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I know someone who went through this for years before she had to cut the child loose in order to maintain her own sanity. This was after years of drama involving police, hospitalizations, good halfway house situations that the child left. Much strain on the whole family including the siblings.
There is no mechanism in place to ensure that a mentally ill person remains on meds unless in an institutional setting. If my friend's child would had remained on her medication, her family would have supported her in every way as she would have been amenable to receiving their help.
Thank you all so much! I've honestly spent most of my adult life, with this mindset that the only "right" thing was to be willing to sacrifice everything if necessary for my kids. Well, that was instinctive when they were little. It feels different now....but the fact that I am not as...what, dedicated?...as I was when they were toddlers is making me ask myself if I am a terrible woman/mother/person. It is a lot. One of these days I hope I've got the "spoons" so to speak, to get my own self into therapy.
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Originally Posted by NCviaMD
What was going on in his life when this behavior started?
Honestly not that relevant a question. The things going on in his life are not things that millions of others don't cope with every day. Like his father and I divorcing, his dad being a jerk and somewhat abusive at times back then, those things suck and his feelings about them are valid, but millions of people survive this and worse things without having a psychotic break from reality and so on...there is more to it, and while he's getting therapy to process the "what happened" part, it doesn't matter if his brain is at war with itself. Which frankly, the way that he rants on and on for hours and sometimes makes no sense reminds me of how his Dad used to act when he was really stressed. I think that whatever the deal is with their brain chemistry, it's similar for them both. I don't think his Dad is on meds though (could be but he doesn't tell me such things) and while he doesn't cope well with life, he copes. I mean, he's in his 50s and lives with his old Army buddy and can't hold down a job...but he's not homeless or in jail. And he had years where he was a lot more functional. The military was the only environment where he could really thrive for a while, though, six whole years at one stretch...wish my son were a candidate for that sometimes, but I doubt it. He's got physical health issues on top of the mental ones, I'm not sure they'd waiver all of this and take him. He sometimes tells us he's going to join the Marines. I doubt it. But I can't argue with him, because in five minutes he'll tell me he is a prophet and the Antichrist.
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Originally Posted by E-Twist
Can he qualify for social security disability?
I think you owe it to your husband to keep your end of the bargain regarding his father. And perhaps in time it will be possible to persuade the father to move. It's probably more likely than you being able to help your son.
Obviously you want to help your son, but I doubt it's possible. Maybe it would help for him to hit bottom, so to speak. Is there someone specializing in your son's form of mental illness that could advise you?
Staying for your son is saying he is more important than your marriage. Are you willing to risk losing your husband to your son's illness? Will staying another year make your son get it together or will you be taking care or him when he's 30, 40, 50? I think it's a matter of looking at what is most realistic. You should not feel guilty about wanting some happiness for yourself.
From what I've read, to get Social Security Disability, you have to have actually worked a while and then become disabled. Paid into social security. My son has worked a grand total of something like 4 months between two minimum wage jobs, so I don't think he can get that. There is another kind of disability I think, but again these benefits seem really hard to get and hard to keep. So he'd first have to go through the whole paperwork rigmarole and then probably recertify periodically, he'd have to make sure and stay poor enough to keep his benefits (like I think you're never allowed to have $2,000 at one time, and around here that's like...rent and utilities?...) and never be allowed to get married, all that kind of thing. America is really not kind to those who need help to live.
I dunno, I think that if he can commit to helping himself and stay on meds, which maybe with more maturity and consequences behind him he might one day, he could probably work a steady job and survive. Until then, he's probably going to bounce around a lot like his Dad does, sell his belongings to make rent, beg/borrow/bum money, etc.
And I hear you about my marriage. That's part of the weight of all this, it's not only my kid and it's not only me. It's protecting others from the effects of his bad behavior...protecting my husband and my marriage, protecting my other son from having to deal with his brother, worrying about my son getting with women and being abusive to them. Which has already happened once and will happen again, he is a good looking young man and he can be charming when he wants to be. But I can't keep him in a bubble, not unless I get him ruled incompetent and get legal guardianship over him, which would be a battle I'm not even sure I can win, and would set me up to deal with him for the rest of my life...likely at the expense of my marriage and definitely at the expense of my happiness.
