28yo Son suffering bipolar disorder

I have been reading some of your stories about your battles and must say I am humbled by the strength shown by all of you on some of the issues you face, often alone. This has prompted me to write here probably more so to vent my own problems with my son. I am a 56yo man with an amazing wife and 3 beautiful children, a 30yo daughter, 28yo son and 26yo daughter. My eldest daughter lives on her own close by, but my son and youngest daughter still live at home. I feel we are extremely lucky to have a loving family unit.

I would like to tell the story of my son who has diagnosed bipolar disorder that we first noticed when he was about 6yo. At this early stage, we did not realise what it was, but he often struggled at school with bullying, but as he grew older he had the usual growing up issues of most children and teenagers. During his school years, he saw many doctors and ultimately it was a naturopath that finally made any difference. It was not until he was about 16yo that we had our first major ‘ordeal’ where his mother found him. Fortunately she found him before he was able to do anything serious to himself. After many attempts we were able to get him into see a pdoc that was able to give him some tools to deal with life as he saw it, and eventually diagnosed the depression with bipolar disorder. He tried many different medications over the years all of which just numbed his thoughts. He is a very bright young man that could achieve so much if he could just think straight. Thankfully he has an extremely strong and resilient mother who is very close to him, that he will sit and talk to when things get dark. She has done this for so many years that I don’t know how she finds the strength, but I know this is what has kept him alive. As a father I have generally buried myself in my work, probably contributing to my sons problems. Not that I haven’t been there for him, or my wife and daughters, I have on many occasions, but I am just saying that my wife takes on the brunt of most issues as they come up.

My son has since had 2 other ‘major’ suicide attempts. As I mentioned he is very bright, but because he spends most of his time in his room, he researches things to the n’th degree and is extremely well versed on many topics including MH treatments. In his second suicide attempt he took off in his car and we were so worried as he wouldn’t answer his phone, we had no idea where he was. We found his suicide note on his computer and called the police. The police could not locate him. His girlfriend at the time managed to eventually get onto him. He was many miles away from home, but fortunately for us he did not have the guts to go through with it. He finally came home and the police were very good and agreed not to call the CAT team.

His most recent attempt was about two years ago, where I found him when I returned early from a dinner with my wife. A very confronting experience when it is your own son there with such a well thought out plan.

My ever strong wife has now resigned herself to the fact that our son is “not long for this world”. She has on one of her many long discussions with our son, even had the guts to tell him that she gives him permission to take his life. This was in my eyes the most amazing and gutsy thing I have ever seen, but it probably saved my son at the time from another suicide attempt. I cannot accept that he is not long for this world, but I truly respect my wife for taking this position after all she has been through.

As I said at the start, I am just venting, but another reason is probably be a desperate attempt to see if anyone can help with our current situation. Our son is generally a very caring and calm person. He has never been violent in any of his events and he always puts on a “good front” to anyone he meets. He has had a few girlfriends over the years but does not have one at the moment. Always a tumultuous time when the breakup occurs. In the last year or so he has cut off his friends. He does have a supermarket job at the moment but I feel that is hanging in the balance now due to recent non-attendance. He has racked up some credit card debt and owes money on car finance that he cannot afford. He smokes (only started in last three years) was also smoking pot, but we banned it from the house so he has weaned off in last two weeks (luckily he still respects us enough to do this).

Getting back to the issue at hand, he recently had a big fight with his younger sister at home. This was the a real verbal slinging match where both said things they now regret and my daughter left and stayed with her older sister. I guess the family stress has taken its toll. Now our son is very angry, but the worst part is that he appears to have “given up”. He wont speak about things like he normally would except to say that there is nothing he can do anymore. He just didn’t go to work today. I took the day off my work to help my wife, but he wont speak to either of us. We ask him to go seek help from his pdoc or even his GP that he likes, but he just refuses to go. I even called the local MH unit who gave the usual response that if he is not “at risk” there is nothing they can do.

After all these years, my wife and I both agree that he is not currently suicidal, as we know the signs now and are ever vigilant keeping watch for them. We are just concerned at his current unusual mood. Even though he tells us there is nothing left for him to try, but he just doesn’t have the guts to “push the button” we don’t feel he will try anything at this stage.

My wife is exhausted and emotionally drained, my daughters have “had enough” and I just want to make my family feel happy again. Or am I just being an idealist?

I guess I am just asking if there is anyone out there that has any ideas on how I can make him see that there is so much for him to live for, or perhaps how to convince him to get some help.

I apologise for the long rant, but writing this has helped me anyway. Thank you.