Are there solutions for a 28 year old son with a parasitic mentality?

I think you have wracked your brain long enough. Take a breather and enjoy life! It's way too short to waste on the negatives of life!

To Jesushelper76-

I did not call my son a parasite. 1. I spoke of his behavior, 2. It's a term for his behavior that I used to perfect strangers that will never get back to him and that sums up the kind of connection to me that he has.

I didn't think, in this forum, that it made sense to explain his behaior by saying he is covert aggressive with borderline personality disorder or to go through long, drawn out examples of how it applies.

My son didn't cut the apron strings, he bombed them and the person who wore them with a nuclear weapon. There's a difference.

My son is my only family. Everyone else in my family died. My extended family, the few who are left, live all the way across the country and we haven't been connected since my childhood.

I don't dote on him. I don't expect him to share anything he doesn't want to with me, and I don't pry. He has always come to me when he needed help. I have always helped him when he asked.

He has never asked me if I needed his help and the few times that I have asked, he was scornful and mean. He belittles me for having a need and bullies me into backing down. He takes without giving.

His absense shows me how little caring he actually has for me. How totally void he is of any desire to help me if I were to need him. He won't respond to an email, a text, a voice mail. If I called for help, he wouldn't be there. Whenever he called for help, I was always there.

It is heartbreaking.

He expects me to welcome him with open arms when he gets tired of being hateful. How disrespectful and unappreciative. How insulting and indescent.

He has destroyed my trust by misusing the unconditional love I have for him. Setting a condition by which he will extend love to me is not acceptable behavior and by doing so, he is not entitiled to the information his bad act demands. His behavior is untrustworthy therefore I can no longer trust him.

I love my son. I would walk through the fire for him. I would lay down my life for him.

I am, nor do I expect to be, anything but his mother. My father had a mother. My mother had a mother. I had a mother. I loved and repected my parents throughout their lives, even though they and I did not see eye to eye in every instance.

I supported myself from the time I was 19. There were no apron strings tying me to my parents. But never once did it ever cross my mind that just because they were no longer supporting me, I could or should or would excuse myself from caring for or loving them.

My son has let me know that he doesn't care for me. He has specifically told me that because I'm not supporting him any longer, I mean nothing to him. He's broken my heart.

I have a fulfilling life. I have good friends and interesting work. If my son was absent from my life because he was across the country, it would not make a huge dent in my existense. I would miss him. But I would enjoy the other gifts I have.

The manner with which my son perpetuates this type of absense, however, is excruciating. It is hard for me to have a life of joy with this terrible pain.

I know you feel alone. I feel bad for that. Your son is an adult now and should learn that he must face the consequences of his actions. He is very hostile! If I was in your spot I would cut ties with him. He is creating more harm than good. Since you have so much going on in your life, work, friends etc. Move on. Don't give in when he calls you for help. Maybe having one occasion when mommy does not come to a rescue will help him realize how poorly he treats you.

You still have not addressed the issues that are there. You yourself need counseling? Are you doing this yet? Your son is your world but guess what he is 28 years old and his own man. Cutting the apron strings. It seems like your still in denial. You have said it is not of his business whether you seek out counsel or not yet you have talked to his psychiatrist and pretty much said this person is useless. I do not get that you do not understand that there are two sides to every story and your trying to get everybody to feel sorry for you including your son.

Please go for your own counseling and work out your personal issues and let go of your son. Continue to love him but let him to his own vices like I said before.

Everything I said in my previous post still stands. I am glad to hear you say you love your son, but time to let him go live his own life instead of being so desperate to have him by your side and forcing on him a relationship he does not want at this time.

It is possible to have done everything humanly possible to raise a child to have the right morals and principles; teach all the lessons, live through the hard times without turning away, do everything possible to address needs, and still have a person turn out the way your son has.

Some adults with mental illness are needy all of their lives, to feed what they see as necessary for their survival. Some of those people know no other way than using people up, tossing them aside, and moving onto the next person in order to do that.

They don't make the distinction between mother/father/wife/neighbour/friend. They are all in the same kettle of fish, with no special status for any of them, unless they are the ones who, at the time, are needed.

Give and take isn't an option, it's all about take. There is no conscience that keeps checks and balances of behaviour in place, particularly bad behaviour. Their perceived survival depends on only them, special and unique, among a sea of possible 'givers' to keep feeding their needs.

