[dux16]

I decided to come on here and ask a question on behalf on my great friend, who has been going through depression, anxiety, and other mental health issues, related to her estranged son.

My friend's son got into legal issues and had gone through years of court appearances. This took a psychological toll on him, while he refused treatment and antidepressant medications. After the case was dismissed, which cost his mother (my friend) thousands of dollars, sleepless nights, and a plethora of other issues, which any mother would face in her position, her son dropped off the face of the earth and stopped communicating with her and his grandmother. For the past year, or even longer he keeps avoiding her, wants to have nothing to do with her, doesn't reply to her texts, and doesn't pick up her calls.

Recently she showed me some of the emails they have exchanged over the past year (rare communication between them), and in those emails he keeps blaming her for mistreating him her entire life. Keeps telling her that she has made his entire life miserable, and impossible. One of the emails he sent, he requested for her to list 10 things she has done to mistreat him in her life. He told her that he was contemplating running away from home when he was 5. He told her that she will only talk to him if she starts seeing a psychiatrist/psychologist, and gets better. He also wrote to her that if she were to die "tomorrow" he would not care.

She gave him the list of 10 things, which was not good enough. She got him a doctor's note that said she had been seeing a psychiatrist for half a year - he keeps making more demands.

I don't know her son. I have never seen him, but It's my personal opinion that she has no need for psychiatric help. To me her son sounds like he has had a psychiatric breakdown with sadistic tendencies towards him mother and grandmother.

My friend is depressed, upset, and doesn't know what to do. She has always treated her only son with lots of love and care. She bought him expensive cars, kept him in her home until he was 28, and generally has spoiled him rotten. Now, he is calling her Hitler and wants to have nothing to do with her. Some doctors call this Family Estrangement, some call him a Sadist, and some a Psychopath. They feel that his treatment of her is a result of his mental breakdown during his legal issues. She has only one question - when is he going to get better, and come back into my life. Without my won, the life is not worth living.

So, I ask you, folks, can any of you offer any opinions on what might have happened to him, and most importantly - will he ever get over his mental condition and his estranged resentment towards his mother? Will he ever try to reconnect and rekindle their relationship? He seems to be having great relationships with EVERYONE in his life, except for her.

What are your thoughts?

[hamster-bamster]

There is only one thing that is clear in this complex and horrible situation - your friend is not behaving the right way with her son. She is giving in. She does not owe him reports on which health providers she is or is not seeing - that is her private life. She also should definitely not have written the list of 10 things. He is a bottomless pit - he would never be satisfied by her giving in to his demands. Nothing would ever be good enough. Nothing would ever be sufficient. So that route is doomed. If your friend takes a firm stand that is in line with her beliefs, things MIGHT get better, but if she does not take a firm stands, things for sure WON'T get any better.

Say, when he asked her to list 10 things she has done to MIStreat them, she should have answered with:

"Well, that I cannot come up with since I have not mistreated you, but I sure can come up with a list of 10 things I have done treating you rather nicely. They are:
1.
2.
3.
..."

[hvert]

I think this is something neither you nor the mother can fix. The son may or may not come around on this. It sounds like he has some issues he really needs to work through before he does.

If the mother looks back at her own actions, does she find herself blameless? Were there strings attached to the support she provided? I am not saying your friend is like this, but my own mother has the bad habit of using money and gifts to try to control her children. We all resent her because of this and now know not to accept any 'help' from her.

I do think she needs some help. She needs to let go of her son, at least for now, and let go of feeling that her life is not worth living without him. His demands are not reasonable and complying with them doesn't seem to work.

Her talk that her life is not worth living without him makes me wonder if she has perhaps been too close to him? I'm sorry, you haven't posted anything that indicates your friend is in the wrong, but I think I come at this from the son's point of view because of my own situation.

I hope they can work things out eventually. My brother refused to talk to my mother for some time. My mother made herself available without invading his request for space by sending cards occasionally, to let him know she was still there. He eventually resumed speaking to her.

[~Christina]

Terrible situation, There is really no way to say whether he will or won't get better or even if it's a mental illness or he's just a horrible or spoiled person. So many questions that might never get and answer to. Somethings are never explainable.

I think your friend would benefit from seeing a Therapist to help process all the feelings in a healthy way as to allow her to go about her life even though her son has hurt her in many ways.

At this point your friend "owes" him nothing.