Helping the Depressed Young Adult

When does parental responsibility end? In most States, when children reach 18, they are considered legally independent adults who are responsible for their own welfare. In reality, many children require parental assistance beyond age 18. Depressed children, regardless of age, often need a helping hand, but there are limits to what parents can and, at times, should do.

Parents can help their grown children recognize that they are depressed by familiarizing them with the symptoms. They can encourage treatment and provide information about available resources. Parents can also help their child fight the isolation often associated with depression by calling, visiting, and extending invitations to dinner, to a movie, or to spend a night or weekend. If the depression is interfering with the young adult’s ability to function, parents can provide transportation to treatment and offer shelter, food, and money until the symptoms subside.

If the young adult refuses treatment, parents have even fewer options. They can ask individuals whom the depressed’ person trusts and respects to intercede. Friends are often more influential than parents. Sometimes, it takes a combination of several persons and the right strategy - actually recommending or taking the depressed person to a therapist.. to get the individual’ s illness evaluated and appropriately treated.

Some people learn to live with depression. They can get up, go to work, and do their chores. They do not know there is a better way to feel and are not motivated to get treatment. Without treatment, however, they can spend a lifetime feeling miserable and making those around them feel almost as bad. Parents (or others) who have a depressed adult living with them who refuses to get treatment will find it useful to consult with a mental health specialist on how best to deal with this situation.

If the depressed child is suicidal, stops eating, or becomes psychotic (loses touch with reality, has delusions or hallucinations), parents can best show their love and concern by hospitalizing their child, even if involuntarily, as was the case with Marta’s parents.

Marta

Marta was in her early 20s the first time her parents hospitalized her some 5 years ago. She was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder (also known as manic-depressive illness). At that time, she was placed on lithium by the hospital psychiatrist. Much to her parent’s relief, the medication controlled Marta’ s extreme mood changes, her frightening ups and downs.

However, Marta would not stay on the lithium She didn’t want to give up the “highs” that made her feel unbelievably elated, energetic, and invincible. In reality, the extreme things she did during these periods-uncontrolled spending, nonstop talking, nighttime wanderings, and sexual promiscuity-caused serious problems. She lost a husband, friends, and several jobs.

Even more frightening were the terrible lows that alternated with the highs. During these periods, Marta felt worthless, helpless, and hopeless to such an extent that she attempted suicide on several occasions. Each suicide attempt was followed by hospitalization and a return to lithium, but she seemed unable to stay on the medication.

Marta’s emotional roller coaster was shared by her parents. Each time Marta went back on lithium, their hopes were raised that she would lead a stable, predictable life, and each time she went off the medication, their hopes were dashed. They also lived with uncertainty and fear, never knowing if Malta might turn up on their doorstep, in jail, or in the morgue.

Following one of Malta’ s suicide attempts, her parents confessed to a hospital social worker that they were so emotionally and physically drained that they no longer wanted contact with their daughter. Although sympathetic, the social worker encouraged them to take a different and less drastic approach to alleviating their situation. Parents, she explained, often find it hard to differentiate between caring about and taking care of a child, even a grown child.

“Tell Marta that you love her and want her to live, but make it just as dear that you will not and cannot assume responsibility for the way she lives or even whether she lives,” the social worker told them. “You can control your behavior-express your wishes and act on them-but you cannot control Marta’s.

Like many parents in this situation, Marta’s parents found that actually “giving up” responsibility for Marta was not easy. At the social workers suggestion, they joined a group of parents who discussed problems such as theirs under the team guidance of the social worker and a psychiatrist. In addition, they joined a consumer organization that sponsored mutual support groups and information-sharing seminars.

At the end of the year, Marta was still taking the lithium prescribed during her last hospitalization. She had a new job in another city and was living on her own. She was taking responsibility for her health, regularly seeing a psychiatrist who monitored her mediation and helped with any problems she was having.

Marta was not able to take responsibility for her own health and life until it was clear that such responsibility belonged to her and not her parents. But it took 5 years of crises to bring Marta’s parents to the point where they could deal realistically with their daughter’s illness. This, too, is not uncommon. It often takes crises and time to motivate people to seek and attain the help they need.