So... Yeah. It feels like a losing battle and I suppose I'm just trying to suss out how far my moral obligations take me with it.
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Originally Posted by Frostnip
I don't have good advice at how to navigate the interpersonal ins and outs of the situation, nor of conflicting obligations. But you need to put some of this into the hands of trained professionals, both for your own well-being and your son's best interests. Spread out the workload, both practical and emotional. This is a situation that really calls for a social worker, probably a disability case manager. They'll know what resources are available and how to access them.
Definitely a good idea. Thank you. Will look into this.
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Originally Posted by chiluvr1228
My son is now 33 and still doing nothing with his life. He receives Social Security Disability due to depression, anxiety and agoraphobia. He's on numerous meds. He's also had two bad motorcycle accidents so now he's even more disabled but unfortunately his SSDI payments aren't enough for him to live on anywhere in this country. He moves back in with me periodically. He has a heart of gold but always makes the wrong decision. Right now he's back along with his girlfriend because she lost her house.
The stress having them both here is causing me to have anxiety attacks and heart palpitations to the point where my doctor put me on a 24 hour Holter monitor and I have to have an echocardiogram next week. At least the girlfriend is a big help around the house but she has OCD and ADHD and that alone causes me stress.
As a mother you want to help your child but at what cost to yourself or, in your case, your relationship with your husband?
Are there any social programs for your son or halfway house type places where he could live? Sonic, I feel for you, I truly do. As for your husband's father: I get so mad when old people expect their children to disrupt their entire lives to take care of them. He should be moving to where you guys live, not expect you to move there but that is a whole another subject.
Wow. That is a lot. I feel for you, too.
I don't think that there are any medium to long term residential solutions for my son, but I am going to try and reach out and find resources for him before I move next year. Thing about my father in law, is that he does not expect us to go down there, he is actually another person who needs help but doesn't especially want it...it's his pride, but sometimes he can admit that maybe it's a good idea. I guess he figured he'd just hang in there until one day he falls over. But his issues are physical, he cannot really travel. Moving him would be a lot harder than just us moving down there for some few years, however many it ends up being. He's in his late 80s. There is an estate that will need to be settled including storage units in two cities, it's going to be a lot of work that has to be done eventually, too. But I knew about this, more or less, when my husband and I first got together. So back then, I did not realize that my son was going to have problems this severe, it seemed reasonable that I'd get my boys raised and out on their own and then plan to go to Arizona for a while.
And to be honest, when my son pushes me away and says he doesn't want my help, and when he insists that this is just who he is, that the meds do nothing, that it is too late and we all need to just give him his freedom, that he is "not crazy" (that's not really a word I use towards him but whatever) and we are all gaslighting him... When I look at how many times I've stepped in the path and kept him from bearing the full weight of the consequences of his actions.... I don't want to always have to save him. I'm not sure that it's good for him when I do. I don't know if the sacrifices I make are even a good thing at all. And I think maybe it's better if I go, and he's forced to "hit bottom" and figure it out.
But.
He's so young. And he seems so vulnerable, dammit. And no Mom wants to just let their kid suffer. So wow is it ever hard to know what to do. I feel like somewhere, there is a boundary. There is a compromise point where things can work as well as they're gonna. I just can't quite see it clearly.
I feel for you. It sounds like your son takes after his father. Has his father changed? Think deep down, do you know where your son is heading. Do you really think your son can change? You have the best intentions, but is that enough to possibly ruin the rest of your life?
I understand that this is your son, but, I believe you have a right to happiness with your current husband.
I feel like somewhere, there is a boundary. There is a compromise point where things can work as well as they're gonna. I just can't quite see it clearly.
