I think my son's problem is less schizophrenia and more pure laziness. He has no income

Endorope:

What you've described could be symptoms or could be loafing.  Does he believe that he has a mental illness?  What does his psychiatrist say?

Come on back,

Robin

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.

Hello endorope,

Please understand, I want only that you find some comfort and a workable solution to this dilemma.  It is hard for you in what you are going through, I know.

Trust me, this sounds all too familiar  as I know someone whose son sounds just like your son, down to the last details of the situation.  It's like a mirror.

It is hard to know for sure whether he has schizophrenia or is just loafing, unless you get a professional to make an accurate diagnosis.

I'm sorry to be blunt; however, the truth is, he is an adult, 30 years old, and it's time the entitlement stops.  Why should he collect SSD when he's getting paid already by you?  As hard as it's going to be, I suggest you tell him the gravy train has run out of fuel and won't be making any stops at your house again.

Sorry, sorry, sorry.  He is an adult, and as such is responsible for his actions.  One thing certain people are good at is manipulating their mother or father so that the mother or father gives in and enables them to continue their behavior.

I'm surprised when I hear of parents floating the bill for their adult children.

However, that is probably because my parents expected me to pay my own way.

I would also plan on what you want to happen when you're no longer in the picture.   Better to nip this in the bud now than wait to do something until it goes beyond being out of hand.

Again, I have come on strong, I know.  I hope you understand that this is because you need to act quickly.

Regards,

Chris 

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.