[Jannaku]

I hope I'm posting this in the right thread. I need some advice or thoughts regarding a difficult situation I have at hand.

Here's the story:

Background: I am married and have 2 children to a man that has fully fledged pathological narcissistic personality disorder. The kids are now 20 and 15. Life with my H has always been exceptionally difficult and the domestic scene has been completely dysfunction and abusive since I can remember. I have posts from over a year ago, when I had my lightbulb moment, that speak about the insanity of living with a disordered person.

My son is the 15 year old and at present is struggling with ?? depression and perhaps some other things - although I'm no expert on how depression can present itself. He seemed to be a fairly happy-go-lucky kid until puberty hit (11 years old) and from then until now he has become more withdrawn and for the past 2 years has been on a steady decline in terms of behaviour.

To summarise how he presents:
* he is very uncommunicative and withdrawn and spends most of his time on his computer - so in other words he is very disengaged from life.
* he is defiantly stubborn and refuses to do anything that is asked of him - even simple things. This began as an active defiance in response to his over-controlling NPD father, but has now evolved to include anything, anyone asks of him. He does what he wants, when he wants.
* he engages in compulsive masturbation and spends 2-3 hours every evening locked in the bathroom self-soothing himself.
* over the past 18 months he has had many anger outbursts which involved him bashing furniture, throwing things and either storming out of the house or locking himself in a bathroom. There have been interventions because of this because his safety was of concern. He appears to have got some of this anger under control now, but still has a "short fuse" and is easily angered and prone to losing it.
* for the best part of this year his sleep/wake cycle has been totally off. At first I thought it was because he was doing all-nighters on his computer, but that has since been out ruled. He has been known to sleep for 16 hours non-stop and has enormous difficult waking up in the morning. So much so, that he has missed an extraordinary amount of school because he simply can not wake up. He still struggles with this right now and has missed 3 weeks of school because of this.

He has been seeing a therapist and psychiatrist and was put on anti-depressants and melatonin to assist in regulating his sleep/wake cycle. Initially, the anti-depressants appeared to work, but their affect then wore off and he "crashed" again. He is now on a higher does of anti-depressants (as per his request) and taking melatonin (as per his request) and taking vitamins/minerals (as per his request).

He is unable to articulate or explain what is going on for him, but is genuinely wanting to find answers. He loves school and want's to go. Every evening he prepares himself and speaks as if he is going, but come morning his inertia paralyses him.

The psychiatrist has now ordered a blood test to check for a wide variety of things, along with an EEG (preferably a sleep deprived one) and an MRI of his brain.

I'm at a loss as to know what is happening. Is it depression? Depression plus something else? Or something else all together?

Has anyone got any ideas whatsoever?

Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the trouble to read this and reply.
Jannaku x

[vital]

Hi. Well, I did read your post Jannaku.

I must say, I'm suspicious of your Therapist and Psychiatrist. It sounds like the first thing they tried is antidepressants. Below is some interesting links for purely medical causes of depression.

The other thing I'm noticing is no mention of your son's friends. How's he doing in that department?

This might help for possible purely medical issues:

About 13:44 in, he talks about depression specifically and points out the any of the following can cause it:

1. Gluten -> Autoimmune disease thyroid
2. Acid reflux -> acid blockers -> vitamin B12 deficiency
3. Vitamin D deficiency
4. Took antibiotics -> Altered gut flora -> Changes the way peptides and neurotransmitters are produced
5. Love Sushi -> Mercury poisoning
6. Hate fish -> Omega 3 deficiency
7. Love sugar -> Prediabetes

Every one of these things causes depression, the treatments for each are different and none of them will be helped by antidepressants.

You could be speaking of my own son. Exactly the same. Exactly (except for the masturbation....IF he did that, that's fine with me, it's not something that concerned me).

My son withdrew and we couldn't get him to articulate what the problem was. We thought it was growing pains, him being difficult, his twisted girlfriend, his tortured artistic soul, etc., etc., etc....
I also have depression but couldn't make the connection because, well, I have depression and it leaves you incapable of lots of things. I am now improved, somewhat, and so can recognize it in other people.

Finally we got him to therapy and on anti-depressants. He has improved to the point where he can recognize and tell us when he's going downhill.

Just my own experience.

[Jannaku]

Hi Vital and thank you so much for reading and replying.

To answer a couple of your questions. My son first started off with therapy - that was because he wasn't too bad at that point in time. The therapy was more focused on the difficulties he was having with his NPD father and the abusive environment he was living in. He struggled a lot with that because is Dad was very controlling, not to mention abusive in an emotional/psychological/verbal way.

He has a great group of friends. There is about 6 of them and they are very close. They care a lot about him and are all concerned. All their parents and myself have worked together as a team to help him in any way we can. He has stayed over at their houses for weeks on end and .... surprise, surprise appears to improve. That's because he has company, friendship and things to do .... and also because it's school holiday time. I think when he is at home, he misses companionship and becomes easily bored with his own company. He does not have a diverse range of interests and unfortunately no siblings to hang out with. All the other boys have brothers and therefore are never bored or needy of companionship. The problem now is that once he slips into this phase he's not motivated in the slightest to do much e.g. he has given away a sport which he does with a friend 2 evening per week.

Some of the deficiencies you spoke of are what he is being tested for now. To be fair to both the psychologist and psychiatrist the antidepressants were not the first line of treatment, but rather the last - although a few blood tests probably wouldn't have gone astray in the earlier part.

Thanks for opening up other things to consider.

Love Jannaku x

[Altered Moment]

Keep working with the psychiatrist and therapist.

Keep a strong eye out for drug or alcohol use. He is in a vulnerable spot for that because once you discover it brings relief it is hard to resist.

[Jannaku]

Thanks Zinco for the heads up on that. I've been there done it myself . Having come from an abusive and traumatic childhood, I found myself "getting relief" when I was 13 and ended up in a rehab facility by the time I was 17. Luckily I managed to pull myself together and away from the numbing, soothing effects of D&A. It's still a default method of coping for me at times

At this point in time he is safe from thankfully safe from that.

Many thanks
Jannaku x