Hi
Found my way here having searched the topic and read about similar concerns. Really impressed with the support!
I am trying to navigate worry over my adult son (early 20s). It’s been clear for a while he is not “neurotypical”. His sib recently diagnosed adult ADHD, and I’m sure that’s it. He is a graduate with a good degree but currently not keeping jobs.
He looks unkempt, won’t shower. Says when challenged on this that the more people say it, the less likely he is to do it.
He is painfully thin: suspect not eating related to money worries.
His style of dress is outlandish, he gets comments in the street.
He is deep in debt: impulse spending (rounds of beer for his friends, nothing wild…but he is broke and admits he spends far too much going out)
I’m a guarantor for his rent and we have bailed him out financially when he called in a panic last week; besides that I am legally obliged to pay his rent. He expresses guilt about this and promises to make it all good.
He expresses overwhelm when trying to talk through his priorities for coming out of this situation. I think he is scared. He did get sent home early from his job this week with a panic attack.
His friends are moving ahead with their lives and some of them very successfully, and this feeds his sense of lack of self worth, as he is unable to stick to anything, there is much he wants to do but he can’t focus. Some of this might be constitutional, some might be panic spiral.
BUT (and this is good, of course) he says we need to leave him to become an adult, we can’t live his life for him, he needs to sort this out.
I’m helping him with the steps required for a diagnosis of ADHD if present, I think he would benefit from medication. Given the waits I am happy to fund this privately: I did for his sib and it has helped.
I am doing a bit of life coaching by text, just giving him two top priorities for action every day as something to hang on to in the face of his own overwhelm/panic.
…and lying awake at night having panics of my own!
Questions really are: how much help is too much? At what point do we say no more financial bail out (other than rent which we have to pay, until his tenancy runs out)? How do I cope with my own fears and catastrophising? I can see a potential scenario of us withdrawing and him ending up on the streets or taking his own life. I can rationalise that this is unlikely, but not at 3am.
I agree with him that he needs to become an adult on his own terms, but he is approaching crisis right now. Hard not to reach out a hand to help.
Thanks for reading this far. Grateful for the advice from anyone who has been through this.