Thanks Diamond 💍
My No. 2 son is being the most reclusive, but he is also bearing a bigger brunt of my husband's as yet undiagnosed, and as such untreated disorder. No. 1 son has married and left home, and somehow No. 2 has become a whipping boy for something psychologically linked to my husband's childhood. It's likely some sort of replay about never being good enough or perfect enough in his own father's eyes. That is for some future psychologist to work out with him, but it is also tempered with a "good cop" response, which is probably a form of remorse. You can break your head trying to work it all out, but it helps to have a general idea because understanding that he is ill helps you to not take it too personally.
All the kids are being a bit reclusive to some degree, and I am putting it down to a grief process. None of us anticipated that this could happen to us, and we love the man who, for the moment, we have lost.
We are all quite emotionally sensitive to music. My No.2 daughter has an intellectual disability, and haunting ballads can actually make her cry. I am wondering whether your son would benefit from music as a vehicle to help him process his emotional pain without having to speak it out. If you play something a bit soulful around the house he will still be able to hear it through his bedroom door.
Art is another invaluable vehicle for processing hidden emotions. My bipolar daughter in law has taken like a fish to water with adult colouring in books. I recently bought her a book on Zentangle designs along with a visual diary and some fine line markers so she could have a go at making her own designs. Does art interest your son ? A book about drawing anime characters perhaps ? Or model painting (dragons, castles, cars) ? These things are not referred to as therapeutic for no reason ...
