endorope,

Let me start by saying you sound just like my mother ;)  Which to my mind makes you a very good mother.

Of course your son sounds very similar to me.   I have thus far been turned down by Social Security.  When I was looking for work I had huge difficulties filling in the 'times you can work' area of the application and wold much rather drive around.  I have a daughter and am divorced.  I'm 30 in a few weeks.  My apartment and my home are completely trashed out.  I miss a great deal of therapy appointments, sometimes for months...

My mom knows, just like you, about all these things.

It makes your son and I sound like twins.  If we are by some twist of fate exactly alike, let me tell you some things that I am too embarassed to tell my mother.  They are things I am embarassed to say, not because I think she won't support me, and not because I think she will dismiss them off hand, but because she is my mother--and it tears me apart because I am her son, and I want her to be safe from the world I see.

I spend most nights holding a knife and sitting facing my backdoor, listening to creatures beyond it that sound so otherworldly they stand my hair on end.

I spend the majority of my days battling against the concept of suicide.  Not the act, mind you, that would be too easy.  I could just pick "to do, or not to do."  No, instead I am steeped in an endlessly circular arguement that could only be described as an existential crisis.

I avoid eye contact, because, while my conversations would still start out normal enough, they end with gross facial distortions of my fellow conversant that cause me in anxiety to reel through a thousand answers to the simplest questions--and in that fear induced scrambling for an answer equitable, I usually end in saying something so obviously rediculous that it haunts me for days.

In everyhting I do, whether it is raising my daughter, or speaking to my family, there is a constant threat that if I let my guard down for even a moment, I will become the writhing screaming entities that populate my mind.

My mother has no idea.  She only knows that I, and a few other 'people' say I'm sick.  She knows me, right?  Because she has bandaged every wound I've ever had, has held me in my childhood when the monsters weren't real--and her soft touch and caring, her jokes and stories could make the apperations disappear into the mist from which they emerged.  She is my mother, and as my mother will perhaps never know the horrible horrible nightmare that lurks just beyond my apparent composure.  And well a great deal of me wishes she did, because she has a good record with fending of my monsters, the sad reality is that these are to strong for her, and I may never let her know, because I love her, that I am so haunted.

I may have been a little selfish in telling you these things.  You sound like my mother, and that has made it safe for me to confess the things I want to tell her but won't.  At the same time, If I had been your son--and he had found my mother's question, I wonder what he might have said to her that he wished he could allow himself to say to you.

In response to the above opinion, I honorably dissent.  While there is a possibility for a schizophrenic to be self sustained, and the parent certainly has no legal obligation to a man of thirty, the voice of concience dictates a deeper verdict than a line in the sand.  As a culture, I am sure you will agree, my dear expert, that the charitable allocation of tax dollars to programs which alleviate the financial struggle of the sick, the handicapped, and the mentally ill, are a reflection of the heart of our society, a heart which recognizes a higher asperation than Darwins god.  In this sense, may I be so bold as to assert, that 'charity starts at home.'  How many homeless suffer from the crux of dementia?  Would we then say "all those over eighteen who litter this street, be you blood and brother, disperse, you are trash?"  Does $637 SSI seperate a man from hunger or guaruntee shelter from life's storms?  If the family can not afford to lift their kinsman by the arm we should cry, not congratulate.  If the family can create some solace for its afflicted and does nothing, how aggrieved should we then be?  The dynamics of our existence does not dictate that we climb from the mud and grime, lest it is to turn, to turn and look upon the writhing mass which has not found its way through the murk, turn and look and reach from our solidity, turn and look and reach--and lift one another up.  If not our brothers, our sons and our daughters, our mothers and our aged fathers, if not them...How tragic the plight of the stranger in this sodom.

sujata

6/10/11 9:22am

I am in complete agreement with Chris. "Charity" may begin at "home," but it is NO gift to enable a mentally ill person by catering to their every whim.

 

My domestic partner of 13 years has his 31 year old schizophrenic son living in our house. He is handed money, cars, etc and given an inch, this "boy" will take a mile. I am convinced that schizophrenia is not his greatest handicap, but being a spoiled brat is. He can spend 12 hours at a time making his youtube videos about a religion he has created, as he is creator of the universe, but he can't hold a job for more than two hours. His mother does the same, although she dropped him at our door three years ago (after having him for three months) and here he remains. They give him money for food and gas that he spends on cigarettes, pot and beer. And no one bats an eyelash. I tried to at least get them to give him only grocery store and gas cards. Worked for about two months. They put no limits and no expectations on him. He lies, he steals, he manipulates to get his way. I am the only person, it seems, who has the courage to say "No," to him. And I do, and he hates me for it.

 

They are doing him no favors, and I've tried to explain this. One day they will both be dead, and there will be a 50 year old man who's never held a job and has no place to live. And who thinks the world owes him everything.

 

A few hundred dollars a month may not be much, but it comes with other benefits like housing and food stamps and  health insurance, and the possibility of truly living independently. That is absolutely not the same thing as saying that the aged of our culture don't deserve our help. No comparison.

 

The sad thing is that I am at my wits end. I love this man, but his catering to his son is killing our relationship. I am tired of being a second-class citizen to a lazy, spoiled brat who also happens to be schizophrenic.

 

I do feel for him. And I feel for the parents. It's a pickle. Hard choices must be made. But I truly believe that in the long-run it would be better to hold him accountable for at LEAST applying for benefits.

 

And, speaking of which, my understanding is that everyone gets denied social security/disability benefits at first. You just have to keep appealing. I also understand it takes about two years now to get it through. Don't give up.