It is usually brave to do this and good for both of you.
Unless your son is not able bodied there is no reason for him to not be on his own by 33!! You certainly would not want him living in your basement at 40, would you? This would be unhealthy for both of you.
I had to make my drug using daughter leave at 19. I had two young kids who were scared of her and frankly she was unwilling to do anything to help herself under our roof. She quit drugs quickly after being without our help. She is now 34 and a productive member of society and wonderful mom to my granddaughter. We are close! I don't know if this would have happened if we had not taken action. Trust me, I cried for weeks and did not sleep....very hard to make my basically sweet beautiful daughter leave, but something had to change. She looked like death...I could not make it easier for her to use drugs especially with her little brother and sister watching her drug rages.
Our "help" often is just the opposite. Our guilt keeps us often doing the wrong thing. But we are not supposed to be mommies forever. We graduate to mothers who have healthy adult relationships with our adult kids. Often, as we age, they begin to worry about US.
I have four adult kids and had trouble with two but they are all on their own and functioning. There comes a time when we are too old and tired to deal with their abuse, if there is abuse, and there is a time when they need to learn that we can not and will not care for them forever...they have to face the consequences of their bad choices. We will die one day...they will be alone.
33 is certainly old enough to be told to grow up. Yes, he will guilt you and try to make you continue housing and supporting him. Ignore.
Love and light!
I am sorry. I read your post again and it doesn't mention pot. I still believe he is probably using something to sleep that much. Whatever he still needs to do this himself on his own and no doctor will talk to you about an adult patient. They can't. I don't think you should even try. It's his path.
I wonder if the sleep medication is a benzo and making him sleep too much. He needs to be forced to live his life.
I think you should go to therapy separately. Jmo
I am sorry. I read your post again and it doesn't mention pot. I still believe he is probably using something to sleep that much. Whatever he still needs to do this himself on his own and no doctor will talk to you about an adult patient. They can't. I don't think you should even try. It's his path.
I wonder if the sleep medication is a benzo and making him sleep too much. He needs to be forced to live his life.
I think you should go to therapy separately. Jmo
Where is your son living, does he work?I agree with those before me. Your son needs to be responsible for himself. My son is also 36 he can not live here. I don't know about your financial circumstances but our older children can drain them quickly with no remorse. I love my son but i have come to the realization that i am not helping him because he has become dependent. I believed that I was helping him but when i was paying his bills he was using that money for drugs. I am not wealthy and he has put me in a financial position where i can't enjoy my retirement. I am going to work on changing that which will make him work on changing his behavior. Am I worried about what could happen? Yes but if i don't make him do it now what will happen when i am gone. Each of us reach this point in our own time and our own level of what is appropriate help. I hope you can find what works for you and your son. My son is dual diagnosis bipolar and addiction.
Where is your son living, does he work?
It is hard to let go and let them learn the hard way.
At what point do you define mental illness or addiction?
I don't know what my next step should be if he does not
Right now my son is in jail about to go to halfway house. I have not figured out where the addiction and the mental illness separate that is one off the reasons i sought help. Unfortunately many people with mental illness self medicate with drugs and alcohol.
He actually wants to work and is good at what he does .he held a job for 7 years and then when he got depressed because of a second failed marriage he went off the rails and lost it. He started his own company but didn't handle it well and things went downhill. I tried to help then found he was using and he went off the rails again and have been going to counseling coming on here and reading and am going to nami. None of this is easy but if i hadnt helped him so much he might have learned to stand on his own. My therapist gave me a story about a butterfly that drove the point home. I will try to find it. Also because we detach doesn't mean we give up it means we don't do for them what they should do for themselves we can give them names of places they can go for help but they have to take the initiative to go.
Yes, we give him projects around the house, he is good with handy work, but after a few days he goes into this spiral of sleep for days, I think is the depression. He has smoked pot most of his life, the doctor will not give him anything for anxiety no xanax etc, which I think they should so he can get off the pot. He is not happy with his job, he use to be a paramedic but the stress was to much for him.The Seroquel is why he is sleeping during the day. Tell him you need him to get up and help around the house and look for a better job during the day. It's nonsense to sleep all day. The Seroquel is for night. He knows this. Maybe he wants to be awake to be with friends at night. I don't know what he is doing or why he would chose to take a pill that tires you out so much during the day!!
Pot is usually not good for any mental illness and can trigger new mental illnesses and paranoia. Did he always smoke pot and is maybe using it because of the high? Many doctors will just go along with it. I personally don't like it for things like anxiety. I have very bad anxiety. My medications help depression more than anxiety. I tried pot and it made me spacy and paranoid. Therapy helped a lot more. If he won't go, he probably won't learn to cope better with anxiety. Pot can cause extreme lack of motivation.
You will have to let go of him one day. You will die one day. All of us will let go. It is your choice whether you want him to learn to take care of himself or not, but one day he will have to do it. He is not so badly mentally I'll that he can't work and do things for himself. Do you do things for him? Pay for him? If you treat him as if he is helpless, that is how he will act. How he IS acting. Do you have any plan to make him plan to leave?
I told you my autistic son is on his own and he has a developmental delay plus some depression. My son is 24, been in his own place since age 20 with autism. He gets some services but not from me nor does he want to live at home. He pays his own bills. Your son can do it if mine can. We can't in my opinion hold them back because of our fears. Its not fair to us or to them. They need us to push them from the nest.
Who will house and pay for him when you are gone? This question is why I pushed my autistic son from an early age to do the same chores my other kids did. It paid off!
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I wish you both luck.