I think you're exactly right. There is a boundary somewhere and you will find it eventually - things will become clearer to you and you'll know either when you've done as much as you can, or where to draw a line on what you can/will do and no more. I feel for you too. It's so hard to draw a line when it's your own child. But sometimes that's the only thing to do for your own sanity.
I have a daughter with schizoaffective disorder. She had a psychotic break when she was 12, and the next few years was a roller coaster of doctors, drugs, hospitalizations and despair. She eventually got stable on her meds. I applied for SSI for her, and that took a couple of years and fighting but she was finally approved. Until then, I had to pay for everything out of my pocket.
In her early twenties, she decided she was going to live a "normal" life, and set out to make that happen. She met a man online who also has schizoaffective disorder. They have been married for twelve years now, and have a ten year old daughter, own a home, and are active members of their community.
It's true that it's difficult to get SSI based on a mental illness, but it is possible, and this would take a lot of the pressure off of you. Once he gets a good combination of meds, and receives decent mental health care, he could surprise you. He might be able to find housing with other folks with mental issues.
As far as becoming a caretaker for your father-in-law, this seems to be a commitment that you made and it's important to you that you honor it. You may have to take your son with you if he isn't able to be on his own. Maybe he could help with the caretaking responsibilities.
I feel for you my friend. This is a painful, scary and exhausting position to be in, but there is hope for your son. When my daughter first got sick, I couldn't have imagined how great her life turned out.
And maybe what I am looking for is a way to compromise, a middle ground....between "cut him loose" and "deal with him forever." The other problem is, I really do need to move, it's going to be that or be parted from my husband for years. He has to care for his father, his father won't leave where he is at, we have to go to him. So I leave my son, or I take him with me next year. What if he doesn't want to go? Hell, I really do not want to take him, honestly.
And besides that I'm not sure if I can afford a place big enough for him to live with us, housing is very costly where we're going. And my husband wants to retire. I don't know if we can manage our finances if we're continuing to pay for my son's needs...it's a lot of moving parts.
I am so sorry you are going through this.
A few thoughts... Right now your family is facing two potential caregiving burdens--your son and your husband's father. Paramount is making sure that while you may be willing to provide some level of caregiving for both of these men, it doesn't take over your lives. Just like your sons wants may not all be met, your FIL's might not all be met either. Maybe he needs to move to be near where you are now if the COL is lower. Maybe as another poster suggested, your son could help with caregiving.
-I worry about your older son. If you pick up and move to a new city, is your younger son realistically going to be stable enough to hold down a full time job and pay his rent? Or is he going to have the same issues he's having in community college and soon wind up homeless and on drugs, showing up at his older brother's door demanding to be housed and supported? Is his brother going to be the one dealing with the ER visits and mental health holds rather than you? Will this cause feelings of anger for your older son if he feels like you have prioritized your new husband's family but dumped his brother and his many issues on him? Before I left town, I would try to make sure younger son had a safety net (income, food stamps, Medicaid, etc) so older son wasn't impacted.
-In order to save money, I would prioritize things that may help get your son's mental health in a more stable place. I would pay for medical care for now in the hopes that they can find the right meds to get him stabilized. I would start helping him look for rooms to rent. I would encourage him to find a full time min. wage job. If you are paying for lots of "extras" and that is eating into your budget (his cell phone, car, car insurance, credit card, monthly allowance) I would consider whether it's time to stop because if you're out of the picture, that's all going to disappear anyway, right? Might be good for him to get motivated to start work and pay for some of these things, or get in the habit of taking public transportation now, while he still has the safety net of living at home.
-Another poster had a good suggestion that he needed to start the process of applying for SSI. I would also look into Medicaid and food stamps and be persistent as sometimes it takes several denials before eventual approval.
Last edited by kitkatbar; 12-18-2020 at 10:32 AM..
I know someone who went through this for years before she had to cut the child loose in order to maintain her own sanity. This was after years of drama involving police, hospitalizations, good halfway house situations that the child left. Much strain on the whole family including the siblings.
