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Your presumption is incorrect. I cannot discuss that further, due to privacy issues.
The mindset to look for the larger picture is available to most anyone, although it can be difficult for many. Mine comes in part from a lot of experiences that required introspection and repeatedly asking "why?" I also have a bunch of training, a lot of it self-taught over the years. I think some of that came from writing a few major computer programs from scratch, solo. In those, you HAVE to look at the big picture and pare it down to what is important, what is raw data, what is manipulated, what the desired output is - and then write the interface to be used by the uneducated. Computer programs don't have emotions.
I understand slipping into emotional responses, I do not mean to denigrate that type of gut response. Those responses are human and part of what separates us from the cold of logic.
Fair.
I am just...not able to step back like that. Not when it's my kid. Not when it's every day. I often wish I could, but I can't do it.
I'm not even going to respond to the suggestion that I let Jordan Peterson tell me how to handle this.
Because of my brothers I have a lot of memories I wish I didn't have. My brother trying to kill himself on my birthday because he was so psychotic he confused my birthday with his ex girlfriend he was trying to punish. There were listening to hear him call me at night from to cuss me out and threaten to have his drug dealer try to kill me and then for his drug dealer to show up demanding I pay his drug bills. There was the first time I went to visiting hours at the county jail psych ward.
None of these memories are memories, I want to have and I genuinely empathize with just feeling overwhelmed and burnt out. I get that, I really do.
But the family to family program was where I learned how to get my brother on permanent disability. You will be repeatedly denied unless and until you get a social security/disability lawyer and it was in the family to family program where I found out which lawyers in my area knew what to put down on the paperwork to get this approved.
To get housing like Sec 8 there was a long list with a long waiting list in the major cities of California, but if you moved out to the rural areas of California, the waiting list was much shorter and once you had a sec 8 voucher, it was transferable and you could move back to the larger cities where the services are better.
This was the type of knowledge that I didn't know but was extremely useful to know and where I picked it up was the family to family program, because other people who were further along in the system started explaining how the system actually works in practice and how to successfully navigate it.
If you're totally overwhelmed right now, I get that. If you feel like I am just creating another burden right now when you are feeling overwhelmed I get that and I will completely drop the subject.
I also totally get wanting to have a space where you can veg out and not think about things too and I respect that need to.
Thanks, shelato. We have interacted before and I know you're a good dude and that you have had experience with all of this.
Right now I just want to get through this process of moving back to Colorado. I feel like once I am there and if either or both of my sons come and stay with me, we can implement some agreements to work though things in a more goal oriented way, taking one step at a time towards the right results. I know that my younger one, unless he winds up going to jail and we won't know that for a little while yet...he probably needs to get on disability. And having been rejected for it three times now, he will need a disability lawyer to make that work.
(I am angry that this is so difficult for people who really need it. And other things like how they then cannot get married without losing all of their benefits and insurance. I think that the idea has been fed to voters that these things HAVE to be extremely difficult to get the help to avoid "Welfare Queen" stuff but the reality is that rich grifters want to squeeze and scheme their share out of the government funds, leaving crumbs for actual vulnerable people, and they get voters to go along with it by blaming and demonizing said vulnerable people. But whatever...politics, that. Regardless it is frustrating and seems heartless and at times deliberately cruel.)
Like a lot of people who have physical and mental health issues, my younger kid has his strengths and weaknesses and he isn't "bad" all the time. He has good days where he can get a lot done. He just can't be consistent enough with them to keep any kind of normal job. He might be able to do gig work. I'd say he's about 50/50 for time where he's functional vs not, but that's IF he stays sober and on his meds. But he is strangely intelligent and has these bursts of talent, when he can focus long enough to do anything with them. He can play beautiful music on the viola. He writes very interesting things. He was a natural at learning to drive, and when his father used to take him to the range, he was an amazing shot (obviously he has no access to guns now.) It is so wild how someone who is at times so utterly not functional, at others can so dramatically excel at things... And it's that much harder as his loving parent, because in addition to a mom's unconditional urge to care for him, I see so much potential, you know?
Anyhow.
The diet suggestion, I cannot and won't put any energy into that right now, and Jordan Peterson isn't the only reason why I'm dismissive of it. The son with the serious problems can barely be made to eat enough on a day to day basis, he struggles to have any appetite at all. He also doesn't have the ability to properly grocery shop with ease, and cooking anything requires him to go be around his Dad which is perilous for other reasons, and not all of the appliances in their kitchen even work. I have to ask him if he has eaten anything, every day. Trying to tell him to go on some particular diet is just...it's beyond ridiculous right now given his living situation. We could perhaps explore that once he lives with me, but right now I'm happy if he's eaten enough to be alive and OK from one day to the next. But like, my husband is on a keto diet and I see his grocery spending, and it is not cheap. Not if you want to still eat an enjoyable variety of foods. My son cannot afford to eat that way and I can't afford to pay for him to eat that way.
