The Ned Flanders Syndrome

I think I've discovered a new diagnostic category! I've seen this phenomenon more than once now. I have two vivid cases in my recent experience, and when I describe it to my coworkers, they recognize it immediately!


I'm counting on the NIMH to start up some studies....we could probably develop an "evidence based" treatment for the sufferers of this new diagnosis....think of the profit!!


Anyhow.


There are parents out there - mostly just turning 50 - who have children at home who are turning 20-something, and are a total mess. These are the kids who early-on displayed some distressing behaviors like running around wildly, not listening to their parents, hitting their playmates. They were promptly diagnosed as having ADHD, prescribed stimulants and provided therapy. These children have, with the inevitability of time, reached adulthood. They are drug addicted, accomodated by their long suffering parents, and totally dysfunctional as independent adults. They act out in dramatic, self destructive ways, and their parents support them at every step.


That's where the "Ned Flanders" comes in. The parents strike me, each time, as totally innocent...only concerned about the welfare of their disabled child. Each one is a very concerned and giving parent, who has sheltered and protected her child - as any loving parent would do - for years....and just can't stop now. The bright innocence of Simpson's neighbor, the disaster of Flanders' children....


Except, of course, in real life (as opposed to life on the Simpsons) the children seem much more dangerous - and nobody knows how to change the channel. They do things like overdose in the basement, refuse to buy food and do laundry, refuse to contribute anything to anyone for any reason period. ... and the parents just continue to fill in all the gaps....until, frantic at 50, they start to say...I need to be free of this...I want a life....EEEEEEKK!


That's when I see them.


They want the state to pick up some of the tab.


And it will....but it is a very small portion of the tab that the kid - sorry, young adult - has become used to. Forget health insurance (and with it, mental health care and medications....which this young adult is completely addicted to by now...). I had one kid with a Ned Flanders mother in my office, filling out a disability questionnaire. The questions was "do you have any trouble with ADL's - taking care of your hygiene and so forth". His answer was that, "yes, sometimes I forget to bathe for weeks." "Really?!", I said. "How do your girlfriends like that?" "Oh, they don't," he said. "Sometimes they just put me in the tub and bathe me." "Wow", I said. "You've got it made. Why would you change a thing?" He just smiled. His mother, who paid his rent, phone, guitar lessons, everything...looked stricken.


Social Security Disability is probably two years off, minimum - if ever.


Subsidized housing? Ha!


So - under the bridge or in Mom's basement (unless Mom still has enough money to fund two separate households) - Really....those are the choices. And Mom is such a nice person...how could she banish this disabled child to under the bridge? She can't.


But she's needing some Mental Health Care of her own...and she's asking me about what benefits her son might be entitled to...should she finally have the strength to opt for the bridge housing.



I believe that after long and careful study the NIMH will determine that the best treatment for children with ADHD is farm work. Energetic children need physical work and lots of it. Problem is that there aren't the number of farms there used to be - and you can't just drop your too active child off with some random farmer....unfortunately. I'm sure a summer of bucking bales would settle most kids down - at least for that summer. So I don't know what they'll come up with. Perhaps the focus has to be on the desperate parent. The parent has to be toughened up enough to toss the brat out and let him fend for himself.



I, for one, don't know how to do it - except to give them the application for food stamps and explain that "Food Stamps" and "Aid to the Needly and Disabled", will provide maybe $300 - $350 dollars worth of food stamps and money to an individual each month for a while- if the individual can keep up with the paperwork requirements - which most people can't, let alone a kid like this. I tell them how to apply for Social Security Disability - and what to expect, and how long it will take. I let them know that, really, there's not a place to put their child to either "retrain" him or to "keep him safe", at least not that I know of. A Psych hospital wouldn't keep him, although jail might someday. The military wouldn't take him on a bet.



It's not a pretty picture for these innocent, well intentioned parents. I hope the NIMH comes up with something.

Here's what I think. Those poor Ned Flanders parents, who mean well and are so very gullible, bought the pharmaceutical industry's line that most, if not all, problems can be solved with the right medication. Sorry. Not true. In fact, health is the ability to avoid all pharma products for as long as possible. If you are dying, then accept the pain meds. Otherwise, stay away. Absolutely avoid psychoactive drugs for children. Never. Do not do it. Send them to a farmer first, and let their brains grow unhindered. That's what I think.