Parents Supporting Unwell Adult Children

I posted regarding this issue back in May 2020 when my adult son (40) who was diagnosed with schizophrenia was in a high dependency ward and finally put on a community treatment order after years of psychosis but deemed 'not to fit the criteria' time after time. The tragedy is that he was only put on an order as a result of being badly injured in an incident that left him with permanent damage to his right arm. He was found severley injured in the fog lane of a major highway by a passing truck driver at 2 am in the morning. He does not know how he got there or how he was injured. After a couple of months when the medication kicked in his life and ours lives changed so much for the better. He was the best he had been for a very long time. The CTO has now lapsed and he stopped his medication in early November. His slip back into psychosis was gradual with changes appearing slowly at first but full blown by late December. We feel extremely let down by the system. He has no insight into how unwell he is and unfortunately never has. Unfortunately I'm the main object of his psychosis and he's extremely verbally aggressive towards me. He believes that when he was young and operated on for a squint that I put something in his brain and that I now control him. He is much more aggressive this time and I have had to ask him not to come to our house. He's currently living in a flat that we own and the older lady in the front flat who is also our tenant is terrified of him. She has reported her fears to police at least twice. I've reported my fears over and over to police and to his mental health worker who assured me she would pass on to the treating psychiatrist which I know she has. The next door neighbour has also reported his behaviour to police because he's threatened to hurt thier dogs and they have witnessed him crying and calling out and breaking windows in distress. I'm at my wit's end. Every time police arrive or he sees the psychiatrist he manages to control himself so that he does not appear aggressive or unreasonable and they don't have grounds to schedule him. Immediately they leave he will call and abuse me or send me horrible text messages. I am at my wits end (once again) on how to help my son and ourselves when the system keeps letting us down over and over again.

Hi Romy, I know its so difficult when you fear for your son and the system does not have any avenue to support them it seems, until they, or someone else, are hospitalised. I wish I had more answers for you, but want you to know, I'm hearing you. For me, when my step son and daughter's behaviour become more than I can bear, I need to step back and find my own ground. Put in place self care before I can be any help to them.

How are you going now? I know I'm responding a few weeks after your post.

Hello @warmsunhelps , @Romi , remember to put a @ in front of memebers name so they will receive your message

@Faith-and-Hope, @Lap1

Hi @Hilary101 @Lap1 @Romi@warmsunhelps and welcome to the forums.

This is a tough area to i be struggling with. While a couple of my kids are still trying

to find which way is up after what we have been through, I don't have it so hard in terms of supporting them ..... my harder issues are around my soon2bx and a disabled adult child ..... and a minefield of legal / financial / guardianship games. I don't have experience or advice to offer you, but I am sitting and listening.

Sending gentle hugs your way and my best wishes for your continued courage and strength.

Thanks @Romi ..... it's slowly working itself out, but unfortunately I am unable to continue any sort of relationship with soon2bx, but still bound by the relationships our adult children hold with both of us, and extended family. Just have to set what boundaries I can, focus on the kids' healing, despite some of them not recognising what the nature of his illness is (yet ?), and try and draw better things into our future, one step at a time.

Something that helps me is to try to search for a single heart lifting moment in each day - the sun landing on a raindrop clinging to a leaf, the colour of my nail polish (I started wearing it for that reason, particularly shiny or glittery ones), the smell of coffee, the cat purring ...... something. Just to notice, and be in that moment for a few seconds.

My children are still caught in the cross-fire of our divorces ..... I say "divorces" because what I thought was The Divorce is actually a set of mini-divorces ..... government undoing of legal union, church accountability and u doing of vows, financial divorce, business divorce, guardianship disaster !!!

Becsuse our children are all so close, the effects of all these things are stiil reverberating across all of them .... and one is now undergoing their own separation 😔. Thankfully they are nothing like their father, and will show him up by their example of moving through the same processes with an integrity that he doesn't possess.

Its very hard to protect my children from further harm as they try to struggle back into their feet, the younger ones particularly, especially as their father is still wearing a mask and pretending to be who we all thought he was, fir them ...., and I have to wait fir their own awakening to the truth ..... but he has taken himself off overseas, suddenly and unwisely ..... which may in fact be an hallelujah moment. It may be in his absence that they can begin to truly recover, and then see him with new eyes when the Covid carrousel stops and they come back into direct contact with him again.

The more life tumbles and changes, the harder it is to maintain a web of lies .... trying to remember what you told to whom, and when, or in relation to what else ......

At the end of the day, all of that is going to have to work itself out independently of me. All I can do is keep standing in my own integrity to the best of my ability, and just be there for my kids, being the me they know me to be.

@Zoe7