At this moment I am in another state, I can't control either of my sons enough to "get" them on any kind of diet. It is so far beyond where all of this is at...it feels like you are standing in front of a tattered war refugee asking if they have tried wheat grass smoothies or the latest trendy supplements. Suggesting skin care to someone with a bullet wound. I'm trying to keep these kids alive until I can get back to them, dude.
Once I get there, he is going to keep at it with the gastro docs and every kind of diagnostic that exists, and we are going to try and figure out if he's got something going on that they can actually IDENTIFY and then we will proceed based on medical advice, not Youtubers. I believe that you can find info online that can guide you in asking the right questions and advocating for yourself, but I will NEVER be the sort who thinks that "research" on the internet is a good substitute for interaction with medical professionals, nor that all of modern medicine is some sort of a conspiracy and popular internet personalities know better. I just don't deal in that whole thing and I'm not going to start.
I'm trying to keep these kids alive until I can get back to them, dude.
Once I get there, he is going to keep at it with the gastro docs and every kind of diagnostic that exists, and we are going to try and figure out if he's got something going on that they can actually IDENTIFY and then we will proceed based on medical advice, not Youtubers.
Sonic, I care about your sons and I don't want them to suffer and die, or commit suicide. I don't want them to suffer for not even one more day until you ... do this or that, see this or that specialist etc.
I would not waste my time writing stupidities here and suggesting YouTube freaks, why would I do that? I'm not a moron.
Listen to me and give your sons Dr. Chris Palmer's name. They can go online and do a search of his name. They can recover and feel better fast. He's a psychiatrist and has treated thousands of people (mental illnesses) with a NO CARBS DIET. Your sons don't have to cook 8 hours/day. They only need meat, eggs and more meat. That's all for now. They only need this information, no need to pay Harvard psychiatrist Dr. Palmer, no need to see x specialists.
This diet has been used for more than 100 years for epilepsy in children. And the new research only now in recent years discovered that this diet is helping all mental illnesses. Almost all patients go into remission, get better, get rid of the medications (gradually) and some recover 100%. I'm giving you the last research so you can do something now, not in a few months or years.
This is my last comment here. Now you have the information, what you do with it...it's your own business. You've been informed.
Would they rather fry some meat and make an omelette daily and feel great? Or would they continue to suffer for the rest of their life?
I am just...not able to step back like that. Not when it's my kid. Not when it's every day. I often wish I could, but I can't do it.
I'm not even going to respond to the suggestion that I let Jordan Peterson tell me how to handle this.
I'll skip all the well-meaning thoughts and hopes for you, I think you know they are there, and just respond to this post.
This is about you, not your children. You are right, I think, that you are not going to step back. Not that you can't but that you are not ready to.
At this point in trying to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem, it seems to me that your main focus should be learning to let go with love. It's about your heart and desires, not them. Same thing every loving mother painfully learns
I can go on and on about why it's inevitable and there are no guarantees but I know you know that and that fact won't change. I wonder how you would like to meet that day. Ready and accepting and maybe relieved or tired and resistant and defeated?
I want so badly to emphasize that you share this burden with multitudes of mothers and your situation is not unique. Maybe instead of trying to figure this out for yourself with all the conflicted feelings and hopes it's time to talk to some of them and find out how they did it?
Obviously there are still psychiatric facilities, we just need more. Usually patients are sent there for short term and are released as soon as the insurance or Medicaid runs out. Also, hospitals have psych wards for short term.
So what does a family do with a constant revolving door in and out of facilities, different medications and no improvements?
We feel very blessed that after 10 years of off and on short term commitments, multiple psychiatrists and the juvenile court system, our adopted teenaged granddaughter has been committed to a long term state facility that will probably keep her until 18. If she is released then, as an adult, we are fully prepared for her to live on the streets, get pregnant, get on drugs and end up in jail or killed. Hopefully she won't kill anyone else. Her brain just doesn't work right. Unfortunately her younger brother has many of the same severe issues.
We looked into treatment camps. The only one that could deal with her issues was over $30K a month, didn't take insurance and after reviewing her case, wouldn't take her anyway.
