How do I help my 25 yr old son who doesn’t want to be labelled ?

It seems like he has not processed the death of his father. How about the rest of the family, have they? A sensitive lad will pick up on it and freeze in place. He has experienced a significant loss and is struggling to find his way through it and cant find a model to go by. 

He has come to a boulder in the road along his life's path. Once he finds a way to address and process the loss he can leverage the boulder aside, perhaps with a few helping hands, if he'll allow.

Also, since his passion is physics, reach him through physics. "Meet" him on his home turf.

He refused to go back to see the counsellor who identified he needed to process his Dads death. His sister and brother have had counselling and have told him he needs it . Sadly he won’t acknowledge it. Could you say a bit more about your suggestion of reaching him through physics. He is very intelligent…I’m not sure I have the ability

NAS92061 said:

He is very intelligent…

This is probably the only way to reason with him.

You may need to construct a theory of his current problems and hypothesise a solution - by using logic it is much more likely to make sense in his own mind even though the solution itself involves aspects of life that he is poorly equipped to manage on his own.

A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. It is the basis of most research work in physics.

I'll throw some ideas into the mix for a letter you could write to him. The bits in bold are for you to re-write with the info you have.

"Dear son, I have prepared the following hypothesis as a way of reaching you to try to offer help. I don't write these very often as you can imagine so please forgive my lack of sophistication.

Hypothesis -
Statement of fact
Seeing a therapist to process the loss of a close family member is widely used tol enable people to process the situation and reach a more positive mental state.
For this to be effective for you I hypothesise that confirming if you are neurodivergent will enable a more effective approach to be formulated that best addresses your strengths and weaknesses resulting from the better understanding of your mind.


Step 1. Ask a question
Seeing a therapist to process the loss of a close family member is widely used tol enable people to process the situation and reach a more positive mental state.
You have opted not to do this and your situation has changed to the point where you have become a social recluse, unemployable and a burdon (financial and social) on the family.
In order to discover if this is a result of you being neurodivergent (around 10% of people are) I propose a hypothesis to establish this so that in the event of it being confirmed, an effective process can be crafted to enable you to address the causes of your situation should you chose to engage.

Step 2. Do some preliminary research
Here you need to confirm if there are any cases of autism / ADHD / bipolar disorder in the family as these are all neurodivergent states.
There is a high likelihood of inherited neurodivergent traits so it may be worth you and your other close family members to do one of the free onine assessments to establish if this is the case.
www.thevividmind.org/.../
It is important to be non judgemental about autism and neurodivergence in general at this stage as this will work against you. It is a common bias held by many that neurodivergents are broken or inferior so a neutral approach is essential.

Step 3. Formulate your hypothesis
Was there any childhood assessment? In this day and age I would have thought schools would have picked up on this early on so any early years reports of odd behaviour, lack of friends, late speech development etc would be supporting evidence.
I would also consider reading up on autistic traits and flag up which he exhibits.
Once you have the "markers" that you think match with autism then put it in terms like:
"Examination of the corrolation between the identifiers of autistic traits and the behaviours exibited by the test subject, there is sufficient evidence to support a formal assessment.


Step 4. Refine your hypothesis
Identify how to test - starting with a free online test (linked above) and followed by a private assessment (costs between £500 and 2,000 I believe)
Once the test has been completed then there are a range of areas where the traits are highlighted as having most impact on the individuals ability to exist in society and in everyday life (there are many sensory issues connected with autism as well). Using this information a qualified, experienced therapist can develop a treatment plan to help the indiviual respond to the areas they struggle with and to the specific situation they find themselves in.

Step 5. Phrase your hypothesis in three ways
A positive identification of a neurotypical state will inform the subject of their condition and enable them to make an informed decision on any treatment or even if treatment is desirable.

A positive identification of a neurotypical state will enable the support system of the subject to become better informed of the subjects experience and can develop an approach in conjunction with the subject that is targetted and effective.

A positive identification of a neurotypical state will enable additional external support to be made available to the subject in the form of financial support (possibly), medical support if required and other user group support (this site being the foremost source I have yet found).

Step 6. Write a null hypothesis (The null hypothesis is the default position that there is no association between the variables.)
The null hypothesis is that the individual is neurotypical so the challenges are different in nature.

NAS92061 said:

He is very intelligent…

This is probably the only way to reason with him.

You may need to construct a theory of his current problems and hypothesise a solution - by using logic it is much more likely to make sense in his own mind even though the solution itself involves aspects of life that he is poorly equipped to manage on his own.

A hypothesis states your predictions about what your research will find. It is a tentative answer to your research question that has not yet been tested. It is the basis of most research work in physics.

I'll throw some ideas into the mix for a letter you could write to him. The bits in bold are for you to re-write with the info you have.

"Dear son, I have prepared the following hypothesis as a way of reaching you to try to offer help. I don't write these very often as you can imagine so please forgive my lack of sophistication.

