Dear Hypermom

Your Son sounds like he is in a bit of a Depressive state.. The fact he is seeing the worldas full of horible things, is the greatest clue. His present GF has shared a very deep confiedence with him. She is suffering and your Son sounds an Emathatic young man who listened to her pain.

But when you are 16 years old your not quite a man, and not boy.
The dilema he has is he wants to rid the world of baddness, that he sees through a childs eyes though he sees this through a mans body. Instinct tells him to be her knight and slay the evil Dragon. Though his rational mind knows he has no chance against a grown man, even if he did, what would happen next. The girl could be beaten more, or thrown out of the family home. Male adolescence and senitive young men never quite see the here and now they see the next 5 events after the one that is bothering them. This is a form of fear, of what might occur if i do this...........?

Yet doing nothing is frustrating and at 16 its hard to chalenge the worlds cruelty. This said,. it then becomes unbareable to witness, withdrawal often occurs like not interacting as before, not watching TV especialy the news. Empathy for one so young is a tribute to the way he has obviusly been raised.
But if you cant switch it off now and then it can be a large burden at such a young age..especialy whilst the transition into adulthood is taking place.

As a loving mother you no doubt want the best for your son, his indifference to what happened is possibly to protect you [don't worry mom i'm fine , then cry on his own]
Embarrasment plays a huge factor,.. and his playing down of events was possibly because he felt ashamed. You refer to him questioning GODs role in the worlds ill's, which concerns me................IF he is very religious he will feel he is a sinner........[ which is crap.....if there is a god he would know your Son is suffering and would hold no angst agains him....suffer ye little children..etc etc...]

Your Son needs time to reflect on what he has done....He needs space to do this...and you may not get any answers at present...

Though you could say to him, 'I love you more than you'll ever know, if you are ever in pain, or distressed or need a huge hug, or a listening ear that hears, and a tounge that will not talk while you speak say LIFES' HARD TODAY'.HE COULD SAY WHAT EVER WORD YOU BOTH CHOOSE AS A KEY WORD.

Its important he comes to terms with this event and life, all you can do is say you are there.... whenever he needs you.

As for meds.....never stop anti-depressants once prescribed...i know to well the cras effect this can have...check out with the doctor [not in your sons presence] The side effects of Lexapro.....initialy some anti-depressants cause anxiety, and suicidal thoughts and action. This may be why tho dose was reduced.
As for the Doctor who told him 'you dont want to be an inpatient for fear of tarninshing his life and future..BULL

If you break your back you stay in hospital....if your mind is broken... hospital is the safest place to be. When Dad comes home get him to spend man-man time with your Son... he may not say he misses him arround, but i bet he does.

Please Hypermom DO WHAT EVER YOU FEEL BEST BY YOUR SON...... BUT DO IT WITH HIS CONSENT...

He will open up if you let him confide in you...he will only do that if he feels he can


I wish you all well.............tell your son from me HE
MATTERS IN THIS WORLD

DAVID

Thank you all sooo much for your replies! It's so nice to be able to talk about this here. I'm very touched by how much you all obviously care.
Nohope, thank you so much and I am so sorry for your loss.
David, I think you really hit the nail on the head about what he was/is feeling concerning his GF. As far as the God part goes, after talking with him a lot, I think he is mainly questioning how God could allow things like this to happen in the world more than he is actually questioning if He actually exists. In fact, he went to church earlier with a friend. We talked very candidly and I hope we have gotten accross to him that God is cruel and that he will not hold this against him. We have talked to him extensively about God's LOVE...I believe that reaches much farther than preaching God's wrath and scaring the beejeebies out of people LOL (just added that so that you won't all get the idea that we are the types of parents telling him God is going to punish him for things, etc)

I have wondered if perhaps the biggest problem was that he wanted to do something so bad to his GFs dad that it was either him or himself at that particular time...
As for the lexapro, I don't believe it had anything to do with the suicidal thoughts. He hasn't taken it in some time....he never really took it regular with the exception of the 1st two weeks, but that was several months ago. I should clarify, he never actually took the higher prescribed dosage because at that time, the pdoc told him to take it 10days in a roll, then raise the dosage...he never took it 10days in a roll after that. He hasn't taken it at all in about 3 weeks or so.

His pdocs attitude really bothers me. He just didn't act like it was serious at all...he said he didn't think he would do it again. He rolled his eyes once when I was talking, like I was overreacting

On a good note, my son went to school today and things went very good for him He was very scared to go back because we live in a very small town and some of his friends had already called him saying they knew. Evidentally our hospital staff has problems keeping their mouths shut. But he had a good day, the kids were nice, and then like I mentioned earlier, he went to church with a friend tonight. I'm optimistic since he is interacting with friends now. I don't feel that he's "out of the woods" yet of course, but I'm hoping and praying that he is beginning the road to recovery. He sees his tdoc tomorrow and I'm going to ask him for a referral to a different pdoc.
Again, thank you all for all of your concerns and help!

My dear friend's son committed suicide and it makes me so sad every time I think of it.

I wish I had been writing her about vitamin B12. When I tried to kill myself it was discovered, in hospital, that I had "profound B12 anemia" -- since then I've learned a lot about vitamin B12 and I have had consistent B12 replacement for years with amazing results. I wish they had begun B12 replacement promptly, so I wouldn't have some of the nerve damage that I sustained from the delay.

Basically, what I am saying is that your son may be low in B12 with the result that he is depressed. Depression is one symptom of low B12.

I did a web site on B12 after I realized the doctors had ignored it and didn't treat it as significant.

In terms of being in a psych ward, years ago in London I saw R.D.Lange, I forget the spelling, but a fairly well known psychiatrist. He was quite remarkable and outstanding. He said the most pertinent and wise things, way more wise than one typically runs into, and he thought that getting a mental history record was very disadvantageous.

Now that I have a pretty serious disability I can see what he might have meant. I have so many take advantage of me because of my disability... it's shocking. So it might be better to try to survive as if normal.

There is a stigma, and with the American concentration on making a profit, taking advantage of the mentally disabled for profit is not uncommon.

Dear Hypermom

I am so glad you are here and able to release some. I can only imagine how hard this has been for all of you.

how very positive to hear that your son went back to school knowing that some already knew. I sure hope his pdoc will get an attitude makeover tho

I hope and pray he will be able work through the things that led up to this, and find a way forward with renewed hope and especially reassured of God's love for him.

To you and your family. I am so glad you have found the members here at SoS as you couldnt hope for a more sensitive and caring group

blessings
Cheri

How's it going today Hypermom? Just wanted you to know that we're thinking about you.