Baggy Bags
Active Member
My family is just starting on this journey, and as someone who has never believed in Western medicine, it has been especially challenging for me to put my child's health in the hands of psychiatrists and medications. My partner and I are learning everything we can about my son's disorder. The doctors tip-toe around his mental illness, but the deeper I look into my families' history of mental illnesses, the more I realize that he is, indeed, mentally unwell and may possibly need medication for the rest of his life. Without it, he could do very harmful things to himself and/or to others.
My question is this, with no intention of offending, and I very respectfully understand that many of you have worked very hard to detach in order to get your own lives back - how and when do I let my mentally unwell son GO. He's only 15 now, but I read your stories and realize that most people like him, once they are legally adults, are basically on their own.
How do we as parents and as society let these people be out there on their own when they are potentially dangerous to themselves and to others? How do we allow them to make their own decisions about whether or not to medicate? They obviously need help, so why do we let go? Where do our parental obligations to our unwell children end? At a certain age, even though it doesn't reflect their ability to deal with life?
Before we got a diagnosis, so many people told me to just let him loose so he could go fall on his ass, learn his lessons and come back home more appreciative. Well. Pfff. Had I done that, he might not be alive anymore, or he might be in jail. For now, at least, I feel that I must do everything I can for him, even if it kills me. He needs me. It's my job as his mother.
Before the diagnosis, it was easy to be angry at him, but now, how can I be angry? He's not entirely in control of his thoughts, let alone his words and actions. Will I just get fed up with it one day, when he's an adult, and say "okay, I've done what I can, I need my life back, go figure it out for yourself"?
How do you get there? Is it giving up? Is it because laws don't let you do more? I don't understand. Please don't take it as me judging anyone. I'm just trying to understand.
My question is this, with no intention of offending, and I very respectfully understand that many of you have worked very hard to detach in order to get your own lives back - how and when do I let my mentally unwell son GO. He's only 15 now, but I read your stories and realize that most people like him, once they are legally adults, are basically on their own.
How do we as parents and as society let these people be out there on their own when they are potentially dangerous to themselves and to others? How do we allow them to make their own decisions about whether or not to medicate? They obviously need help, so why do we let go? Where do our parental obligations to our unwell children end? At a certain age, even though it doesn't reflect their ability to deal with life?
Before we got a diagnosis, so many people told me to just let him loose so he could go fall on his ass, learn his lessons and come back home more appreciative. Well. Pfff. Had I done that, he might not be alive anymore, or he might be in jail. For now, at least, I feel that I must do everything I can for him, even if it kills me. He needs me. It's my job as his mother.
Before the diagnosis, it was easy to be angry at him, but now, how can I be angry? He's not entirely in control of his thoughts, let alone his words and actions. Will I just get fed up with it one day, when he's an adult, and say "okay, I've done what I can, I need my life back, go figure it out for yourself"?
How do you get there? Is it giving up? Is it because laws don't let you do more? I don't understand. Please don't take it as me judging anyone. I'm just trying to understand.