@daveshaw Hi Dave. I reread what you wrote, and yes, your childhood sounds tough. You had to deal with a situation that one hopes most children don’t. You wrote that “unfortunately, you inherited your mother’s depression and your son inherited it from you.”

I truly understand why you feel that way, but there is nothing you can do about it now. While I didn’t inherit my depression from my mother, I still have it, and my son has inherited it from me. And, I feel a lot of guilt about that, but I was the best mother I knew how to be, and both your son and mine inherited other things in our DNA.

You were able to find a good psychiatrist for yourself, who recommended drugs that worked, and he hopefully helped you manage your condition. You achieved financial success in your career, whether you liked it or not, and that is a real achievement. It enabled you to provide a stable financial environment in which your son grew up. It’s clear how much you love him, and I’m assuming he knows that.

I’m fairly sure, we both made mistakes; all parents do. Hopefully we did the best we could at the time. And, if we didn't, we can't change the past, but we can change the present. At this stage in our lives, our children are adults, and are responsible for their own lives, unless they allow us to help.

You said your son is an attorney, but he chose not to practice, and pursued another career, which I’m assuming he has enjoyed. He’s married to a woman who dearly loves him, and I would guess he feels the same way. You wrote that they have two sons, whom I am assuming they adore. For most people, life doesn’t get better than that.

I want to say outright: "It’s not your fault that your son had a “mental health crisis.” He lived across the world, and he and your daughter-in-law had to know what was going on, and must have decided how to deal with it. Sometimes, we make a plan that doesn’t work. Other times, we try and cope with a difficult situation by ourselves, when we needed to ask for help. Whatever happened, I’m assuming it was their decision, not yours.

You seem to be concerned about people’s reaction to the medication you took, but since it worked for you, I don’t think you have to defend it. Those of us who have experienced severe depressions, did what we needed to do to survive. It worked for you: It didn’t work for me, so I spent decades researching other options, and trying outside of the box solutions, many of which also didn’t work. But, I never stopped trying, and neither did you.

If you need to know, what kind of help he’s getting in the hospital, it depends on where he is, which is an issue that can be fixed.

While I don’t know about it from personal experience, my research suggests that if he is suicidal (and I don’t know if that’s the case), there is supposed to be a “continuous line of sight.” It could range from staff checking of him physically every 15 minutes, to having a staff member sit in the room with him 24/7 (known as “one-to-one observation.)

But, in order to get that kind of help, they’d have to know he’s having those kind of thoughts. I was concerned when you wrote that “he is upping his medication.” We both know that isn’t something you decide for yourself. He should be in a hospital in which he has an excellent team of doctors and staff members taking care of him.

Because, during a “breakdown” or mental health crisis, the purpose of the staff, is to “hold the line for him,” if he can’t do it for himself. They are supposed to keep him physically safe while his brain chemistry stabilizes, whether that takes a few weeks for the Zoloft to kick in or they have to “pivot to rapid-acting treatments.”

Independent of how "brilliant he is," we both know he shouldn't be making these decisions himself. And, he shouldn't be sitting and waiting for the medication to kick it, without having of team of people who are evaluating him, determining how he is feeling, and what they can do to improve his situation. If it was my son, I’d want to insure that’s the kind of help he's getting. If he's not, then you need to decide what to do about it.

Dave, given how little I know, that's my advice. I don't have the personality to beat around the bush. I also am well aware that at the worst moments of a depressive episode, your son needs the best medical help that he and you can afford.