Living with a depressed 30 year old son

[0918]

My 30 year old son who has lived away from home for 3-6 month periods during his life and has been living with his dad and myself for the past three years straight has suffered lifelong depression especially during winter periods. He is unemployed (never had a long term job), unsuccessful at over a half dozen business ventures all subsidized by myself and my husband, verbally abusive, always moody, physically imposing(has worked out faithfully for 15 yrs),and in my opinion is addicted to Adderall (135 30mg tabs per month).In the past 10+ years he has been prescribed Zoloft, Wellbutrin and Paxil and does not like the 'feeling' on these meds along with some weight gain and excessive headaches with Wellbutrin and excessive sweating with Paxil so has sworn off psychotropic type meds as useless.  My son decided about 8 years ago that he would like to take stimulants and studied a booklet on ADHD and 'exhibited' all the symptoms in order to obtain his first Rx. He functioned somewhat on Ritalin but still went through periods of excessive spending (all via mom/dad credit cards).  He switched to Adderall about 3 years ago first at 15 mg per day then up to current level. In the meanwhile 2 psychiatrists dropped him as a patient due to his constant requests to increase dosage and abusive behavior when they refused to do so.  He buys 100's of silly little items (mostly thru ebay),cleans and catalogs them, and stores them. He 'powers through' on adderall by staying up sometimes 3 days straight excessively cleaning, polishing and unable to focus on one task for a long period of time.  He then stays in bed for 1 to 2 days and the cycle starts over.  He has threatened suicide hundreds of times, threatened to kill others to prove a point that no one can tell him what to do.  My husband and myself are afraid of him.  My husband is trying to set up a meeting with his psychiatrist to explain our situation as we do not think our son complains of any depression problems to this doctor but just shows up to get his Rx refill.  We are at our wits end.  We love our son very much and it hurts us to see him feeling so much pain and never experiencing much happiness.  A psychologist recently suggested in-patient detox from the emphetamines but my husband and I do not believe our son would ever agree to voluntarilly decrease/end his abuse of Adderall.  As a young child my son was prone to terrible temper tantrums and fought any discipline with every fabric of his being.  He hung with the jocks in high school and abused alcohol on weekends.  Alcohol seemed to take the 'edge' off his negative behavior.  He always has to be the center of attention and is excessively jealous of his younger brother.  Both his brothers are successful professionals.  He has a little dog whom he adores.  He has had a few long term female relationships with very needy women (4 years and 2 years long).  Any suggestions,ideas?  He is currently blaming myself and my recovered alcoholic husband for all.

[I'mallheart]

It sounds like first of all he needs JESUS in his life..or some "real" christian men in his life..also he needs to just plain grow up and you as parents arent helping him, you let him take advantage of your credit etc. KICK HIM OUT AND REAL TOUGH LOVE IS WHAT IS GONNA WORK...it will be tough and all but un the long run he will thank you
Your no longer responsible for him, hes an ADULT
I ll pray for your situtation

[nikir]

I can totally relate to how you are feeling. The person in my like that does all the things your son does is my mother. I lived my whole life in fear that she would hurt herself or others if we did not give in to her every whim. Finally enough is enough and we had to do tough love and just cut her out of the picture.  She had to learn to be responsible for her actions and suffer the consequences of being a bully to everyone to get her way. Also my mother was diagnosed as Schitzoaffective. So when she decides to do things everyone made excuses for her. She lost her house and everything my dad had worked for. He finally left and she had to become responsible for herself. Funny how she finally could care for herself and even hold down a job when no one was there to do it. It hurt at the time to let her suffer but nothing like the suffering she put us through. I wish you much luck and hope everything turns out okay.

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

I suggest that you talk with a psychologist or a psychiatrist and set up  a series of family meetings so the three of you can meet with the professional together and discuss these things openly, and use the mediator to help keep tempers from flaring.