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Originally Posted by hankster
Sounds like me. where are my rewards. when you don't trust you are going to get rewarded, why work for anything?
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That's an interesting insight. I suppose he might think that way.
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I DID work, all thru grade school and high school only to be laughed at at the end by my parents and denied my dream. it screwed me up.
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Well, I never laughed at him.
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I still worked, but I couldn't keep any rewards, financially, physically, emotionally.
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I guess it feels that way to me too. But I still get up every day and try.
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I can't even have myself. Does your son even have himself?
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I feels to me like he gives himself away. He does things that set himself up to fail. Even he says he gets to a certain point and he "hits the self-destruct button." He does things knowing they'll lead to something bad for himself. I think the low self-esteem thing plays into that too. He'll say he doesn't "deserve" something or other.
Also I'm convinced he does "stupid" things just to prove to himself that he really is "stupid." If you know
before you do something that it's stupid, why do it? There may be several reasons, but one would be to keep your view of yourself intact. And my son is convinced that he's stupid.
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How can he have a job? I don't mean to be harsh on you, no one works harder than you to help. I just got a feeling of him spinning, and a job and stuff flying off him, where we just need to solidify and establish him first.
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I agree, but that's outside of my control. He's getting pressure from the federal government to get a job - Ticket To Work - and from the state government because they bought him a car through voc rehab. He needs a chance to heal, but I can't stop the world from doing what it does. And right now it's pushing him toward finding a job.
I'm resisting the urge to contact his voc rehab case worker and asking him to back off, because the anxiety is making my son sick. I'm trying to back off and let him handle his own stuff, though. They're pressuring him to make 3 to 4 applications a
day! My son needs a very specific kind of job. Half time or less. Contact with only a few very mature non-judgmental people. He needs to be successful at this job. His first biggest fear is that he won't get hired. His second biggest fear is that he'll be hired then fired immediately.
I'm trying to take the pressure off by telling him to reframe the issue. His job isn't to
find a job. It's to
look for a job. As long as he's actively looking, he's keeping his deal with the state. If they want him out there applying for totally inappropriate jobs, so be it. Doesn't seem to have lessened the stress for him yet.
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Does he do chores at home?
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No, he won't do chores. I've asked him to, but it always leads to a fight. When I suggest it might help his self-esteem to be contributing even in that small way, he never responds and he doesn't do anything. I do whatever housework gets done and pick up after him too. It's one of those situations where you stop caring for yourself because you're depressed, then you feel more depressed because you're not taking care of yourself.
Unfortunately asking him to help out is a recipe for rage. He punched me in the head once when I asked him to wash the dishes. Another time he flew into a rage and threw the kitchen furniture around when I asked him to pick up a pill bottle he'd dropped on the floor.
And then after these rage episodes he feels a great deal of shame. I feel helpless to change this cycle. I just don't ask him anymore to do anything.