Son with PPD?

[momoffour]

Hello, as my name indicates, I have four kids.  Ranging from 17-26.  My middle son who is 20.5 yo has recently gone no contact with me.  I have been searching for months for what could potentially have caused this sudden change in his behavior.  I am so relived to find this forum. 

I divorced their dad because he had undiagnosed PD and became too controlling and abusive, to the point I feared for my life. I was isolated and it was a very scary thing to do to leave him after 17 years of marriage.  I was so conditioned and codependent.  My son was 8 yo at that time.

I went on to remarry and we blending a family of 8, (hubby has 4) and that was very difficult.  My oldest son has Asperger's and depression and always required a lot of my attention.  The son I am discussing today, was hyperactive and very sensitive and because he was the middle child didn't get a lot of the attention he was looking for.  His father abandoned the kids after the divorce and my children didn't initially like my husband (who I have been married to for 8 years now).  The other three love him now and we have obtained peace in our family, outside of this son.

This middle son began acting out around 16 and was doing drugs and skipping school.  I thought it was normal teenage stuff, but in hindsight, I think this is where it all started.  He eventually dropped out of high school and came to work with me at my job so I could keep a closer eye on him.  During the next 3 years, we were so close and got along so well.  He was always a little "shy", not trusting people, or the government, or strangers.  I just thought he was quirky.  He got his GED and saved a lot of money working.  He didn't date or have friends, but got along with the family well.  He didn't leave his room much but was respectful when he did.

It all came very suddenly when he decided to quit his job and isolated himself more. He started picking endless debates with me or his brother about money, conspiracy theories, religion, always deep topics on which his views has to be the right views.  Then he decided to move out (in with his oldest brother) and his behavior started to get worse.  He has smoked TCH and vaped on and off since he was 16 (when alone) but when he moved out started smoking weed all day everyday.  It has been a year now and he still has no job, has become very paranoid, no friends, no girl. 

What really was the tipping point is he started to attack ME, who is his one supporter and friend.  He never did this before.  I was always his #1 and he revered me as the parent who raised him.  Now he suddenly despises me, with no cause, put ridiculous demands on me (like wanting me to quit my job, stop spending time with my husband, to spend all my time with him), tells me I need to find Christ like he has, accuses me of stealing his money, tells me I was a terrible mom, and bad at my job, not a good wife, etc.  He uses examples of other people on my life that haven't been kind as an example of why I deserve to be treated badly.  It does t even make sense logically what he says.  he has also gone after my husband.  But in such a paranoid, Self righteous, and manipulative way.

It has been especially triggering because #1, we were so close.  He was such a sweet kid and good friend to me and his siblings.  #2 he is starting to exhibit similar behaviors as his biological father, who I was a victim to for too long, triggering my own ptsd.

He recently told me during our last conversation that I will never hear from him again, never meet his children, and he will disappear from our family. 

He has not been to a family dinner in months, and shut down all social media. However he watches videos online that make him worse and seem to put more ideas in his head. He refuses treatment because of course, he thinks I am the problem.  He is running out of money and very agitated and isolated.  His older brother tries not to engage with him to keep the peace.  His bio dad is back in the picture trying to bond with him now, which validates his feelings.

My husband and I, and our other children are all so CONFUSED because this has been such a sudden change and so destructive.  My family has been very supportive of me and tells me to keep healthy boundaries to reduce any abuse he may direct to me.  He has mentioned suicide (couldn't tell if he was serious or just being manipulative and threatening) and anger that may cause him to be "dark" so I have been working on a crisis plan in case things escalate.  We have upped the security at our house because we are not sure if he is dangerous toward us, as he sometimes scopes out our house when we aren't there.

He is so sure we are all out to get him.  That we are all talking about him, scheming to take advantage, and he doesn't trust anyone.  He especially thinks I have betrayed him and abandoned him (which is completely unsubstantiated).

I am so so so sad.  I miss him so much.  He is not okay!  I am not okay. I can trace small behaviors for years, but he went completely "Snapped" about 4-5 months ago.  I am at a loss.

I am seeking support and help dealing.  I have a good support system but I feel so sad and powerless.  No one really understands how acutely I feel this.  I can't help but wonder if I really am the cause as he accuses me, or if the drugs are why he is so bad all of a sudden.  Or if he had his dad's mental issues. 

Does anyone relate?  Sorry so long.  Thanks in advance!

[bloomie]

momoffour - welcome to Out of the FOG. I am so thankful you have reached out to this community for support and yet so sorry for the heartbreaking circumstances with your son.

We have great resources at the drop down menus above and conversations taking place on the forum boards where you can post and ask questions, engage and continue to equip and empower yourself in keeping those boundaries and refusing to allow yourself to be disrespected and verbally abused by anyone.. even a beloved son.

Given the suddenness of all of this, and your son's age, it may be he has to get to a place where he is willing to have a complete physical and psychological eval just to rule out anything that could be triggering this sudden change.

Being in the 'waiting room' so to speak, as he finds his way, has to be so very hard. My hope is that as you spend time here, have in real life support from family and friends that you will find steady ground for your feet and are able to be gentle with yourself and put your needs and health as a priority.

We have something called the 51% rule that is a great jumping in place.

We are not qualified to diagnose, but we do have traits info in our resources that has a do/don't section and a toolbox that I return to often.

Keep coming back and sharing as you are able. It helps to lighten a heavy load! 