It doesn't have to make sense because there are no cut and dried reasons, explanations, or treatment that can change who this person essentially is. You can modify behaviour, curb behaviour, teach appropriate coping skills etc., but it is not something that is internalized, or permanent. What you get is not the person you have tried to help, you get the same person who has decided that there is nothing in it for him to change, because its a waste of his time, and does not suit his immediate needs, which is living day to day at the emotional expense of somebody else.

We tend to apply blame to either party, with nothing in between. The truth is, with a son with mental illness, it takes far more blood sweat and tears, than with a person without mental health problems thrown in. For every 'normal' kid with a couple of visits to the doctor every year for normal childhood cuts, broken bones and infections, add a dozen more for the mentally disabled. More doctor visits, more testing, more prescriptions, more plans, more behaviour modifications, more modified discipline methods, special referrals for further assessment etc. Etc. Etc. It never ends.

And to that kind of effort by a good parent, you are no further ahead when all is said and done, except that he/she has survived their youth, has actually moved on, albeit at a later age, and is struggling with his own deamons now, and those people that are new to him, are also struggling to cope with him.

You learn to live your life never being able to say that your 28 year old is ready to be on his own, and is a well adjusted, normally functioning human being that you don't have to think twice about. Nor can you expect that his behaviour is temporary, because he's always been this way, and probably always will. He doesn't think he has any problems.

That being said, it isn't a matter, in my opinion, of cutting the apron strings. Having lived 28 years raising a child with mental illness, it is a matter of realizing that the apron strings had nothing to do with it. More likely it is letting go of even the most basic expectation; a card on mother's day, a kind word, any acknowledgement of the sacrifices made, even to the simplest of terms.

Any mother would be very hurt at not being remembered on Mothers Day, or her birthday. A mother who has had a sentence of 27 years with such a 'child' as described here, it would be devastating. The simplest, easiest act of kindness to acknowledge someone with a simple card, would have meant so much.

I think that the problem really is letting go, but not from the perspective that seems logical and practical to most people with adult children.

It is most likely that he will be back in your life, as his will fall apart on a regular basis in my opinion. I think it is a miracle in itself that you have raised him to be independent at all, and capable of living on his own. That in itself shows that you fostered him developing skills that he would need in the real world. Many would have given up.

Keep yourself focussed on living your life, and not falling back into familiar patterns when and if, he does turn to you for help when others bail on him. He is capable on his own, of building another relationship with other people such as room-mates, etc. As he left your home with all that you taught him, is all that you can do, or provide or give.

Letting him live his life, regardless of his shortcomings or limitations, is the best gift you can give him.

I do not want my son at my side. You are very incorrect. There's a difference between "cutting the apron strings" and abject cruelty toward a parent.

To withold a kind word at the holidays, birthday good wishes or even a call on mother's day- especially to a parent who you know you are the only family for, and when you live 8 blocks away, is not cutting apron strings, it's cruel behavior.

"Cutting the apron strings" means not relying on your parents...... Not treating them in a horrible way. For him to tell me I am "useless" to him because I "no longer dish out money to support him" and so he will never speak to me again is mean.

There's a difference.

I never said my son was useless....HE said I was "useless" to him. Mature people don't deal with their loved ones this way. Even if you don't go along with another person's opinion, you don't treat them with cruelty.

I am not trying to win anybody's sympathy. I am trying to determine if anyone has some insight that I and my therapist may have overlooked.

And the reason I don't disclose to him that I see a therapist is that a. He has demanded I do so as a "condition" of loving me. Just as he is entitled to my UNconditional love, I am entitled to his.

I don't make conditions for my sons behavior. Requests and conditions are two very different things. Requests are how adults communicate. Conditions are demands and incorporate a threat. It's not okay to threaten your loved ones. I have never threatened to whithold my love from my son because he does or did not do what I asked.

That's his father's tactic. His father's abandoned taught him that tool.

The only reason I see a therapist is to help deal with the horrible way my son behaves toward me. Other than the problems I have with him, I'm a very well adjusted person.

B. My son has clearly demonstrated, by using personal information he knows about me in a very detrimental way toward me, that he does not respect my privacy. I have NEVER disrespected his.

