Mental Health Support

It's very very painful and downright embarrassing to see ourselves as others see us, no matter how true or false the accusation. Clearly your son has anger issues. You don't say whether he spends most of his time on the up or down side of being bi-polar. My brother's 2 kids are bi-polar. The son goes manic crazy, and the daughter goes into depressed worthlessness. I've tried to help both of them, but am not skillful enough to have had much success. Plus they really don't want to do the work to help themselves.

I can however tell you what has helped me thru my anger issues, which are legion. I'm a Buddhist, so what I know is that anger makes people stupid. Say and do stupid stuff that is hurtful to themselves and others. It took me many years to deal with my own anger. I still get angry about stuff, but I don't hold on to it and nurture it in my mind. And when other people around me get angry, I know that most of what they experience is their stuff that they are projecting onto me.

So you made some mistakes raising your son. Welcome to the human race. If you need to take a break from him to regain some balance and perspective, that's ok. But what is not helpful is beating yourself up because your son is angry, and you weren't a perfect Dad. Beating yourself up is counter productive. You're probably a decent fellow, and I'll bet that your son is too. But he has a mental illness, so his perspective about everything, including you, is unbalanced. Giving him the space to vent is better than him getting in bar fights, or going to jail for assault.

I realized long ago that I can't change or fix other people. I can only change my own point of view and behavior through doing my own work to clarify and deal with my own issues. Along the way, I was lucky enough to find some authentic teachers, who guided me how to think about and meditate on how to be truly happy. So now I have some modest skills in how to calm myself down and recenter, when I get upset and agitated. Millions of years of evolution have endowed us with emotions, some of which are very negative. Emotions are not real solid self-existent things. You can't weigh them on a scale or store them in a box in the garage. They only SEEM real. Emotions naturally arise as a response to our conditioned mental concepts about what we perceive. Similarly, our concepts aren't real either. They only SEEM real. Emotions and concepts are fleeting. They arise and are replaced by others. And because they can be replaced, I can choose to stop nurturing negative thoughts and think more positive thoughts. I can choose to stop being angry, jealous, envious, prideful, etc, and think different thoughts. But it takes practice. Lots of practice. I first have to be mindful and notice what my mind is dwelling on before I can choose to nurture different thoughts. And that takes practice too.

So please, don't beat yourself up. In Buddhism, our practice is just that - PRACTICE. We try and fail to deal with our issues with a healthy mind, and try again. And fail, and try again. You just need to acquire a few skills to deal with yours. Maybe your therapist has taught you some skills already, and you just need more practice. But please don't beat yourself up.

The best way of cultivating wholesome attitudes towards all sentient beings is through meditation. Among the many topics of meditation taught by the Buddha, there are four specifically concerned with the cultivation of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity. These four are called the Four Immeasurables because they are directed to an immeasurable number of sentient beings, and because the wholesome mental states produced through practising them is immeasurable. The four are also called the sublime states of mind because they are like the extraordinary states of mind of the gods.

By cultivating the wholesome attitudes of loving-kindness, compassion, appreciative joy and equanimity, people can gradually remove ill will, cruelty, jealousy and desire. In this way, they can achieve happiness for themselves and others, now and in the future.

Here's a little Buddhist prayer that I say frequently. It's call the "The Four Immeasurables Prayer"
May all sentient beings be liberated from suffering, and the causes and conditions of suffering.
May all sentient beings be happy, and have the causes and conditions of happiness.
May they never be disassociated from the supreme happiness which is without suffering.
May they remain in the boundless equanimity, free from both attachment to close ones and rejection of others.

Best of luck. Sending you a little ray of sunshine