[square]

Hey Mom of Four,

I am not dealing with a kid in this situation (though I do have a non PD kid around your son's age). But I do have a husband with similar issues of paranoia, who originally felt I was his one safe person but then inexplicably decided I was his enemy.

My husband has some similar background as your son. His parents were divorced around the same age. He did witness physical violence by his father toward his mother, and it was traumatic.

His mother remarried a very good man, and there was no blending of families as the man's child was already a full adult. But while the home situation was calmer, he struggled in school, and did not really get support from his mother around this. While she did not criticize him for it, he felt really alone and unhelped, and came to feel defective and broken. He felt all alone, with a burden he was not equal to. His father also would repeatedly abandon him by just walking out and disappearing for months or years if he was displeased.

My husband developed an "I don't care" attitude and stopped even trying at school. He did graduate, but he protected himself by broadcasting that he did not care, which was safer than trying and failing.

He did not get into drugs, though, and actually was working on a future as a young man. He discovered a real talent for counseling people, and decided to become a therapist. Despite his struggles in school, he applied himself at college and did well despite having sincere difficulties, which I now wonder if those difficulties were either caused by trauma or by latent mental illness. But he was young and his efforts were enough to power him through.

He met me during this time, and while I don't see myself as being in a "motherly" role to him, I think my support filled a void that he lacked from his own mother. I think it felt to him like, finally, somebody is helping me. He was happy with that for a while.

Things were great for a long time, maybe 10 years, but slowly something started catching up to him. It was like his youth was enough to push him through things before, but as he went into his 30s, he lost that and could not really compensate anymore. He was not able to get things together enough to pursue his dreams. His executive functioning declined, and he got angrier and angrier that he just couldn't catch a break. But he "felt" like he was trying really hard (and perhaps he was), so even though he was really getting nowhere it felt like the world was against him, rather than seeing that he was just less and less able to concentrate or function. He felt like he was working his butt off while he was really doing next to nothing.

Paranoid personalities tend to focus on assigning blame, it's really important to figure out whose fault something is. And of course it can't be their fault. I was always his support, and I'm a problem solver by nature. I think he saw me as this magic problem solver, but since he was failing, I must have been failing. So rather than appreciating what I did for him, he got angrier and angrier at me because things were failling apart.

I think these personalities came to conclusions backwards. It's not "have I made a plan and executed the plan," it's not "why didn't this happen," or any other logical thoughts. It's just "well, it didn't happen and it wasn't MY fault, so it must be yours."

My husband isn't a drug user (he does depend on alcohol though) but twice in his life he accepted some weed offered by others. The first time, he had paranoid thoughts, and later recognized that and said he should avoid it. Many years later, he was in a poor mental state, and then under the influence of alcohol, and accepted some weed and had a full on psychotic break. Weed can have that effect on some people.

Furthermore, stimulants such as Adderall can also trigger a decline into paranoid psychosis in some people. My husband got a prescription to treat what appears to be ADHD (but I wonder if it's not ADHD but maybe schizophrenia). The year he started Adderall was the year things really fell apart, that was about 9 years ago. It may have been a coincidence, I don't know, but it does bother me.

Paranoid personalities tend to hold grudges, and unfortunately once they feel betrayed by a person, it seems really hard to regain trust. For people like you and me, we can feel hurt by a person but potentially work past it or let it go or whatever, because we see people as complicated. But paranoid people see things differently, they see evil in the world. And if they think a person is evil, that is their true nature and there is no "they were having a bad day" or "they just have some trauma around that issue" or "maybe I misunderstood where they were coming from." It's just "there are demons masquerading as people, and I have just found another one." If someone is evil, they are evil, period. They feel like they would be stupid (or as my husband likes to say, he'd have to delude himself) to trust an evil person.

I don't have any idea if you are in that position for sure. My heart goes out to you, it sounds very painful. For my husband, I'm in a weird limbo where sometimes I'm evil but sometimes I'm not. It's like he suspects I'm evil but hasn't totally committed to believing it.

Like your son, my husband was an absolute sweetheart of a little boy (I didn't know him then but I've seen the pictures and heard all the stories) and also a very sweet young man who would have walked through fire to help me. I feel like something that is not him infected him. It's such a sad situation.

For the record, I'm not clear if my husband has any personality disorder at all, but he certainly has mental health issues. I do see many overlaps with his interpersonal behavior and PD, such as the tactics like DARVO, or the triggers (mainly abandonment). But my husband definitely has something else going on, either in addition to or instead of PPD, as he has full on psychosis. So maybe schizophrenia or a pretty serious case of bipolar, I don't know.

Unfortunately, bad influences are a real menace here. My husband is also drawn to conspiracy theories and some unhelpful philosophies that focus on blaming certain groups for the problems of other groups. Fortunately, it seems he has mostly just stood in the doorway of these ideas and not really embraced them. But they are attractive because they fit the paranoid mental outlook that boils down to "there are powerful forces of evil in the world conspiring against you, and they know exactly what they are doing."

Sorry for having such a long response, I just thought I'd throw a bunch of things out there in case something resonated.

But the thing I want to leave you with is that you didn't cause it, you can't control it, and you can't cure it. You can feel sad about it, and of course you do. He clearly had a predisposition to this, and things may have triggered what happened. You dealt with the marriage as best as you could, and dealt with supporting him as best as you could. From what you wrote, the fact that he did feel like you were in his corner when he was younger speaks volumes.