You mentioned in your longer letter that you stopped working so you could make your son lunch. “You might need to renegotiate your relationship with one another,” suggested Morris. Sometimes children don’t want to depart because they fear leaving the parent behind, rather than the other way around. Morris wondered whether the fact that he was the last child and the only man of the house might have something to do with it. So addressing this is key.Īdult offspring can have trouble “launching” from the family home. Even if it has been overcome, it can recur or compromise a person so that, when the next round of difficulties hits, they are less able to deal with it. “If he is depressed,” she said, “he’ll find motivation for anything difficult.”ĭepression isn’t linear or a disease you get only once. She urged you to push him to get a proper assessment, to see if he is suffering from depression, and to get the appropriate treatment. I asked a family psychotherapist, Jess Morris, for her opinion. What does need looking at, though, is your son’s history with depression. You know your son: what’s your instinct telling you? You should ignore what your father is saying: that is not helpful at all. I think you are torn between what you want to do and what you feel others are saying you should do. Sure, it’s tough loving people sometimes, through certain situations but to me tough denotes something hard and unyielding, which isn’t love at all. Should I kick him out and give him some tough love, or let him grow up a bit? I worry that if anything happened to me, my son wouldn’t have the skills to cope. I know he needs to take responsibility for his life, but how hard should I work to make that happen? His two older sisters are not like him at all both are independent and getting on with their lives. He lacks self-confidence and seems happy to exist in the microcosm of his bedroom. He seems fine now, but I worry that pushing him will cause him to spiral again. He had a few counselling sessions, but I don’t think they helped. I was single until five years ago, but that relationship has just ended.Īt one stage my son was very depressed and talked about feeling hopeless. His father and I split up when he was four he’s never had a dad in his life. If I try to talk to him about it, he digs his heels in and does less. He is polite and will help if I ask, but he has no motivation to do anything. My dad thinks he’s a waste of space and I should kick him out, but that seems harsh. He had some time off, restarted the course and dropped out again. He did well in his GCSEs, despite doing zero work, and started a diploma but dropped out because of depression. All he does is mess around on his computer and chat to online friends.
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