Conflict in the family over vaccination

Well, there's already quite a bit of distress and conflict within our family, but the subject of vaccination is set to worsen things.  And I'm not sure how to manage this or even if that'd be advisable or possible.  We're all adults, after all.

That said, one adult son is fully vaccinated and the other (in a chronic "hikiomori" state) isn't, nor is he intending to be.  This makes our older son angry, to the extent he feels that our younger son is a threat to our wellbeing, if not our very lives.  He couches it in terms that are likely to feed into his anger and has also threatened to start destroying our younger son's IT stuff if he doesn't get vaccinated, plus is putting pressure on us to persuade him to get vaccinated asap.  The fact is that we have no power over our younger son and he's making an autonomous decision not to get vaccinated, although, given that he won't engage with anyone, this might not be because he has views about vaccination but rather that he seeks to avoid all contact.  

I'm worried.  The situation seems set to explode and, much as I try to talk things through and defuse the situation, it keeps welling up again.  I'm also feeling resentful at the consequences of their adult decisions being put onto us as parents, in addition to the pressure of various mental health issues, our very late diagnoses and not having anywhere to turn.  

Has anyone successfully negotiated this kind of situation, am I doomed to just wait for things to explode and how can I deal with my own mounting anxiety about my sons? 

  • Just an update. My exemption card came today. And it's a lovely blue colour with nice clear print.

    I think the government have dropped their policy of vaccine 'passports' and the covid app has turned out to be an even bigger fiasco than the Track and Trace app, but it's useful to have just in case someone tries to inject me with anything or try to stick anything down my throat.

  • I'm thinking that I could really use some professional help with this, and other, issues.  I'm feeling very drained and overwrought, which isn't healthy and doesn't put me in the best position to support my adult sons.   I know.  There isn't any.  Disappointed

    It's becoming clearer today that it's likely to come to blows over this.  Lots of venting and swearing from older son, younger son hidden away in his room unaware until this explodes in his face.  Older son has said that he feels it's making him ill with anxiety and somatic issues and that I need to do something because it's a matter of life and death.  And explaining that younger son is an autonomous adult and I can't make him do anything has simply led to me getting blamed for making them do things in the past.  

    Feeling very stuck.  Where do parents to young adults turn?   

  • Reishi mushroom is supposedly also good for the lungs and may be worth looking into. But it does seem the only way one can channel unresolved frustration into another channel, creative navigation, etc. Especially when one feels strongly about it. 

  • Yes, it'd be good to move it more towards the things he can control.  He does take a couple of supplements already (I panic bought at the start of the pandemic) but maybe a couple more plus any exercises to improve lung capacity would help too (cos he's interested in this already).

  • Yes, that makes sense.  And I do also generally find that the longer I can keep him in conversation the more he moves away from an emotional state into a rational one.  

  • Yes, my older son is now taking ADHD meds, which have helped a lot in terms of his focus.  The consultant did mention to watch out for any increase in ager too, but our son was already very angry at that point and we've not noticed any increase.  

    Unfortunately services don't seem to do proper individually tailored formulations or look for autism of ADHD, so I suspect a lot of people are being missed.  And our local mental health services are only now being given a half day's training on autism.  I know this because it came up at one of the carers' meetings I attended, in which a representative from the NHS asked for our thoughts on their training!  

    I've seen a number of counsellors and psychotherapists over the years too plus also taken a lot of counselling training myself and at no point was autism, ADHD or neurodiversity once mentioned.  So their lack of knowledge doesn't surprise me.

    To me it's not much better than the 1970s, when my dad was in severe autistic burnout for years and was simply given massive, horse tranquiliser-size vallium tablets!  They didn't help but he was no bother to services whilst in the resulting zombie state!

  • It’s no good humans being fascist about anything. Usually if a thing is simply presented with facts, without emotional rage or domination or other intensities, individuals tend to do what’s best. He might not even care one way or another except feeling overwhelmed by some variation of a power struggle. 

    have the other take immune boosting supplements as a way to redirect his frustration into something he can control perhaps?

  • Sorry I do know why it’s replaced some letters with emojis!

  • That’s so awful, you would think in this day and age mental health teams would have some autism specialists. I know what you mean about the blanket meds and talking therapy. The last lady my husbandConfoundedaw (well on the phone because of Covid) was so useless she told him he wasn’t allowed to talk about work even though that was his main source of stress. Now suddenly clicked with me over the weekendConfoundedhilst scrolling Instagram that he has ADHD which needs medicating and a couple of his friends of around 10 years who have worked in mental health residential settings for teens and young adults have said “oh you didn’t know? we thought you must’ve been diagnosed as a kid” But years of seeing doctors and counsellor type people and he just gets given fluoxetine Confounded

  • I see.   You could try to support him from triggering his limbic cortex and reacting out of fear. A good way to do this is to guide him to see another person's perspective through the prism of his own behaviour.  

