A mother who doesn't know what to do to help!

I won't repeat the issues I have as the mother of a son with a MI because there are on the carers forum.

In my quest to find some answers I thought that I would post to this forum in the hope of finding other help. I feel ????????? (I don't know the right word) because I am searching and searching for an answer or something to help and yet I know that that answer or help probably doesn't exist.

As people who have read my previous messages will know I am searching for the right way to help my son. His issues have been over a long period of years, managed by help of a psychiatrist and doctor and sometimes the occasional visit to a psychologist.

At the moment he is having a bad reaction to his main medication, but the syptoms of coming off are bad so he doesn't know what to do.

He doesn't see a counsellor anymore as the one he really connected with and who was some help charges an arm and a leg and he just can't afford it. The ones he could see on Medicare - well over a period of 20 years, he has not found anyone that he can really relate to and he just feels he cannot keep going to people who ask him what he calls 'the same banal questions' all the time. He wants help but feels he is not getting it.

He works - the only thing that keeps him going, but I am also concerned that if things continue that may also suffer. Most of the time I feel I would like him to give up work and come home and rest and get better - but I know that is only the desperate mother in me searching for an answer. Even if in a low moment he said yes I know it would not work as his work is what sustains him. Also no work no money - and he loses the things he is paying for as we cannot take over repayments for his car etc.

I cannot bear to hear him in pain - well yes I can because there is no alternative! He has no friends (due to his nature or MI? I'm sure his MI has affected his attitude etc) so I listen to it all.

I am lost, along and don't know what to do or suggest or........ and if I feel like this - what about him?

I need help in coping so that I can help him. I need help in helping him. I feel absolutely lost because of my totally inability not necessarily to solve the problem but to help.

Some of my lack of ability to help comes down to the distance we are apart, some to money - or lack of it. He says he is over 40 and should be able to cope with these things on his own. But I know that trying to cope with issues on your own is hard. At other times he will say - if only he had someone waiting at home for him (a partner) who he could talk to about his problems.

He is lonely, but I am sure his mood swings and some of his thoughts have been influenced by his MI. At heart he is a good person.

He no longer sees grey's - just black and white ie I helped this person, they don't help me in the same way so I am having nothing to do with them - and he doesn't back away slowly, he will tell them his thinking quite forcefully. Some people walk away, some fight back (verbally) - and there is another friendship gone. Because of this attitude he is also estranged from his siblings. He also never forgets a hurt, intended or not. Although in his current condition every hurt going back to childhood was intended.

He is caring - he told me the other day that I deserved better than having to put up with him and his issues for the past 40 ears.

I get so down, but I know that this is all based on how he is. If he rings and is having a good day - well I am on cloud nine. But if he is down it can put me off my food.

How do other mothers and fathers help their children. Surely there has to be something other than 'being there for them'.