What am I talking about? My son's mental illness. It became painfully clear to me the day before yesterday that my youngest son, who is 22, is truly disturbed. I am not sure what sort of mental illness he has, but I know he has one. He has been seeing a doctor for medication for his depression and that has helped. But what is wrong with him is so much more.
When he was in high school and got sent to the "continuation" high school, he DID see the school psychologist. He had her snowed, but good. He has admitted it to me. I knew something was wrong based on an appointment I had with her and the things she was saying were just not right. But she wanted to believe him and I understood that, he is VERY convincing and charming and manipulative. I should know, he's lived with me his whole life. I had wanted to send him to see someone else, at first he had agreed, and then later he said "no". I am not sure what to do. Can a therapist REALLY see through him? I seriously have my doubts after the school psychologist. Not to mention the fact that so many people believe what he says. Of course this all brings me back to my contribution to his illness. I mean, my mother had mental illness, I have it, my oldest daughter is bi-polar and my oldest son also struggles with depression. My dad committed suicide, my paternal grandfather was a sadistic monster and my maternal grandmother was emotionally withholding.
I've thought a lot about how my son and I are alike and I realize that although we had some of the same behavior, I grew out of mine around the time I was a teenager. I also realized that we had different reasons for what we have in common. Confused yet? OK, this is HARD to admit, truly....but when I was younger I invented things....a version of lying to be sure. Not often, but I did. When I was a kid and some of the other kids were teasing me because my mom was fat, I told them that she was pregnant. She wasn't of course. I created a fake boyfriend when I was 12, mainly so that my parents would think I was more social. Stupid, I know. Also I wanted my friends to think I had one. Funny, because I did have one for awhile before that. Maybe I wanted to continue to be special? I was the only one with a boyfriend, fake or real. I also think I really wanted one again, although a "boyfriend" at that age in THOSE days was totally different than the young girls who have boyfriends these days. I didn't make the boyfriend thing elaborate, just stated it as a fact and that was that. So I understand wanting some attention or wanting to feel special. I think that was why I did it. But as I said, I grew out of it.
My son on the other hand has created things that are awful! The first time that I KNEW he did was sometime in high school when his friends' mother asked me one day how my son was doing. I was like "fine". But the look of concern was evident on her face. She then proceeded to explain that my son had told her that he had cancer. Which he did not. I confronted him about it and he used something our doctor had said to him as a basis for this "cancer". Why I don't know...I was just shocked that he would do something like this. But then I knew someone who did something like this when I was in high school....I was with my friends outside a funeral home where we had just attended a mutual friends rosary, it was a few days after she had died up the street from me. She had been hit by a semi-truck while riding her bike. Anyway, we were all crying and upset and then this other "friend" of ours decided to let us know that she was "dying". She said that she was very ill and was going to die. Now of course we were devastated. This was such an awful thing to hear. We were so sad but we were very supportive and everything to her.....then later she started withdrawing from us. Turns our she had lied, she was not dying. She left school not long after it became pretty apparent that she had some serious issues. So I KNOW what it is like to hear something like this from a friend. I have no idea what got into my son, but I had hoped that it was a one time thing.
Well I was wrong, a few years after that I had encouraged my son to go to county mental health services to see someone, we didn't have medical insurance at the time. Well one day he sat in my living room with his girlfriend at the time and told me that he had multiple personality disorder. Now, I am very familiar with the term, which is not used anymore, so that tipped me off first. The stuff he was saying was just so off the wall. I knew he was lying, I just knew it. Not to mention the fact that he never went back and I'm sorry you cannot be diagnosed with something that serious in one or even two sessions with a psychiatrist.
Then a couple of days ago I read something on a social networking site that he posted, so that his friends would read it and give him all of the attention that he craves. He and I had just had a fight, something tells me that fights (whether with me or others that he cares about) trigger these delusions. I am not even sure what to call them. What he said was a SERIOUS accusation, one that I KNOW is not true. Had it been true I would have known it a long time ago, trust me on that one. The pattern is there.
So I sat here and just kept thinking about this and wondering, is this genetic? Did I pass this down to him? Another mental illness in that family? THEN it dawned on me as I started to write this that his own father had done the same thing as an adult. I remember reading a letter that he wrote that was a TOTAL lie. It was to his girlfriend, we were no longer together, anyway he was telling her stories that were not true about his time in the service. About how he got shot and had to fly back to the states (we were living overseas together so I know the stories to be false) and was a spy. WTF??!!!! I was like, WTF are you trying to do here?! Then I recalled the same type of bullshit from him when we were together, although not as creative. Trying to get someone (me or in this case his girlfriend) to feel sorry for you, not fight with you, give you attention. My ex did that with me when we were together, but only a couple of times, he really did that a lot after we were no longer together. He became really delusional and I remember thinking that he TRULY believes what he is saying. I am not so sure about my son, if he believes it or not. But I do know that he needs some SERIOUS help!
So when I go to see my therapist I will discuss it with him and get his take on it. Not to mention that I need to find a therapist for my son and hope he will go. I will be looking for a male therapist and hopefully mine can recommend one to me for him. I don't even know if he can be helped. It is just shocking to me, I don't know if I was too involved with my own depression to realize just how serious this was or what. That is something I am going to have to live with I guess.
So much more to talk about but this has really worn me out....So until next time......
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