Adult son has no friends, job, life; do I keep hands off??

Then its obvious you dont care nor love your child if youre not willing to do action and make his life better.. hence kicking him out. everyone needs to grow up.

honestly what are you achieving by allowing him to stay home all the time, playing video games, and reading books??? hes not getting any real world experience.. he has no skills... but playing games and reading... if anything its not entirely his fault he is the way he is... its mostly the parents for allowing it to happen.

So I question why do you allow him to be like that?

Anonymous wrote:Then its obvious you dont care nor love your child if youre not willing to do action and make his life better.. hence kicking him out. everyone needs to grow up.

honestly what are you achieving by allowing him to stay home all the time, playing video games, and reading books??? hes not getting any real world experience.. he has no skills... but playing games and reading... if anything its not entirely his fault he is the way he is... its mostly the parents for allowing it to happen.

So I question why do you allow him to be like that?

I disagree. She is here trying to find out how to help her son. If someone is terrified of water, you do not make them overcome that fear by throwing them in. They may end of drowning. Some may disagree and take your approach of just forcing people to face their fears, but that is the wrong way. Gradually building up is far better than being thrown headlong into something. Blaming the parents does nothing. Too many people try to blame parents for all the wrongs in the world. Regardless of what harm a parent has done to their child, at some point that child becomes an adult and has to take repsonsiblity. Blaming the parents is just another excuse for not taking one's own repsonsibility. I could come up with a whole list of things my parents did to me, but blaming them for whatever wrongs they may or may not have done accomplishes nothing. Working on the here and now is what matters.

And how can you say that someone doesn't love their child because they won't kick them out? I think that's just cruel.

I think Barbara did great. When I was young I used to have mixed feelings about my parents giving me space and not intervening in my life, which was at a complete stop. They had no escape, I considered them idiots for trying to intervene, but also idiots for NOT intervening on it.. how could they just watch me fail at life everyday? and stand on the sidelines?

I had to set an appointment for myself with a psychologist after internet addiction was destroying whatever piece of career i had left. I would have been angry at them for invading my life, but also love them for trying, and in the end, i think i would have valued the effort to 'fix' me more than anything (just not as it was happening).

What Barbara did was right on target, a seemingly little caring and sincere push, inquiry, or however you want to call it, was really an act of love, and thats what some of us miss the most.

There were times when I would think 'why dont they kick me out? i really hope they do, maybe i would learn to live on my own then'. I dont think that would have gone well tho.

When I was reading what you wrote, it sounded to me like your son was schizoid. If he is a schizoid, then he may be happy, but if he is avoidant, then he is very unhappy and hiding the symptoms.

Was and is his father detached from him, or not present most of the time?

I also think, Barbara did great in establishing communication with her son. It is, as we on this forum know, all about acceptance and relationships (or the absence thereof). Without a relationship, Barbara or the father will not be able to have any impact on the inner life/psyche of their son.

The anonymous poster in this thread does not know what they are talking about. Sure, it would be desirable if Barbara's son could get a job and a real life etc., but "kicking him out and bursting his bubble", is veeery unlikely to have that result. (May work in some cases, which then end up as motivational speakers making us all feel like losers. LOL!) Things are more complex than this.

Once there is trust and understanding and if the son is willing, all three of them can work together a more "normal" life for the son. Finding a therapist may be useful at some point.

Dragonfly.

I think he is a very lucky guy to be supported like that. I was fully content playing online chess, computergames as well. I studied at university for 6 years just so that I could be home more and play chess, or whatever. Now I have to get job, and I tried to work, but I rather die than work I think. He's a very lucky guy. Maybe he has Asperger's Syndrom?

Well, yes, the diagnosis may be innacurate, but it doesnt really change much.

I now have some anger towards friends and familiy because I am realizing how weird my life is, and they were there just watching it, thinking (and talking?) about how weird it is, but doing nothing about it. Some friends.. huh? I dont know how this is anger is going to end up for me, i feel like i cant give them the joy of seeing me as a succesful person, i dont want them to feel that for some reason.

Mr. Brightside,

I can so relate to this. I used to not share my current successes with my parents because they did not deserve to be proud of me. And when I was a child I refused to show them love because they did not deserve this either. It is like trying to punish them for failing you.

However, in the end, I realized that I was the one suffering the most from this behaviour and that I just had to walk away from it, in order to move on. It was difficult, but very liberating.

Good luck,

Dragonfly.

Barbara,
I think you are doing to right thing. Probably the best thing you could do is encourage him without invading his space. After I graduated I was unable to find a job for a couple months and I moved back home with my parents; I spent that summer basically holed up in my room without much contact with friends. It was an extremely difficult time in my life, but I think I really needed the space to get back on my feet. One of the things that helped me through it was that my parents didn't constantly ask me what I thought I was doing or denigrate me. Now I've moved out and work two jobs and am doing fine. It could be possible that your son is going through the same thing. Especially after spending time at college, the real world seems incredibly daunting; sometimes it seems impossible to even know where to start to handle everything. Maybe you could try asking him honestly if you can do anything to help him? I wish you both lots of luck!

I have to agree with the consensus here. Barbara you did Great! : )

Unfortunately there's no manuel for parenthood. A loving and caring parent has the daunting task of trying to give the right help at the right time to their children. This is compounded by the fact that each child is different and their needs may be different. Throw in how everyone involved is imperfect and may have disorders of some kind -and it makes it basically a boat sailing into uncharted waters.

You don't know what will happen. All you can do is give it your best.

And to the anonymous poster. Did you really mean to come off so strong? Are you a parent? What experience do you have to make such judgements?

H~