[rbb101048]

Thank you for your responses Laryynxa and Dithl.  Dithl, I will contact NAMI Colorado as you advise.  Perhaps a support group will help us devise strategies that have some chance of helping.

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[rbb101048]

I have just discovered this site, having stumbled across a program on television which refers to it.  I feel we are in a position similar to that of teabaglady, though my wife and I agree our adult son (age 29) is very ill.

Our adult son displays all (and I do mean all) the classic signs of ADD.  In addition, he has been diagnosed as having a “mood disorder”, but  he stopped going to therapy a year and a half ago (after about 4 weekly sessions) and stopped taking his meds, saying he didn’t liek how they made him feel.  He was not diagnosed with ADD, but it’s my understanding that ADD is often not diagnosed and can be accompanied by other disorders.

He lives an aimless and arid existence.  He is unable to find work, lies frequently, and contributes nothing in assisting my wife and I in maintaining our household, land and animals, something he used to do when he was home  (we live on a horse farm in  Colorado).  Efforts, similar to those made by teabaglady, to get him to help around the house or with chores are met with verbal assent, but he’s incapable of following through with any task. In hindsight, some of the behavior patterns we see now were exhibited in childhood, but to a much lesser extent.  He was a popular, intelligent and engaging child, adolescent, and young adult.  He held responsible jobs in high school on ski patrol and as a counselor at a wilderness camp.

Until a couple of years ago he had a large circle of friends.  He lived abroad and showed initiative in adapting to a new culture and finding and keeping a job awhile attending university. The increase in intensity of symptoms seems to correlate with a period in which he was heavily using psychedelic drugs.   As far as we know he has not used pychedelics for some time, but he is a heavy marijuana user.

Our son has cut himself off from all his friends and abandoned the outdoor activities he used to love and at which he excelled

There are many details I’ve omitted.  As painful as this has been ,the worst part has been our son’s refusal to acknowledge he has a problem or that he is failing in life.  The mere suggestion of this is met with great hostility.

My wife and I both recognize he is ill.  Her main priority is to know that he is safe.  My view is that as long as he is allowed to,live with us there is no chance that he will change.  On the other hand, if we force him to leave there is no doubt in my mind that he will end up living on the street.  Him hitting rock bottom and being in a position where he is demonstrably in the position of being unable to meet his basic needs seems to provide the only hope of forcing him into treatment through the involuntary commitment process.    On the other hand, the physical dangers he would face on the way to rock bottom could end up killing him.  This is a nightmare– doubly so because I was raised by a mentally ill and abusive mother and successfully struggled to escape and make a success out of my life.  I thought I’d left that all behind.

I assume there’s a lot wrong with our, above and beyond ADD, but the ADD symptoms appear salient.    My wife is a wonderful woman, and, as noted above, we both a\recognize what we’re dealing with.  It’s very difficult to talk to her about choices, however, because she cries whenever I try to do so.  We don’t exactly ignore the problem, but we just deal with things a day at a time, which solves nothing.

Is there some middle path between watching  our son vegetate at home and kicking him out?

 

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