Dear Jo:

Welcome to the forum! You shared that your son (22) failed his 2nd year at university, took 2020 off but remained living at university with his friends. Later he resumed his studies, but you noticed that when he was home with you, he “seemed really quiet“, and when you visited him at university, you noticed that he was “not eating, cleaning his bathroom and he looked terrible“. Six weeks ago, he called you at 2 am, telling you that he was “very distressed… lonely and sad… hadn’t left his room properly or even his bed“, and that he wanted to leave university. He saw a few professionals who suggested that he was suffering from social anxiety and depression. He lives with you, having no friends locally, and he “struggles to talk or engage with anyone“, including with you. He reads books on his phone for six hours a day, says he has “no hope of a job” and clams up when you talk about his future. The waiting time for his therapy is 3 months.

I read all that you’ve been doing to help your son, all good things. Your love and care for him are very evident.

“I see glimmers of something sometimes” – in his eyes perhaps, in his voice?

This glimmer of something is under attack by (1) the thoughts in his head, thoughts that scare and depress him, (2) the chemical habit of being anxious and depressed; neurotransmitters produced in his brain and hormones are maintaining his anxiety and depression.

“His dad keeps asking what he’s doing with his life, and I try and feel I should try and protect my son from his dad’s insensitive questions” – (1) I doubt that you can fix his father’s insensitivity, (2) It’s too late to protect him from his father’s questions because by now he internalized his father’s (and others’) insensitive questions and negative messages; these are now his own thoughts.

Talking about university and his future trigger certain thoughts and chemicals that cause him anxiety; on the other hand, reading a book for 6 hours calms those thoughts and chemicals. You already observed what suggestions and activities trigger his anxiety and what suggestions and activities calm him. Offer him the latter and avoid the former.

If he sees that you are significantly distressed over his mental state, he is likely to figure that his mental state must be very poor to be causing you such distress, so it’s important that you appear as calm as possible and that your attitude is positive and light, best you can. For a person, other people, particularly parents, are like mirrors. If he sees (and hears) a content mother he figures that he must be doing better than he thought, or not as badly as he thought.

Part of appearing calmer is that you take care of yourself, socialize with your friends and make fewer suggestions to your son in regard to what he should do to get better. In other words, be less involved in his life and more in yours, it will be better for him.

Antidepressants such as the SSRI group are commonly prescribed for depression and for anxiety. These may provide the fastest change in the chemical habit I mentioned, the one which is currently maintaining his anxiety and depression. It is better to change this chemical habit with regular, daily exercise, particularly aerobic exercise, other regular practices such as yoga perhaps or tai chi, and mindfulness exercises, including guided meditations with the mindfulness theme, but sometimes the anxious and depressed person is too anxious and depressed to regularly exercise etc., and it takes the fast and easy taking of a pill (SSRI and similar medications) to jump start a person in the right direction.  After a person exercises etc. on a regular basis, and feeling better for it, then he/ she can stop taking medications, gradually, as prescribed.

I hope this helps somewhat…?

anita