates are studying and applying to uni. They will be gone in September.
I think he is totally lost. He says he just thinks what’s the point.
I just don’t know what to do. It breaks my heart. It also massively hurts that we is using us. We have an older ds who is working, been to uni. Wasn’t perfect but nothing like this.
I just don’t know how to play this out. When yr child is depressed there is help for them but nothing to help parents through the mire!

I don’t have any answers,as my 17 year old is similar. Not quite so depressed but bumping along the bottom for his A levels and spending too much time out and about, I suspect drinking and smoking weed. I’m at my wits end too.

Smoking weed causes low motivation at college. It also causes depression. Irs likely to be the root of all his issues. What you do about that is difficult to know.
But bringing back a drunken gang to your home at 4am is totally off. But then weed leads to selfishness too. Maybe access some counselling yourself to get some wisdom on the situation.
But tomorrow morning l would not be pussy footing around him about his friends. Depression or no depression he has to have consideration.

Career guidance and/or life coach /counsellor - to find something he might have a smidgen of interest in to give him a focus for the future. Would any one give him some work experience, a relative or friend? At weekends, evenings, not instead of college.

June I keep telling mine that weed is at the root of his problems and that at his age it’s going to really affect his brain development, but he’s so convinced that I’m being over anxious and that it’s fine really. He’s now lying to me and telling me he doesn’t smoke it at all,as I’ve stopped his allowance before as I wasn’t going to pay for him to throw his life down the toilet and he does love money and is too idle to get a job, so that’s the last thing he wants to happen again. I know he’s still smoking it though as I was looking for a lighter to light a candle and he just happened to have one in his pocket.

So I’m packing mine off with his older brother to do a sport they both like today and I’m going to fill him with vegetables in the vain hope that diet and exercise will help his depression.

I don’t want to medicalise a low mood that is caused by no exercise, staying up too late, endless video games and a diet made entirely of KFC, supernoodles and weed. Mine is fairly amenable to discussion about this, but it is so hard to get him to change without destroying his already fragile self-esteem. Parenting this age is really tricky.

He needs to be motivated and to do that he needs to see the future. Foundation courses will allow him to access a degree without good a levels even at top universities, but I highly recommend a gap year working - we insisted that dd got a job and a year working in mc d's did her the world of good, she is also on antidepressants and missed a lot of school from age 10 upwards. She scraped high enough grades to get into our local university (some strings pulled I suspect as we knew the admissions tutor) and is really happy.

Thanks so much for the replies. It helps to know we are not on our own.
anniehm yes we think a gap year will help him grow up. Earn his own money and take responsibility. There’s a lot of growing up to be done.
The weed is a real worry - I know lots of kids are doing it these dats but I really do wonder if it’s exacerbated, even caused a lot of this. How we stop it I don’t know. I really do think all the money we dish our will have to stop. This will mean telling well meaning grandparents to stop as well.
I really need to calm down before we talk later today. Hard as I am prone to flying off the handle 😩
I am worn out with all this I really am. Life feels on hold and spinning out of control- and the menopause isn’t helping!!

The hardest part is not flying off the handle. Trying to walk that fine line between listening, so they will talk to you and yet getting them to listen to you in turn without shrieking with frustration is the hardest thing.

I think there are more of us in this situation that we realise. DS got kicked out of 6th form before xmas, as is supposed to be studying at home for his A Levels in the summer, but the less he needs to do, the less he does.

I am worried sick, and whilst weed is very definately a problem, I don't think it is the cause in his case. Low self esteem, etc led to the smoking, but counselling didn't seem to work for him.

I worry all the time as he is a danger to himself.

I'm going through similar, DD was 18 in December, had told her sister that she's giving up a levels, hasn't been home for weeks, just pops in when I'm at work, didn't turn up for dinner today for mother's Day, no text. I'm trying to be understanding but devastated with her out of character behaviour

I don’t have any answers,as my 17 year old is similar. Not quite so depressed but bumping along the bottom for his A levels and spending too much time out and about, I suspect drinking and smoking weed. I’m at my wits end too.

I couldhave writtenthis exact post.

Oh and fighting with is sister.

His not is

My almost 17 year-old is bright but lazy and just resitting his GCSE maths and English. He is doing little work and no revision with only 8 weeks or so left in college. I try to make him see that if he passes this time he will have many more choices what he does next.
I suspect he may be smoking weed as he seems really tired lately .

I just wanted to pop up and say something after reading comfycoss comment from 31/3.

I only have small kids at the moment so no advice, but hopefully some words of comfort. I basically was comfycoss kid at that age. Just a dickhead. No motivation, no common sense, self absorbed and a twat. Didn’t treat sixth form with the respect it deserved. Drank a dangerous amount too often and was just, yeah, a knob. Didn’t think twice about my parents who were nothing but loving, supportive and kind- even what I was awful to them.

20 years later and I did go to uni, I’ve had a successful career and I’ve got kids of my own now in a happy marriage and I quake in my boots at the idea of them being the level of arsehole I was. I only hope if they are that I deal with it as well as you lot are and my parents did.

Thinking of you all.

This sounds very like my DB who had an episode of cannabis enduced psychosis in his mid 20s and has never worked since. I was also wayward in my first year of college and made it to Uni etc.

He needed guidance, structure and discipline not more freedom or money.

This is a really tough time. Please don't compare your children to each other. This is not a failing on your part.

I would sit him down and have a chat. I have found it really helpful in difficult situations to have a set of questions.

Can he describe what has been going om?
Who does he think this is affecting and how?
What do you think and feel?
What is the most difficult thing here for you?
What could he do to improve things?
What do you need?

Talk about what he wants to do with his future.

It does matter if he messes this year up. However there are options. I retook the year to improve my grades. He could change courses and do something vocational. Far better you guide him so he has something he can fall back on, if mental health is going to blight him in life.

Here are some links to talking to your child about drugs.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/talking-about-drugs-with-your-child/

www.nhs.uk/live-well/healthy-body/cannabis-the-facts/

I think the main message is that cannabis can cause mental health problems. Risk of addiction is higher in teens. There are more stronger types of cannabis in circulation today. It can affect fertility etc.

If he wants to stop a trip CBT is probably the best bet. This link has more information and treatment options.

www.ukat.co.uk/drugs/cannabis/

Not only would he get a dopamine hit from drugs, he would also get a dopamine hit from being with these so-called mates. He now needs to be checking in with you daily, contributing around the house. I would stop giving him any physical money whatsoever, or the bare minimum. Travel tickets can be bought in advance. Lunches can be made beforehand. Stop the driving lesson money. These can be purchased directly. Gifts from relatives are okay, not money. Any extra for him has to come from him getting a part time job.

It sounds like he has you on egg shells but as the counsellor says he is no longer in crisis, I think that is fine. Keep the counselling going while you take a firmer stance. He can moan to them.

Please know there is no shame in this.

With regards self-esteem, this is a really tough time for him. Open lines of communication, rather than criticism. Encouraging him to look after himself, maybe he could cook for everyone at home once a week? Tell him six positive things for every negative one.