I would love to know what other countries are doing. If I won the lottery I would try to set something up. They're dangerous to themselves and others. It's very sad, there's no answers.
Farm108 - I've also watched many good videos on keto. I've suggested it to my kids but they haven't tried it.
For anyone who chose to read this thread and would like to become more informed about how things have ended up at this point, I recommend this recent podcast series from NPR - Lost Patients.
Quote:
Imagine a sprawling house in which every room, doorway, and hall passage was designed by a different architect. Doorways don't connect. Staircases lead to nowhere. Rooms are cut off from each other. That's how reporter Will James describes our complicated system for treating people with severe mental illness – a system that, almost by design, loses patients with psychosis to an endless loop between the streets, jail, clinics, courts and a shrinking number of hospital beds.
Lost Patients is a deeply-reported, six-part docuseries examining the difficulties of treating serious mental illness through the lens of one city's past, present and future. With real-life testimonials from patients, families, and professionals on the front lines, Lost Patients provides a real, solutions-oriented look at how we got stuck here...and what we might do to break free.
From a strictly psychological viewpoint there's a kind of cognitive dissonance for parents who fear for their children And what parent doesn't?
I suppose it's similar to what we all live with every day of our lives - that we could wake up one morning with hopeful plans and drop dead getting out of bed. It's a raw truth that somehow we learn to compartmentalize enough that we aren't immobilized every day we could be enjoying our lives.
Maybe what makes it more difficult when it's about our children is that in the other person version there's even a more pronounced sense of no control. Then consider that person's vulnerabilities and it multiplies the sense of helplessness.
The personal challenge becomes, "How do I create a self who feels a sense of agency and competence with these truths stirring up a sense of helplessness in me?" A question I have for myself is, "What do I do or think to avoid those tragic thoughts and feelings and are they working?
From a strictly psychological viewpoint there's a kind of cognitive dissonance for parents who fear for their children And what parent doesn't?
I suppose it's similar to what we all live with every day of our lives - that we could wake up one morning with hopeful plans and drop dead getting out of bed. It's a raw truth that somehow we learn to compartmentalize enough that we aren't immobilized every day we could be enjoying our lives.
Maybe what makes it more difficult when it's about our children is that in the other person version there's even a more pronounced sense of no control. Then consider that person's vulnerabilities and it multiplies the sense of helplessness.
The personal challenge becomes, "How do I create a self who feels a sense of agency and competence with these truths stirring up a sense of helplessness in me?" A question I have for myself is, "What do I do or think to avoid those tragic thoughts and feelings and are they working?
I think that the agency I feel in the situation with my kids is one of the biggest reasons it stresses me out so much. Like the idea that I could die in any way at any moment does not bother me one bit. There would be no choice for me to make or thing for me to do...I'd be dead. I wouldn't care about a thing if I were dead, I'd just be dead. Whatever problems I've got would be someone else's problems.
When it comes to my kids, no matter what I do, if the outcome is bad anyways I'm going to wonder what role I played in it getting that way. If I should have done things differently. I have to make choices, not knowing if they will harm or help. And while I can sometimes get something approaching a consensus, or at least a lot of very confident voices from strangers online telling me what path to take...gotta say, in some of my past situations, the opinions of strangers either led me to bad things or would have if I'd listened to them. I mean, other people are not always right about situations I find myself in. And in a way it makes sense, because if you think about it, professionals like doctors, therapists, attorneys, whatnot...they don't share their opinions about your situation without meeting you face to face, do they? No. I do take advice with appreciation for the spirit of it. I know that people want to be helpful and I do appreciate that.
Anyways.
No, the way I was raised is to value my own life very cheaply but to hold the lives of others who depend on me as sacred, and needing to be protected. As the nine year old caretaker of my baby brother I started having nightmares about him being in mortal peril, and in a few of those dreams I actually died trying to save him. Thoughts of my mortality don't bother me except that I love life and do want to make the most of what I've got. Mortal fear for the self is nothing compared to the desperation of a mother's protective love for her child. But yeah, of course the logical next steps in this rationale are obvious to me...the roots of codependency are DEEP and in every desire to help a loved one I am asking if I'm contributing to their helplessness, and therefore harming them.
But I wasn't really asking for advice in this thread though, honestly. I just want to say that it is hard. It's very hard. And I don't know that there's really a way for it to be easy, when you find yourself in a situation like this. It sucks a lot and I wish that society had better and kinder solutions that were more readily available. That's really the main thing I want to say.
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