Late reply, but thank you so much for this. I am the stepmom of a child (now adult) who has received counseling, specialized education, medication, and residential treatment since the age of 6. We love him dearly and have done our very best, but he is 22 now. We continue to pay for counseling twice a week, which is more than our rent. We are not even allowed to ask him whether he is still on his medication. We know he goes to counseling because we get the invoice. He says he’s “fine”.
There is only so much you can do when your child is an adult. And sadly, for some problems, there is no parenting strategy that will make the problem vanish. People recognize this with physical maladies but seem to think that brain maladies are curable by love and discipline.
He’s doing great on the surface. We were told never to assume that he could live independently, yet he is living in an apartment, keeping a job, and going to a trade school part time.
Thank God he came to us when the mental illness started. But is he being truthful with his counselor about medications or the degree of symptoms, including severe depersonalization? There is no way to know now that he is an adult. And yet if he harms himself or someone else, in addition to being heartbroken for him, I will never forgive myself.
Way too long on an old thread. Probably no one will see my long testimonial. But I had to write it out. I began weeping when I read the comment to which I am replying. Thank you, CGray