Messages By: mkim2u

My 22 year old son's room is about like John's house.  It's spilling over into the rest of the house and I don't know what to do.  He's a great kid...he' goes to college locally, should graduate next year with a degree in business. He works around 30 hours a week, been at the same job for 5 yrs, which says a lot about his dependability.  On the outside, he looks like he has it all together, but his room is that of a sick person.  He was diagnosed as ADHD when he was 7 and took medication until he was 14. He has always been introverted, but not a social cripple. He's always had lots of friends and been popular.  I feel that there are things going on inside him that need to be addressed and that he possibly needs to be on medication.  He's always had some ODC tendicies. As a child, he had to wash each part of his body 5 times, he checked the doors at night 5  times, he ate certain foods, though now he eats a well rounded diet. He may still do some of these things, of course, I don't observe his baths anymore! ha ha.  Seriously, I want to get him some help before he leaves the house, I want him to develop coping skills now. I really think there is a sickness there and he may need medication to even be able to start getting better.   Two weeks ago, my husband asked him if it would be ok if we helped him by doing some of his laundry.  So we washed, dried, folded, and hung up clothes.  We  got some large rubbermaid storage boxes and a hanging rack tor them.  We did 6 loads that day and barely made a dent.  When he got home that night, he paced around the house (he paces when he's stressed). All of this was within reach of the door to his room! Now its sitting in the corner of our family room!  He says he wants to get his room cleaned out, but just can't seem to get started. Its overwhelming. We're going to try and help him a little at a time.   We are four adults and two cats living in a very small house, less than 1200 sq ft.  (btw, the cats are well groomed and  the litter box is scooped twice a day!).  We just don't have room to keep everything.  My daugher, husband and I purge our stuff at least once a year.  I try to keep a reasonably neat house, its clean but sometimes cluttered, but not its not excessive.  I like to have guest over, so the main parts of the house stay within an hour of being what I call "company ready."    So, there it is...we need help with our young adult son.