There is no mechanism in place to ensure that a mentally ill person remains on meds unless in an institutional setting. If my friend's child would had remained on her medication, her family would have supported her in every way as she would have been amenable to receiving their help.
This is pretty much the exact story of my friend's situation with her mentally ill adult son. No one was really sure if his MI started due to drug use, or if it was just how his brain changed over time. He went 5150 to the hospital several times because he wouldn't stay on his meds. He was arrested multiple times and she would bail him out and try to get him back on meds again, just to have the cycle start over and over again. Eventually when he was in jail yet again, the jail wasn't giving him his meds and he ended up doing violence to another guy in jail and he was shipped off by the authorities to an inpatient lockdown facility for several years. Several times the state has tried to send him to a halfway house, but it hasn't worked well and he ends up back in lockdown. It seems he will be an inpatient forever. His mom had to eventually separate herself from it all at the insistence of her own therapist. She had so much anxiety and fear of her own son's violence that she had to estrange herself to save her own health and sanity, and to protect her daughter.
I'm so sorry Sonic_S that you're in this dilemma. I don't see a happy ending in the short term unless you are willing to do some sort of tough love move. I would work with a social worker and his mental health professionals to develop some sort of plan to find him independent living with some sort of supervision, like a halfway house with full-time mental health staffing. This is beyond your capabilities to solve on your own, and you risk EVERYTHING (your marriage, your health, your mental health, your finances) trying to manage this. How will you help him when you are alone, broke, and filled with fear and anxiety? If you are looking for someone to tell you it's okay to step back and say this is too much, IT'S OKAY. You need to make a deal with your husband to say that you need a finite amount of time to find a resolution that allows you to reluctantly walk away and move forward in your own life. Stay in loving contact with your son as best as you can, but you cannot resolve his issues with any amount of parenting, so giving up your own life for this cause is not realistic. You aren't abandoning him if you turn over his care to the professionals.
It is NOT selfish to make sure that Number 1 is taken care of first. Without a healthy YOU, there can be no assistance to anyone else. Healthy includes both mental and physical.
At some point there may be things which are no longer within your capability, as much as you might wish to help.
Schizophrenia is a brain disorder that occurs usually sometime between the teen years and usually before age 30. It’s sometimes called the disease of thirds because a third will have one episode and then be fine, a third will be chronically severely mentally ill and a third will be able to function with medication and support. I went to graduate school a long time ago and am retired so this could be outdated information. It’s definitely not a matter of motivation so don’t let anyone tell you that. Depending on how much help he needs a group home might be appropriate. He should apply for SSI. You could leave him on your insurance and quit paying the remainder of his medical bills. Since he wants to try working he should apply to the Department or Bureau of Vocational Rehabilitation for assistance. It’s free paid for by our taxes. Their goal is to help people with disabilities achieve employment and provide other services to help the client be successful. It’s a federal program that is operated by each state and the funding comes from both sources. I spent my career working for this agency. Teaching has been my retirement gig.
From what I've read, to get Social Security Disability, you have to have actually worked a while and then become disabled. Paid into social security. My son has worked a grand total of something like 4 months between two minimum wage jobs, so I don't think he can get that. There is another kind of disability I think, but again these benefits seem really hard to get and hard to keep. So he'd first have to go through the whole paperwork rigmarole and then probably recertify periodically, he'd have to make sure and stay poor enough to keep his benefits (like I think you're never allowed to have $2,000 at one time, and around here that's like...rent and utilities?...) and never be allowed to get married, all that kind of thing. America is really not kind to those who need help to live.
SSDI is for people who worked then became disabled, SSI is for disabled people of limited means. The initial process is pretty rigorous, but I don't think it's quite as bad as you've heard to maintain it afterward. There are some workarounds with regard to the savings - there are certain trusts and savings accounts that don't count against SSI. Also, you can go over $2,000 in checking limit temporarily - say, after getting paid but before paying rent and utilities - the balance just has to be back down under $2,000 by the last day of the month.
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