I just couldn’t take it any more. My adult son quit college and is living at home. He is depressed, apparently severely, and spends most of the time in his room. We’ve talked about him quitting pot but he always BSs his way around the subject. Tonight I just had it. The smell of pot was coming from his room and I went in and grapped some pipes, his bongs, some blunts and smashed them and threw them away. I’m just at the end of my rope. I know depression is tough. He’s on medication, but just doesn’t even seem to try. He’s not joining any clubs, doing any sports, or even going out to bars. If it wasn’t for pot I don’t think he’d have any interests at all. Anyone have a child get over this?
Kick the dirtbag out. He needs some motivation to get his shit together.
Yeah, that’s right. Clinically depressed people who take medication are dirtbags.
As to the right word for people who dismiss psychological illness as dirtbaggery, well, we’re not in the right forum for that particular descriptive.
Dan, sorry to hear about your son’s condition and your frustration in trying to deal with it. Perhaps your son’s doctor will have some suggestions for helping you cope. Perhaps he or she can also recommend an in-patient treatment facility for your son to deal with his substance abuse issues.
Dan, I’m sorry…for you and for your son. He sounds very unhappy. I tried dealing with severe depression with alcohol for years. It doesn’t work, in the long run. Unfortunately getting drunk or high does turn the unhappiness volume down, short term…it’s a very tough place to get out of. And very depressed people have a tough time seeing any hope or change.
Is he in counselling? Maybe for him, some sort of group therapy would be helpful, even if you have to drag him there. Perhaps being around peers going through similar shit would give him a bit of a kick in the pants.
You’re totally correct to ban pot smoking in your home though, if that’s your decision. It’s illegal, (whether it should be is another issue,) you have every right.
I think he means people who quit school and then leach off their parents.
While I wouldn’t generally disapprove of marijuana use, I would think that for someone who is probably already feeling like a bit of a ‘loser’ having dropped out of college and relying on parents again, it is bound to make things worse. While the effects may be relaxing/soothing on a physiological level, on a psychological one, pot always leads to some degree of delusion, and if your head’s not in the right place anyway, it will just compound one’s depression, feeling of worthlessness, etc. I’d say he should be urged to give it up at least until he has sorted out the other areas of his life a bit.
No, people who are being treated for clinical depression but sit around their parent’s house smoking weed all day anyway are dirtbags. Illness is not an excuse for refusing to do anything with your life, especially if you have treatment options available to you.
Sorry friedo, I didn’t realize you were privy to Dan’s son’s medical history, that you are able to make such absolutist statements about his illness and how it’s manifesting itself.
DanBlather, is your son on medication? If he’s not, it sounds like he needs to be. If he is, I don’t think it’s working. I’ve had depression for 10 years (probably longer, but wasn’t diagnosed till then) and I know the hell of feeling like that - he needs help.
No, I haven’t, but I do think he would benefit from therapy. Is there someone his doctor (or wherever he is getting the meds from) could refer him to? Meds help, but counselling is also needed.
Good luck–I have a child with OCD and trichtillomania. One of the hardest things is to realize that YOU can’t stop your kid from making bad choices. It’s a helpless feeling that is not comfortable (at least for me).
I’m sorry, but I can’t agree with pot “always” causing delusions. I know plenty of regular users of it who lead normal, productive lives. If you met them, you’d be astonished to know that they smoke pot. One of them runs his own successful business, and the others work 9 to 5 office jobs. They’re not your sterotypical slackers, and none of them suffer from mental problems.
Bong Smash!.
sorry, i couldn’t resist.
At one point in my life I was so severely depressed that I moved back home from 1000 miles away and moved back in with my parents. I was 30 at the time.
I was at my breaking point, and I just could not function anymore. This is very hard for the not depressed to understand. For three months I didn’t work. And this from someone who had always been a very high functioning severely depressed person. It’s hard to explain, but when you get to that point everything, and I mean everything, requires a Herculean effort. I don’t even remember what I did for that time period.
It sounds to me like your son’s medication is not working, or not working well. He needs to see a psychiatrist to discuss changing to a new med or changing the dose of what he’s on. He also needs to be in therapy, if he’s not already. Meds alone are not sufficient for the clinically depressed. In my experience dealing with very depressed friends and family members, they need a loving, firm hand when they get to the point where they aren’t much help for themselves. Tell him you’re making the necessary appointments and that you’re taking him there. Or have him sign an agreement that he will go. Tell him that you love him, you understand how hard it is right now, and that he’s going to go these appointments/sessions.
Yes, ultimately he’s responsible for himself and for dealing with his depression. It’s not a free pass, but when someone you love gets this bad they need their family/friends’ help to get out of the inertia and into a place where they can start getting better.
Please note that accurate psychiatric diagnoses are more difficult to make while a person is taking mood-altering drugs. And psychiatric medications may be much less effective in that scenario, also.
Good luck.
Thanks all for the support. He is on medication and has been in counseling. As Niblet_Head says, I think I’ll need to drag him back to counseling. He is just so fricking passive.
Ditto that. I know lots of people who smoke pot and aren’t delusional. In fact, I don’t know any who ARE.
Well, that could be from the depression. It skews your perspective and keeps you from making rational decisions.
Well, there’s delusion and then there’s delusion in the colloquial sense of altered states of the mind. And pot is a psychoactive, so it is not so far off the mark.
If you look at the definitions of primary and secondary delusions at wiki, then sure, some of those things are exactly what people are smoking pot for! I mean, this picture has soooo much meaning, it just speaks to me, man (dude, it’s the Japanese flag!)(bonus points for knowing which TV show that comes from!)
Why is he smoking pot to begin with? Those with experience using drugs do so for many reasons, but many would agree that they offer a break from reality, if only for a little bit. Those that keep their jobs, have healthy relationships, yadayadayada obviously can handle the use of the drug. Then there are those who can’t.
What the son here is showing, quite clearly, is that he cannot handle the drug. Blaming this one drug is not the answer, nor do I suspect that dad means to. This guy is going to have problems with any drug that helps him cope with his life now. Plus, he has to be getting it from somewhere, so there is obviously a group in his life…possibly the only one that accepts him. Coping, enabling, etc. when he needs other help in life.
Counseling. Seems like he needs it.
-Tcat
Bosom Buddies (“It’s the FLAG of JAPAN!”).
While this was expressed in an unduly harsh manner, the underlying premise may be a good one. When I flunked out of college after my freshman year because of too much partying and not enough studying, it was my folks “OK, son, there’s the world, have at it, you’re on your own” reaction that gave me the kick in the pants I needed to learn how to be responsible and grown up. I got an apartment, a job and retook some of the classes I had failed. Once I was matriculating again, my folks resumed helping me pay for school and stuff, but I had to learn how to do it on my own first.