Son with recent diagnosis

[VAW]

Hi. My 22 year old son has attempted suicide 3 times in the last 5 weeks and has recently been diagnosed with severe depression and BPD. He is really struggling and it is quite challenging accessing the correct help. We now have regular counseling set up and he is registered to start DBT in about 4 weeks. Our challenge is to keep him going until then and how we maintain our own existence until he can cope a bit better. My husband I are coping, but only just at times. And we haven't been able to find any help or support for ourselves, so I thought I would try this site. Does anyone have any advice on how to best help someone who is continually thinking about suicide?

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[wendydarling]

Hi VAW and welcome to bpdfamily 

I'm very sorry what brings you here though glad you reached out for support. Many parent's are in similar situations to you, I was two years ago with my 29 daughter, you are not alone.

I know that desperate feeling of keeping them going like you are till treatment, meds kick in.

The most important thing for my daughter was for her to know I understood how she felt, the pain of wanting to get out of her body, for the pain to all end, that she was not alone. Also to reinforce things would get better with treatment/meds, provide her hope and that I was with her all the way in her fight to be well we'd come through this and we have. I encouraged my daughter to share her feelings with me, I listened and validated, this led to her actively coming to me to unburden herself to reduce pain, rather than increasing or prolonging it by keeping it to herself. We also put in place a crisis plan who she'd reach out to, me, a very close friend of hers and the local mental health crisis team.

Key was getting the depression under control through anti depressant medication to increase the amount of serotonin. In depression, the brain can turn against you, reach in your memory and pull out every bad memory it can find -  anything to make you feel bad and especially guilty. What medications is your son taking?

In case you've not already seen this Helping someone with suicidal thoughts

These are difficult times for you, you are doing your best and there is hope VAW, small gentle steps    - reaching out for counselling really does help us cope, I hope you are able to find some local support.

I hope this is helpful and you let us know how you are and keep posting, it certainly helps.

We care.
WDx

[VAW]

Hi WD,
Thank you so much for your support and I'm sorry it has taken me so long to reply. Your message of support is appreciated:)
Our son overdosed again last week and will be admitted into another hospital at the end of the week. So we are just spending our time doing as you have suggested, supporting him and letting him know we are always here if he wants to reach out. That is part of his problem though as he finds it very difficult to ask for help. I think I'm getting better at reading his signs, but his actions still take me by surprise.
He is now on anti-depressants and has started a small dose of a mood stabilizer. He is still at high risk of hurting himself though. I find it strange as if always wanted to rear resilient children but yet I felt I had to sleep on the sofa near his bedroom last night 'just in case' as his mood was so low. Our entire working life and lifestyle have been impacted and it had seemed an insurmountable challenge. However we are making the adjustments and learning more and more about what may be ahead.
There seems to be so much ambiguity out there in the medical profession about whether to hospitalize or not. Our son wants the help though so we are hopeful he will gain more assistance with this next hospitalization. I keep thinking that we must be getting on top of him self harming but then it happens again and it is escalating in severity and also with shorter time spans in between.
So we have our fingers crossed that he will gain some necessary help this time.
It was so good to hear that you have been through this and come out the other side. I have hope. Thank you!
Cheers, VAW