I did not speak to his doctor. I simply wrote to him because I thought he could tell me whether he felt it would be helpful for my son and I to seek family therapy to mend this divide. He wrote back. If he felt there was something wrong with my asking, he could have simply ignored my letter.

My intent was to ask a professional, who has insight into the problem, what the best course of action is for me to take. My son had invited me to do so. I did not complain about my son or call him "useless."

Obviously, not everyone who responds to these questions is either insightful or trying to be helpful. People provide an opinion that is motivated by their own past and the sometimes misguided impression based on what they think they read. Sometimes they read-in things that haunt them from their own relationships and I believe that's what you've done. I appreciate your input because you have given me an understanding of how my son thinks.

I'm his mother. I'll always be his mother and I will never give up on him. I don't expect him to be my little boy. I expect that he will be an adult and have a life. I expect he will be independent.

He has struggled for years to keep from being so and his father allowed that dependence on him because he felt guilty for their past.

I wish I could change things and have a normal relationship with an adult son. I don't see that as "denial." I'm a mom. We never give up.

Dear mom,
Im not going to highjack your post,but aside from a little age differance I'm in the same boat with my son,all I can say is it is very difficult you find yourself on day saying "fine I'm glad he's doing what he's doing,just think of the time and money id be out,all he ever did was take take take so fine I'm happy with it" then the next day your saying "how can he do this to me after all I did for him,that's my special boy I can't go on without him in my life"
So what can you do?
I try to tell myself a few little things to help me get through.
Ask ? Do you think he's this tore up over me not being around?
If we were to go back to communicating would things be different? Little side note my sons best friend lives two doors down so I get to see him coming and going yet not stopping.I know in my life I came from divorced parents and I went from worshiping Dad,to hating Dad,and back again and the same with mom.AS you grow and experience life you go through changes and these changes will cause you to look back and see things differently.

Hi hopelessmom,

I don't know if your last post was directed at me, but if it was you have missed a few points, if you wouldn't mind reading it again.

Of course you will always be his mother, and you will always love him, that's not questioned whatsoever.

My point is only that I understand what you are saying. But that being said, you are here for advice, and anybody stopping to offer assistance isn't out to insult you personally. You have to expect varied responses to your question, "Are there solutions for a 28 year old son with a parasitic mentality".

My impression is that overall, you need to concentrate on yourself more. While you may have an active social life and good friends, if, and I say if, it is clouded by the thoughts you carry of your son, you really aren't living your life as much as you probably should be.

Only you can reach that place where you don't have to ask the question you asked to find peace with him, and truly be settled with knowing that your life should be all about you now.

He may or may not be able, or willing, to change the direction of his own life. Most of us certainly sympathize with you as most of us are parents too.

From one woman and mother to another, I do think counselling is a good idea. Not because he has demanded it, but independent of that, just for you. Even if it is to vent to a person live, face to face, certainly can't do any harm.

I wish you all the best.

You might be looking for a kind word and notice on these special occasions. All I am saying is you need to leave him be. Maybe in the future he will come back to you. You need to hear things from all aspects and I truly hope it helps you. I am glad that you are seeing somebody to work through how this effects you. I am thankful for that. I am glad you will never give up but for now it is best to let him be. I think in my personally opinion once you do that. Later down the road, once your son experiences life on his own. He will eventually come around.

As far as answering from past experiences or relationships that haunt the individual. Or that it effects us in how we interpret others writings. I think that is true. Your right on the money and I admit that to be true. We all have personal experiences that effect our advice and our experience. Just like everybody else on this thread has talked about their advice according to their own experiences.

I hope I did not hijack this thread and thank you for posting and appreciate your thoughts.

Joe

To Jake2008-

My last message was directed to jesushelper76 but I don't think that the salutation was picked up.

I just wanted to again thank you for your insight. One of the things I've been trying to grapple with is what to do if and when he eventually makes his way back.

I am so angry at him for the hurt he is causing but love him more than words can say. I feel stuck in a quagmire and don't see an action I could live with. I don't want to subject myself to his going and coming. And I don't want to subject myself to not having a son in my life either.

I want to do what's best for him. At the same time I don't want to do what puts me back in a position of being treated so badly. The thought of turning my back on him is a killer. The thought of letting him back in my life is a killer.

I'm really at a loss.