What Every Caregiver of Adult Children Should Know About Mental Health

When someone you love is experiencing serious mental illness, caregiving can become a long process of learning when to step in and when to step back, while continuing to show up through uncertainty.

For Family Caregivers Month, Dr. Bret Scher speaks with Janet Ebos and her son Seth about the years they spent navigating depression, mania, psychosis, recovery, and the changing relationship between a mother and her son. Janet shares what it was like to search for answers, support Seth through repeated episodes, and gradually learn that caring for him also meant allowing him to find his own way forward.

Seth’s mental health journey began during his first year of college and eventually included multiple episodes of manic psychosis. Along the way, he explored a range of treatments, including ketogenic therapy, fasting, and other metabolic approaches. Today, he describes himself as still in the process of recovery and is working toward completing his engineering degree.

They discuss:

• What Janet went through as a parent trying to understand and support her son
• How caregiving changed their relationship over time
• Why caregivers need support for themselves, too
• How Janet learned to support Seth without trying to control the outcome
• Why surrender became an important part of her experience
• What it was like for Seth to experience depression, mania, and psychosis
• Why preserving the person behind the diagnosis matters
• How metabolic therapies became part of Seth’s recovery journey
• Why Seth needed to make his own decisions about ketogenic therapy
• The role of communication, honesty, family, and community
• What both of them have learned about recovery, and why patience matters

Janet and Seth also share advice for other families going through similar experiences, including the importance of support, taking care of yourself as a caregiver, and allowing recovery to unfold at its own pace.

👉 Looking for caregiver support? Explore the Metabolic Collective’s family support group: metaboliccollective.org/groups-and-events/

🔎 Have questions about how to apply metabolic therapies effectively? Submit them at metabolicmind.org/questions to be featured in a future Metabolic Mailbag episode.

#FamilyCaregiversMonth #MetabolicMind #MetabolicPsychiatry

Experts By Experience Featured:

Seth Ebos

Janet Ebos

• https://www.metabolicmind.org/thinksmart/explore-strategies/janet-ebos/
• https://www.instagram.com/janet.ebos/
• https://www.purelyjanet.ca/
• https://www.linkedin.com/in/janet-ebos/

Follow our channel for more information and education from Bret Scher, MD, FACC, including interviews with leading experts in Metabolic Psychiatry.

Learn more about metabolic psychiatry and find helpful resources at https://metabolicmind.org/

About us:

Metabolic Mind is a non-profit initiative of Baszucki Group working to transform the study and treatment of mental disorders by exploring the connection between metabolism and brain health. We leverage the science of metabolic psychiatry and personal stories to offer education, community, and hope to people struggling with mental health challenges and those who care for them.

Our channel is for informational purposes only. We are not providing individual or group medical or healthcare advice or establishing a provider-patient relationship. Many of the interventions we discuss can have potentially dangerous effects if done without proper supervision. Consult your healthcare provider before changing your lifestyle or medications. In addition, it is important to note that people may respond differently to ketosis, and there isn't one recognized universal response.

Therapeutic nutritional ketosis, or simply starting a ketogenic diet, is a powerful health and medical intervention that can change your body's metabolism and can dramatically alter brain function, medication levels, sleep patterns, energy levels, and other physiologic functions. If you have a psychiatric diagnosis, behavioral health symptoms, or take medications for a psychiatric condition, you should not start a ketogenic diet alone. Instead, consider starting a therapeutic ketogenic intervention with careful monitoring from your healthcare provider or an experienced clinician. We hope you will share information with your healthcare provider and discuss whether therapeutic ketosis is an appropriate, safe, and potentially effective intervention for you.