TxTravelPro my advice is forget you ever saw it. Be a strong Mom and don't bring it up. If he wants you to know he'll tell you, if he doesn't want you to know then bringing it up will hurt your relationship more than help. I know I would want my Mom to keep quiet and if she didn't I would feel she was pushing me away.

kswl, your comments to chele60 were "spot on". I agree wholeheartedly.

I brought this up with my husband this evening. He said, with no hesitation, that he would talk to our son or daughter, of course, surprised that it was even a question, and I couldn't agree more. It's done out of deep love, not busybodiness.

You will find chele60, that parenthood does not end when your children marry and are off on their own. It's a job you'll have until you hit the grave. You'll worry about them and their happiness as much at 35 or 40 as you did at 4 or 5. Most often you do it quietly without their ever knowing, but you are always, always doing it, and ready to offer any help you can whenever, wherever and however it's needed.

Thank you all for great discussion, comments and sharing your personal experiences.

I'm not defending the rude guest, but perhaps he has some real issues with privacy and you inadvertently touched one of his hot buttons. I have a very good friend like that. Growing up, her mother would enter her room at any time or day or night without knocking, go through all her drawers, her purse, read her diary, re-arrange her bedroom furniture without warning, sometimes even listen in on her phone calls. Very maddening for a teen-ager. My friend wasn't into drugs or weird boyfriends, no problems at school, nothing to cause suspicion, it was a psychological problem of her mother's.

At any rate, she is now EXTREMELY touchy about privacy issues. When she comes to visit, I make sure she has a private place to put her things and I NEVER go into the room she's using without asking permission first. And when I visit her, I make sure I don't give even the *appearance* of checking out her stuff. She tries not to over-react, but it's one of those things is taking a lot of time and trust to get over. So it's possible your husband's friend went through something similar and just freaked without intending too. That he later apologized is a hopeful sign.

OTOH, he could just be a rude jerk. But you never know and if your husband really likes him, perhaps you should give the guy the benefit of the doubt.

I wonder what people did pre-modern with stress? Washington at Valley Forge. Napoleon and Wellington at Waterloo. Lee at Appomattox. The British at the Somme, the Germans and French at Verdun or Americans at Omaha Beach. Louis XVI, Mary Queen of Scots and Charles II before they had their heads chopped off. In our very comfortable and affluent age, I am not very sympathetic toward modern anxieties. Materially, the human race has never had it so good.

Boy, GeorgeW, am I with you on that one. That group of drugs is vastly over-perscribed.

What happened is that those people survived adversity, and then often became much stronger in the process. Grief, anxiety and sadness are all usually there, even for long periods of time, for a reason. It's best to work, through talk and action toward the real roots and emotional issues, and some people do that the lest when on meds.

It's not the modern answer that works well in many lives now though. And why? No coincidence that it ties in immensely with the privacy issue. We are all fairly to severely isolated emotionally and physically now from each other. You just couldn't think to have privacy in any modern term's meaning in most living arrangements and life situations re necessities of life before the former century. That's why formal manners became of such importance in the first place to make living without individual privacy a successful and cooperative art.

I have very strong feelings about anti-depressive and anti-anxiety meds and was in the field, that's one of the reasons I left it. Not the main reason, but maybe the second biggest reason.

Everyone thinks that going to Doc or taking something is progress. It can be, but it more often is not. And this is especially true of kids and young people.

The fact is that young people will need to face disappointment and adversity as they age and learn to assimilate it well emotionally eventually. But what we have is huge populations that are not mentally ill in any true DSMIV sense, but who are on lifelong meds because the process is painful. But it is also necessary.

There are more and more doctors that are starting to come across to the same view in the field.

Physical activity is one excellent remedy, sometimes even if it is has to be forced.

Okay, Tom Cruise Juniors. Enough.

Please find another soapbox.

Well said starrsville. They got the OP's original post way off track.

That was going to be my reply Starrsville.
Obviously George W and JJ5 have never experienced this, or their replies would be different.

Amen Starrsville!

Oh yes I have. And I've also seen more clinically depressed people and their outcomes, I would bet $$ on it.

You would never be convinced unless you would see what really works first hand. And it isn't in bottles.

JJ5, I will ask again, perhaps a bit less kindly.

Shut up please.

Thank you.

Interestingly, a lot of the newer research in this area seems to point back towards the old-fashioned method of getting over past psychological hurts by simply---going on with one's life and not stopping to talk it to death. Believe me, I realize this is a gross oversimplification and does not apply to many situations. But our national obsession with "dealing" with problems may not always be the best method of moving on. Sometimes the best thing is to just literally put it behind us and get on with life.

Txtravel, this obviously does not apply to your situation or your son's and is not meant as advice or criticism of anyone or as a rebuttal to anyone's posts or ideas. (Is that general enough? :) )

Well, that's a first.

Telling someone to "Just Shut Up" certainly is an excellent answer to most problems, especially this one.

And lumping all non-chemical answers to depression and anxiety into the Tom Cruise category is another great advance towards joy and fufillment.

I'm not trying to be sarcastic at all. Anger doesn't "fix" it either. And hearing what you don't want or like to hear, is no picnic. I know that.

And I apologize to anyone who would take it as a lecture. It was not meant to be one at all.

So that's what the Tom Cruise reference meant! Now I get it.

If I had a guest for a few days I wouldn't change the sheets or clean up after them, but if I did and they reacted the way your guest did I would be pretty taken aback. After all it is your house. Maybe to avoid this in future you should let the guest know that you are planning to change sheets and if they don't want you to, I would assume they would tell you. I don't think I would want that particular guest back. He sounds as though he was pretty unfriendly to you.

GeorgeW, What's with all the military references? You going to go and slap a soldier with an anxiety disorder? Maybe you could call yourself GeorgeP as in Patton. Really loved your response to a poster last month in which you suggested his head be chopped off. geesh you are uncaring.

Ouch!

Even with the apology, I doubt I'd want him back as a houseguest. Just the way he acted in the heat of the moment.

Merriwether Lewis (I'm sure I misspelled the first name) of the Lewis & Clark journey had mental health issues. He was from Virginia and lived in an area that had lithium occuring naturally in the water. That was good for him. While on the journey, his mental health was declining and at one point he spent around a month in a tent. Back home, he did fine and maybe he should have brokered the Indian treaties instead of Clark.

I glad your son is seeking help. Since we don't know what all is included in his care I won't comment if he's receiving what is needed. But as someone who has seen/known of people with serious mental health issues, as long as he isn't a threat to himself or others, you should consider yourself lucky.

VERY interesting about M. Lewis, ncgirl. I'm going to do some research on that. My favorite aunt's life would have been completely different (as would her son's and granddaughter's) had Lithium been available to her. Brilliant woman. Sad story. It is very interesting to see the scars impacting the granddaughter (my cousin and peer) even today as a result of the chemical imbalance. Exercise was not, and is not, a solution to the problem. That is just one side of the family tree. Thank God for modern medicine.