Hypothesis -
Statement of fact
Seeing a therapist to process the loss of a close family member is widely used tol enable people to process the situation and reach a more positive mental state.
For this to be effective for you I hypothesise that confirming if you are neurodivergent will enable a more effective approach to be formulated that best addresses your strengths and weaknesses resulting from the better understanding of your mind.


Step 1. Ask a question
Seeing a therapist to process the loss of a close family member is widely used tol enable people to process the situation and reach a more positive mental state.
You have opted not to do this and your situation has changed to the point where you have become a social recluse, unemployable and a burdon (financial and social) on the family.
In order to discover if this is a result of you being neurodivergent (around 10% of people are) I propose a hypothesis to establish this so that in the event of it being confirmed, an effective process can be crafted to enable you to address the causes of your situation should you chose to engage.

Step 2. Do some preliminary research
Here you need to confirm if there are any cases of autism / ADHD / bipolar disorder in the family as these are all neurodivergent states.
There is a high likelihood of inherited neurodivergent traits so it may be worth you and your other close family members to do one of the free onine assessments to establish if this is the case.
www.thevividmind.org/.../
It is important to be non judgemental about autism and neurodivergence in general at this stage as this will work against you. It is a common bias held by many that neurodivergents are broken or inferior so a neutral approach is essential.

Step 3. Formulate your hypothesis
Was there any childhood assessment? In this day and age I would have thought schools would have picked up on this early on so any early years reports of odd behaviour, lack of friends, late speech development etc would be supporting evidence.
I would also consider reading up on autistic traits and flag up which he exhibits.
Once you have the "markers" that you think match with autism then put it in terms like:
"Examination of the corrolation between the identifiers of autistic traits and the behaviours exibited by the test subject, there is sufficient evidence to support a formal assessment.


Step 4. Refine your hypothesis
Identify how to test - starting with a free online test (linked above) and followed by a private assessment (costs between £500 and 2,000 I believe)
Once the test has been completed then there are a range of areas where the traits are highlighted as having most impact on the individuals ability to exist in society and in everyday life (there are many sensory issues connected with autism as well). Using this information a qualified, experienced therapist can develop a treatment plan to help the indiviual respond to the areas they struggle with and to the specific situation they find themselves in.

Step 5. Phrase your hypothesis in three ways
A positive identification of a neurotypical state will inform the subject of their condition and enable them to make an informed decision on any treatment or even if treatment is desirable.

A positive identification of a neurotypical state will enable the support system of the subject to become better informed of the subjects experience and can develop an approach in conjunction with the subject that is targetted and effective.

A positive identification of a neurotypical state will enable additional external support to be made available to the subject in the form of financial support (possibly), medical support if required and other user group support (this site being the foremost source I have yet found).

Step 6. Write a null hypothesis (The null hypothesis is the default position that there is no association between the variables.)
The null hypothesis is that the individual is neurotypical so the challenges are different in nature.

NAS92061 said:

Could you help me phrase, this into the letter please.?

You are a man of logic and facts so I wanted you to be aware of the logic of the costs you are adding to this household and the reason why they are important.

This is not to shame or guilt trip you into paying for them, but as a reminder that you cannot sustain this kind of inaction and need to engage in finding a way to change the dynamic.

Let me demonstrate the costs involved in running the household you you can understand the situation and educate yourself on this for the time you chose to setup your own household.

There are static costs:

mortgage (or rent)

council tax

maintenance

house and contents insurance

water / gas / electricity

TV licence

internet connection

Then there are consumables

food (groceries and eating out / takeaways) - break down which is which

healthcare (prescriptions, vitamins, dentist visits, opticians, eyecare etc)

transport (obviously an individual cost)

gifts for close family / friends

holidays / days out etc

replacement of electronics and furniture (I normally use 15% / year for depreciation on average)

Lastly there are optional expenses

hobbies

entertainment subscriptions (Netflix, OnlyFans etc)

pets

savings / pensions

charitable donations

Put all these in a spreadsheet and work out which are for him alone, which are a % (eg half the food at the moment) and which do not apply to him.

Add up all the costs assigned to him and tell him how much these add up to and how quickly his savings will burn out if he uses these.

Seeing how many months can be a wake up call.

At the moment I am subsidising you but I too am running out of cash so you need to come to a decision on how to get help to involke Newtons First Law of Motion to apply a new force to the equation.

I need you to do this and I think you need it as well.

Let me help you.

Wow thank you for so much detail. I really believe that this is what I have been looking for . A way in to his mind. When I have tried to connect and support I feel I fail because he can’t see my reasoning and gets angry with me. My logic is not his!!  I must clarify , he does have savings from his Dads estate which sadly means he is not entitled to any benefits. He is using this to live on and I do take money from him for food / rent   ( nominal amount) but I am now on a pension so I have asked to pay an equal share which he is happy/willing to pay. I do not want  want him to live off his savings, but I want him to learn he has to pay to live.( I do intend to help him out financially when he eventually sets up on his own…not that I’m telling him that)  Could you help me phrase, this into the letter please.? Ie  Ie a consequence of in action is less savings. Thank you so much for this insight