I think it's good that you are trying to solve this.
It's also good that the caregiver is not the patient, it's someone else who is not sick. There are many cases where there are no caring parents, or others, who are trying to help the person who is in trouble.
It's difficult being both the patient and the caregiver, when your mind is sick and its difficult to make a decision. So separating this is very good.
While problems are generally bad, the chances of solving them can be good, which is why it's important to have a positive attitude going into a problem that it can be solved. That very much increases the chances that it will be solve before the problem is even addressed.
It may not be solve tomorrow on the first try, but a continuing positive of attitude through the days and months keeps the door
open for days or months or more that it will be solved or improved.
If it's not solved, we've still done our best, and that's a victory in itself. One problem at a time, and be positive about
that problem.
I'm a fine one to be talking about
improving father and son relationships, when as a bi-polar myself, I've been thinking for the last few weeks/months I am never going to allow my 39-year-old son to work on any of my projects again such as cutting the grass.
He really comes after me, he really is pleasant until I bring up one of my problems that I could use some help with, and then he jumps. "You're the problem," he will assure me about
a neighbor he's never even met, and there goes my support system for a person living alone.
So, I know.
I also know from the standpoint of being the patient when my manic-depression broke at age about
28. I had lost a job, which as a manic-depressive I never could hold. Not having a job meant no social life, for most of those contacts were through my work.
I was probably manic while around a lot of people at work, mostly talking and not doing enough work, probably. As soon as I lost a job, I was taken away from that social environment and thrown into an isolated situation in my apartment.
My confidence would have very quickly gone to zero. My mania would have turned to neutral, then in another day or two into slight depression, then deeper in a few more and then very depressed within a week or two of losing the job.
I was both the patient and the caregiver. Uh, oh. As the patient who had the final say, like your son, I didn't make the right choices there, either. I would pace around my apartment, depressed, mind going in circles. My mother would be telling me on the phone to get some psy. help, I'm going to assume, and I would probably be rejecting that.
I had to hit bottom before getting help looked like a good idea. After about
a month of depression, my mind couldn't hold the untreated weight of that any longer, and I had a nervous breakdown.
It scared the daylights out of me. I thought I wasn't going to recover. I was afraid I wasn't going to get any help in time.
Before I crashed, I was hollering at my mother for 2 days, telling her all my problems were her fault, because she didn't raise me right, but I think you've heard that story before. Yeah, that was me, too.
As for your son, I don't know. He's me, many years ago, and I was beyond help. He may have to crash like I did. I may have to splatter all over the ground, when treatment might look good to him. Assuming he recovers from splattering.
He's like me in that until crash occurs he's thinks he's doing great. It's also difficult for him in this manic or depressed state of mind for him to make a decision.
When he's manic, he just wants to keep going and going. When he's depressed, he's too depressed to make a decision. When he's well, in the middle, or hypo (just a little bit) manic he doesn't need to make a decision.
He might not realize he changing every few hours or days, he thinks it's the situation that changing. That it's people or events that are making him mad.
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you say diagnosed at BP at 12. Did they give him any medicine, has he ever been on medicine? I'm on Lithium and Mirtazapine anti-depressant, and the Lithium from the first made me feel like the air was coming out of a too tight balloon. I didn't know I was uptight for so many years.
He's never been on Lithium, or anything?
You say: "But what I find MOST frustrating is when he has an episode (manic) he gets into trouble with the law and usually ends up either in jail (bc the police aren't aware of his current mental state) and we're always bailing him out of jail , or he ends up in
the hospital."
When he ends up in the hospital, are they trying to get into to take Lithium, or something?
You say, "PROBLEM: He is always discharged bc the doctors say "he's not posing a threat to himself or others".
Well, they probably have to discharge him, but you don't have to keep bailing him out. I think I might say, "Well, you're not going to take Lithium or whatever. Well, I'm not going to bail you out next time. You can either take the Lithium now, or next time, you're on your own.
"Three hots and a cot, baby," as my son used to say about
his three nights in jail. He was acting bad for months or more, and landed in jail, and a friend called one night saying he was in the pokey, and I never did tell his asleep mother who would have bailed him out that first night, and that 3 days in jail did him more good than anything I ever did. It scared him straight.
Oh, what do they call it, it's got a name, "Tough Love," OK.
It's called, what, intervention, that's what it is. It's called, family sticking together and nobody bailing him out. And informing him of that before the next episode. That's your decision, but I considered my decision to keep my son in jail another two nights the best parental decision I ever made.
You say, "He's torn the family apart and ruined ALL family occasions," and "Now he's constantly putting down his family like saying things like "You're not my real father,"and I'm a f-----g a--h--- or his mother is a bi--- and his sister is a ---------- and he's lost all his friends bc of his constant rapping and non stop talking.(and talking to himself non stop)"
That might be worth a week in jail right there. OK, OK, OK, this is my feeling as a manic-depressive and as a parent, this is my feeling: "No more bail. Make my day."
You say, "There seems to be no help out there for adults, just kids."
Yeah, there's help out there for adults. It's called jail.
And another good thing, the state pays for it. It's free.
You say, "When he's in this state of mind (constantly) he gets "creative" and then gets himself into trouble."
I'm manic-depressive and I can get creative, but with Lithium, I'm no less creative. So it's not like he's going to be losing anything.
You say, "Any suggestions?"
Yeah, as my son could tell you if his sons grow up and start misbehaving: "Three hots and a cot."
Post Edited (Tim Tam) : 12/1/2016 1:42:59 PM (GMT-7)