    Asking him how he would react to and feel about someone being angry with him for not liking a certain food or for not wanting to go to watch a specific movie.

    Then, once he understand that concept intellectually, you can then transfer to asking him to imagine how he would feel if someone was angry at him for taking the jab? Or to someone pressuring or bullying him to not have the jab? 

    Usually, by moving someone away from activating their amygdala in a limbic response, they can respond to others in a more measured way. 

  • Yes.  He knows.  He firstly feels as though he's lost his brother so there is a kind of grief process going on.  He also feels, though, that his brother could actually be doing more than he's doing, instead of fleeing us all, hiding in his room and blanking us when we're in the same space around the home.  He's also angry that he's no longer engaging with services, even though services were a nightmare, not at all autism aware, let alone autism friendly, and basically only put him through a one-size-fits-all MH approach (meds and unadapted talking therapy).   Plus then there are the hygiene issues that affect the rest of the family due to the smell and also a huge sense of shame that our son is going out to the shop in that state. 

    I personally don't want to go back to local mental health teams because they don't even have a basic level of autism training.  A few years ago, at the end of around 3 1/2 years with local crisis teams and MH services, they simply said that the meds and therapy weren't working because my son has Asperger's and not a MH problem, put us in touch with the autism team for an assessment and discharged us.  Our son, then completely fed up with services, refused to see the assessment team and so this is when I got myself referred for an assessment, to see what was going on in our family.  Our older son was diagnosed shortly afterwards, although we paid privately for this because the wait for my own assessment had been ridiculous.  And now he's also very angry about his own late diagnosis and the fact that he never got any help at school because, although he was struggling, he was academically able. 

    I have talked to our GP about it and she basically said, "Yes, that must be hard" but can't offer anything other than noting that I'm a carer on my medical records.  Local autism charities and support groups haven't been able to offer any guidance on this either.  Lots of empathy, but nothing on what on earth to do. 

    To be honest, I'm quite angry too. 

  • Oh gosh that sounds difficult if it’s been growing for a while. Does he know why he’s upset but your younger son’s withdrawal? Hope you manage to find some help, have you spoken to the GP about the situation at all? They may be able to refer to a mental health team or similar to come and talk to both of them 

  • Yes, we're all double jabbed but we all have other health issues and my older son is looking at the figures about new variants and situations where even vaccinated people have died.  I can certainly gather data to use in our discussions and put things into perspective, but he is very much of the opinion that it's our younger son who needs to take action to protect us all. 

    Mind you, I think his anger has grown in frustration about his brother's almost total withdrawal and hikikomori state.  This has provided the soil on which the whole vaccination problem has grown. 

  • Is the GP able to offer any help for your older son? If he is scaring you  it sounds like he needs some kind of explanation about all the stats around Covid etc Are the rest of you all double vaccinated? If so your youngest son is more of a danger to himself. Is someone professional able to explain to him to calm him down? The media have also painted such a dire picture about what is going on in hospitals as well it has unnecessarily terrified a lot of people. As well as the high cases at the moment, we’ve had people phone us to shout about how dare we offer hospital appointments at this time even though we had less than 20 inpatients with Covid in the entire place (there were about 200 in January)

  • I offered to persuade the GP a couple of weeks ago but my son still just said no.  There may week be other reasons but I think it's simply in line with his refusal of everything.  He will barely speak to me either - it feels as though I get "timed out"after just a few words and he rushes away, back to his room, as if scared of any interaction at all.  Under these circumstances it's hard to know what his reasons really are.  

    Older son is scarily angry though.  :(

  • They are both autistic.  A card might be useful for other purposes but my older son is becoming increasingly angry with my younger son, irrespective of diagnosis, because he thinks it's an unnecessary risk to us all and that my younger son is being selfish.  

  • Unfortunately he does go to a local shop nearly every day, as he seems to be addicted to Cola (to clear "brain fog") and I tend not to buy too much of it (because I feel as though I'm enabling).  

    Otherwise though, he doesn't go anywhere or relate to anyone.  No courses, no friends, no jobs, nothing.  :(

  • If he is autistic, your son is exempt from vaccination and testing. He can send off for an exemption card from Disability Horizons (see link below).  They say they are developing a digital exemption certificate that can be displayed via the covid pass app. But, if the track and trace app fiasco is anything to go by, I wouldn't count on it.

    https://shop.disabilityhorizons.com/

  • +1 for home visit vacination - make sure it's via your GP. There are some scammers about.

    Has the younger son explained why he doesn't want to be vaccinated?

  • hikiomori Almost by definition never go outside. So the real risk to the rest of the family is quite low. That said does your GP know about your sons extreme seclusion? If the only reason he won’t get vaccinated is the journey it might be posable to persuade a GP to make a home visit. At which point his GP could discuss his issues with him (eg extreme agoraphobia?)