Kathilliana
New Member
Hello everyone.
I joined this forum to see if I could get some guidance on how to help our 20-year old.
Some details: Our son (I'm the step-mother,) mostly lives with us and sees his mother a couple of days a week.
The good:
Our son is unusual in that he's extremely social; polite, well-mannered, outgoing, charming, makes friends easily, etc. He can (and does,) make friends while sitting at the airport terminal, waiting to get on the plane.
He's also incredibly smart, but typical in that he is only willing to apply himself when he's interested in a topic/goal.
The bad:
All of his positive characteristics are generally saved for people who are not us. With us he is verbally abusive, quick to meltdown, openly hostile, destructive of our property, disrespectful of ownership and has no interest in his future.
The claims are that he wants to graduate high school, he wants to get a job and he wants to learn to drive. We see no evidence that these are actual goals; we believe he is only trying to placate us.
He is 100% dependent on us for everything but sees no need to follow our basic house rules. Any request to discuss the issue leads to a nearly instant meltdown, which generally means something gets broken. (Last week's casualty was a ramekin filled with sauce, because we wanted to discuss his getting a part time job for the summer.)
He is self-medicating, but in a dangerous way. He drinks far too much caffeine, to the point where he has to take a pill (he uses Benadryl) to help him sleep. He also smokes a lot of pot, which he claims helps him, but all it does is help him forget that he has responsibilities. Whereas he used to mostly remember to do his chores (he has very few of them,) he now almost never remembers.
We need help
Though he was diagnosed around two years old, and the school system claimed, year after year that they will do XYZ, THIS time, to help him, the help has been nearly non existent. There is absolutely no authority in his life who is willing to hold him accountable to anything, except for us. (Not even his mother, really, but that's a different story.) This has led him to believe that nobody will ever hold him accountable, and he should just keep on doing what he's always done and everything will be fine.
It has gotten much, much worse in the last year and we are starting to get concerned that he will never do anything he doesn't want to do.
We are actively looking for a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a behavioral/occupational therapist to help him. I've contacted dozens and have a hard time even getting a phone call or email returned.
We were able to get him into a psychiatrist about a month ago, but that visit was terrible. He can be extremely charming, and he's a really good liar, so the psychiatrist just told my husband that there's nothing wrong with him and maybe he needs a therapist, but he didn't really see why.
Any guidance you can provide on resources for adults would be appreciated. We feel like there is nowhere to turn and we are going to leave this planet with him not knowing any of the basics on how to take care of himself. We want to teach him to cook, to fold laundry, to learn how to clean a toilet, etc., but he only pretends to listen and refuses to practice.
I'd also appreciate a good resource on how to set boundaries for a very stubborn adult who is constantly claiming his adulthood status as a reason he doesn't need any guidance from us.
Everything with him is, "Message received, now I get it, this time I really, really mean it, I'll show you this time, Yes, I need to do that, etc." There has been follow through in the past, but how it's nearly non-existent.
Thank you.
I joined this forum to see if I could get some guidance on how to help our 20-year old.
Some details: Our son (I'm the step-mother,) mostly lives with us and sees his mother a couple of days a week.
The good:
Our son is unusual in that he's extremely social; polite, well-mannered, outgoing, charming, makes friends easily, etc. He can (and does,) make friends while sitting at the airport terminal, waiting to get on the plane.
He's also incredibly smart, but typical in that he is only willing to apply himself when he's interested in a topic/goal.
The bad:
All of his positive characteristics are generally saved for people who are not us. With us he is verbally abusive, quick to meltdown, openly hostile, destructive of our property, disrespectful of ownership and has no interest in his future.
The claims are that he wants to graduate high school, he wants to get a job and he wants to learn to drive. We see no evidence that these are actual goals; we believe he is only trying to placate us.
He is 100% dependent on us for everything but sees no need to follow our basic house rules. Any request to discuss the issue leads to a nearly instant meltdown, which generally means something gets broken. (Last week's casualty was a ramekin filled with sauce, because we wanted to discuss his getting a part time job for the summer.)
He is self-medicating, but in a dangerous way. He drinks far too much caffeine, to the point where he has to take a pill (he uses Benadryl) to help him sleep. He also smokes a lot of pot, which he claims helps him, but all it does is help him forget that he has responsibilities. Whereas he used to mostly remember to do his chores (he has very few of them,) he now almost never remembers.
We need help
Though he was diagnosed around two years old, and the school system claimed, year after year that they will do XYZ, THIS time, to help him, the help has been nearly non existent. There is absolutely no authority in his life who is willing to hold him accountable to anything, except for us. (Not even his mother, really, but that's a different story.) This has led him to believe that nobody will ever hold him accountable, and he should just keep on doing what he's always done and everything will be fine.
It has gotten much, much worse in the last year and we are starting to get concerned that he will never do anything he doesn't want to do.
We are actively looking for a psychiatrist, a psychologist or a behavioral/occupational therapist to help him. I've contacted dozens and have a hard time even getting a phone call or email returned.
We were able to get him into a psychiatrist about a month ago, but that visit was terrible. He can be extremely charming, and he's a really good liar, so the psychiatrist just told my husband that there's nothing wrong with him and maybe he needs a therapist, but he didn't really see why.
Any guidance you can provide on resources for adults would be appreciated. We feel like there is nowhere to turn and we are going to leave this planet with him not knowing any of the basics on how to take care of himself. We want to teach him to cook, to fold laundry, to learn how to clean a toilet, etc., but he only pretends to listen and refuses to practice.
I'd also appreciate a good resource on how to set boundaries for a very stubborn adult who is constantly claiming his adulthood status as a reason he doesn't need any guidance from us.
Everything with him is, "Message received, now I get it, this time I really, really mean it, I'll show you this time, Yes, I need to do that, etc." There has been follow through in the past, but how it's nearly non-existent.
Thank you.