I am an 80-year-old father with a 40-year-old son who suffers from a narcissistic personality disorder. He lives alone in Melbourne in a lovely apartment near the CBD. The Disability Support Pension supports him. He is not physically disabled. I travel up from Geelong by train once a month to visit him, and sometimes I stay overnight. He has a substance abuse problem, alcohol and marijuana.
Because of a serious violent incident against his stepmother and me five years ago, which involved police intervention, he is no longer welcome in our house. He blames the breakdown on my wife, a loving retired nurse. For years he sent her loathsome emails and text messages until I removed her details from his phone and laptop. My doctor advised me to disengage from him, which I have done from time to time.
My problem is that he has no friends or support apart from me, so we always resume contact, and I visit him but no longer stay over. I generally catch up with him on Christmas Eve. Otherwise, he would see no one. Last week he demanded I stay three nights because I had been interstate to see his half-sister. (he is estranged from her and his half-brother.) I refused, and the email abuse and gaslighting started again. I care for him and am very concerned for his welfare, but he makes me unhappy and worried, and he scares his stepmother. His own mother died when he was eleven years old.
