Hi, looking for support during a very tough time for my family. My youngest son has had significant health issues since 2012 following parasite infection. It’s a very long story, but this has led us to where we are now. 2 months ago he told me he is suicidal. Since then it has been a daily roller coaster of keeping him safe. He is onto his 2nd lot of anti depressants and seeing little benefit from them. He was admitted to hospital for a week a month ago after 2 self harm incidents. This provided some immediate relief and direction, but we are now left in the gap between the public and private health system. Public system is there to support in an immediate crisis situation, but can’t provide ongoing support. He has a psychologist and gp, but we can’t get into a psychiatrist because of long waiting lists. He is using marijuana and alcohol to self medicate, and without it I don’t know if he would still be here with us. We feel our choices are limited to allowing him to smoke marijuana while we work on the depression both from a medical and psychological stand, or putting him in a private hospital environment for an extended period of time. Which we can’t do without psychiatric referral, and is against medical advice. But how do we cope in the meantime? He has no quality of life, my husband and I have little ourselves, and I worry about the effect on our other 17yo son. Even grandparents are being pulled into the sometime daily drama. How do we keep him safe but also stop the rest of the family going down with him. For anyone that has gone through this, how have you kept the family together as a unit and come out the other side? Has anyone had the same issue with drugs and alcohol and how have you managed? Tia x
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