_75Casual Contributor
Dunno what to do
A friend of mine told me about these forums, and I thought I would highlight our struggle at the moment.
My 18 year old son has been battling serious depression for more than 4 years. At age 15 he was hospitalised for 2 weeks following several self harm attempts. At the time when we tried to get him to hospital he resisted physically which resulted in me receiving a very serious hand injury.
Since that time he has some better times but never able to shake it off. He has quit school, and couldn't stick to TAFE. He regularly sees his Psychiatrist and is on a medication plan but will not steadily take all of his tablets.
He has been recently (4 months) been drinking heavily and talking indirectly of suicide. This week my wife came home several days ago and no sign of our son, and It took more than 5 hours for him to come back home, despite driving around looking for him and the police as well.
When we talk to him about things he just says he gets angry after drinking and wants to break something. He says he doesn't really care about hurting himself and would do it again. He also says that he has an "exit strategy" and says he will end everything sometime soon, but not now.
He is very calm and matter of fact when discussing it, which is disconcerting, and repeated it again today to his doctor. He refuses to engage in therapy, regularly does not take his medication and says he doesn't care about the future or impact on his family.
We don't know what to do as he wont engage with any treatment and just seems on a downward spiral that he has already planned out.
My wife struggles significantly with it all as she has depression and possible bi-polar as well so it can really be difficult trying to help him find a way forward.
We give him all the support we can, he regularly sees his doctors but we don't know how to get him to focus on a plan to cope and survive rather than focus on his exit strategy. Just don't know what to do.
