Hard to watch

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It is so hard to see him so depressed he can't take any action of any kind, yet he is unwilling to try what is recommended. Psychiatrist says he is so depressed he can't move forward to learn how to cope with his Asperger's but he won't take the increased dose of antidepressant. He wants to stop all medication. Gets up every morning and faces a day with absolutely nothing to do except play computer games and he's not all that interested in that. I have no idea what to do to help him. I am just leaving him alone right now and hoping he can work it out in his head. Any ideas?

Who is he, your husband? Boyfriend? Son?

Who pays for him to be able to sit at home and play video games all day?

I had a roommate/best friend who got so depressed that she literally refused to ever get out of bed, refused to eat, drink or bathe. Eventually she got pneumonia from lying down all day every day. Nothing I tried to do for her worked and she refused everything. In the end I evicted her from the house just to force her to get up and take some care of herself. I didn't want to be mean to her but it worked. She moved to a shelter where nobody would tolerate her lying in bed all day and not eating or bathing. She spent some time in a mental health ward in the hospital too.

She is still mad at me about evicting her and refuses to speak to me.

This is my 30 year old Aspie son. He is on disability because of his issues, has been hospitalized 3 time with mental health issues. He lives on his own in his apartment. He wants to be better but he just can't move forward.

I'm sorry to say that if someone is legally an independent adult, is receiving enough money to financially support himself and pay for his own apartment, and refuses to see a doctor or take meds, there is no way to force him to take better care of himself. He is legally within his rights to sit at home playing video games all day and all night if he decides to do it, and he can legally refuse all medical care so long as he's not endangering his own life.

If you can afford it, it's worthwhile to seek a counselor for yourself to help you cope with this sad frustrating situation.

I have no idea what to do in this situation.
Perhaps others who have been in your son's situation can tell how they got out of it.

I have experienced such a kind of depression. It comes often when you send out like 50 applications a month for a job but don't get a job. You need to see what he aspires to. If he has a dream he wants to fulfill but cannot because of varying factors such as financial situation, then that can be a reason for a depression. People think that trying to cheer people up helps against depression, however depression often has deep underlying causes and it can only become better if the causes are resolved. If someone is in debt, cannot maintain a workplace, is homeless etc. then it is no surprise that they are depressed.

I'd suggest a new hobby or course, or even start with a good book?

He is not financially stretched because his dad and I give him the funds he needs for his groceries, etc that his SSD doesn't cover. He cannot take up a new hobby or course or even read a book because he is so deep in depression in can't follow through on these thoughts. He has tried an on line course but bombed it because he couldn't follow through with the course. He has a fear of failure and most of the time he will not try because he knows or thinks he will fail. If he tries and fails, he is done. He will not try again. I could go on and on about his issues, but he has had psychiatric care, therapy, evaluations, etc for the past 3 years. He does not believe in therapy as he feels it doesn't do any good. The new psychiatrist he saw on Wed of this week, says he is so deeply depressed he can't begin to work with a therapist. He did decide to try the larger dose of antidepressant this morning and said he felt like his head was going to blow up. I am so discouraged because he just can't do anything. A lot of the time he sleeps 20/24 hours. What to do, What to do????

Smaller steps...

Say, get him on a one day course, maybe do it last minute as a favour, e.g. you were going along on a course / open day with X (niece or similar) but you now have to do something else and can he fill in (please please please, for me). If its just a couple of hours he should hopefully handle it and be a positive for him to use as a confidence booster. *** Instead of a course, it could just be accompanying to town to a book store or something? Or could he house sit to receive a package being delivered? etc...

All people need connections and responsibility. It's even more true for mental issues. Without those and a penchant for playing video games all day...that makes a very bad combination.

Take time to help him strengthen any social connections he has.

Does he have any responsibilities at all? It's hard for you to add any, since he is a grown man. But, since you do support him some, you could try requiring something in return for grocery money (housework in your home comes to mind, if possible, something he is good at so he can take pride in the work).

Also, take care not to give the illusion that you no longer have needs. This is very important for a lot of reasons. I can't think how to explain it, so I will give an example:

My brother's wife is schizophrenic. She's been hospitalized multiple times and suffers with depression and anxiety as well. Recently, my brother had a heart attack and almost died. He was in the hospital for several days being stabilized and then had a very strict diet to follow afterwards (he also had very uncontrolled diabetes--which was set off the heart problems). Everyone was so afraid that this was going to be too much and too hard on my sister-in-law. I commented that I thought it might be really good for her. ...and I was right! She's been very stable and has done extremely well helping care for her husband. People need to be needed. Sometimes when a person has so many life difficulties, everyone around them takes away the opportunity for that person to step up and help someone else. I think it's the worst thing that could be done. Connections to others are so important.

Good point screen_name, I can be down but rise to the occasion when needed.


As for gaming... I stopped gaming by getting into programming and modelling for games.

Poor man. I feel for him. I've never had depression as bad as him but I have suffered moderate depression before, and that was hard to snap out of, so I can imagine what your son is going through.

Depression and anxiety are one of the hardest things for society to understand. People just think you can get over it and move on. I'm on 50mg Sertraline, it was the last thing I wanted to do, but I kept having rage outbursts and feeling really useless and depressed, even when I done things like volunteering, joining social groups, having a job, etc. I was still depressed, so I had to go on meds, and they have worked. So now if I get depressed I can control it more, and I haven't had a rage outburst or self-harmed since before I went on meds, which was over a year ago.
So it's a shame your son doesn't want to up the dose of meds. He probably feels that the lower dose isn't helping so doesn't want to up the dose.

I can't think of much advice. Maybe he feels misunderstood by the world. I wish I could do something to help.