My son is 27 and I am worried about him. He is highly intelligent but since dropping out of university he has not had any settled periods of employment and appears to be drifting with no real sense of what to do with his life.
My main worries are to do with his mental health. He lives with his partner who works part-time, but they live an increasingly precarious existence and I have bailed them out financially on numerous occasions.
He has started to reveal that he was bullied at school. He started smoking cannabis at a young age, saying it gave him a sense of belonging and was an escape from the bullying. I feel tormented that he didn’t share this with me at the time, but understand why; his older brother has autism and takes up a lot of attention. I was very aware of this and made sure that he was able to spend lots of time with his friends. He was popular, had a wide circle of friends and was identified as a high achiever. His childhood was happy and settled up to the age of nine when his dad and I split up. His father has remarried and I am on good terms with him; both boys see him regularly.
My elder son lives semi-independently with support and we all spend lots of quality time together.
I have tried to offer lifelines to my other son, helping him to apply for jobs, encouraging him to get help for his health problems; but he is skilled at going under the radar if he feels under pressure. He is a gifted, self-taught musician and gets by on teaching a few lessons and playing locally.
Rather than just give him money, I have recently taken a different tack by asking him to help me with chores and this gives me an opportunity to talk to him and try to encourage him to re-connect with life rather than bump along the bottom.
I have encouraged him to go back to his GP and ask to be referred for talking therapy. Even small steps to get his life back on track seem to be too difficult and I am at my wits’ end about how to help him.
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