An update on my suicidal difficult child nephew

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
He is in rehab!! For 100 days!! I am so happy and relieved that he will be getting the help he needs to deal with his personal horrors and addictions. Please send out a prayer for him if you think of it. Thanks~
 

Star*

call 911........call 911
Jo,

I think I missed this and I'm so sorry he's there, but I'm so glad he's getting the help he needs. Sending out prayers of course!

Hugs for your whole family!
Star
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
That's great news! Is this the mystery/worrisome surprise he had planned for the family?

No, gvc, his surprise was that he was going to kill himself. Thank God I alerted his dad and between him, me and my sister, we were able to keep good tabs on him to get to the next day. We all made him promise to come into the office and he did. He promised me he wouldn't kill himself, though he admitted to thinking of it almost every waking hour. He's in pain and he's been self medicating for a long time. Prior to October 2009, he had been sober for 9 months, and then wham - he fell off the wagon and couldn't find his way back on.

This morning his Dad (my brother in law/boss) asked me how long I knew he had been abusing drugs and I felt as if he was wondering why I never said anything. But you know when you want to say something but the point is futile? As in, if I had told him, he just would have given my nephew a ration of doo doo but never really actually had believed it or truly helped him? Well, my brother in law and my sister are both like that. If I tell them something they don't want to hear or acknowledge, not only do they shoot the messenger, but they would have shut me out and made it virtually impossible for my nephew to have ONE person that he could confide in. I've been in those shoes - where they literally tell him he's not allowed to have lunch with me or talk with me! Meanwhile, I am the only person nephew would talk with. I'm so glad it's all out in the open.

These past two weeks have been a harrowing experience. I love him so much (even though on a professional level at work he drove me nuts!). Thanks for the special thoughts and prayers.
 
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Shari

IsItFridayYet?
I wondered about you/him and assumed all was well since you had not posted otherwise. I am so glad he has you. Keeping you both in my prayers.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
So he actually admitted that suicide was the intended surprise! :holymoly:

He is so very, very lucky to have you in his life! What a relief to know he's back in rehab... hopefully they will help him get back on track.
 

Marguerite

Active Member
"Why didn't you say anything before, if you knew?"

"I didn't know for sure, and I felt you perhaps didn't want to know. If I had said something and you didn't receive it well, it could have made everything a thousand times worse. And I might have been wrong. All I could do was watch and wait for the right time. When I felt it was the right time, I did tell you."

Would that help?

Marg
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
Yes, Marg, that was helpful. If I'm ever asked this again, I will try to remember the wording.

This evening, my nephew ended up in the ER panicked and going through withdrawal, calling everyone whose phone number he could think of. When I got hold of my sister finally an hour after he called and spoke with H, she was at an Al-anon meeting, she lit into me for taking the call from nephew, explaining to me in a very condescending tone how we can't rescue him. As if I don't know this. I am giving her the benefit of the doubt that she didn't mean to be condescending because she's really just scared out of her wits, but it still was hurtful that she seems to think I would try and ruin my dear nephew who I love as my own son's precarious recovery. Later her H called me and at least he was reasonable and listened to what I had to say and took at face value. This is difficult.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
Geez, they're really hard-lining it aren't they? Just because you're calling to let them know he's in the ER doesn't mean you're expecting them to DO anything. It's simply an FYI, ya know? That's their codependency showing -- they're freaking out ASSuming that someone's trying to svck them back into their old behaviors. To me that says they are not very far down their own recovery road. A more reasonable response would have been "Thanks for letting me know! I appreciate your concern." And that's it -- they don't need to explain, they don't need to get mad. It is what it is, and no one's trying to manipulate them.

Ugh. This is going to be a long, hard road for their family. I hope your nephew gets through this okay. And I hope you can survive this process while watching it from the outside, knowing that they don't want you involved and are going to be kinda over-the-top in their methods for a while.

((((Hugs))))
 

MyFriendKita

Active Member
I was glad to read that your nephew is trying to choose life. It's really sad that his parents can't tell the difference between being there for him and rescuing him. He's very lucky to have you--and so are they, even though they don't seem to realize it. I will definitely keep all of you in my prayers.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
Seemslike nephew picked the right person to talk to. Do NOT let them make you feel bad or uncomfortable about not telling them earlier. .

I am so glad he is getting help. If he is in a program for 100 days why was he in the ER? Did the program send him there or is it not inpatient? Here the programs have a medical detox area with nurses and a doctor to make sure they don't have medical problems while detoxing. Detoxing with-o medical supervision is dangerous. Life threatening dangerous. Medical supervision is crucial for the detox process. It is ugly. I hope his program has at least a nurse.

I will continue to keep your family in my prayers. Hopefully the parents will become less rigid as they learn more about the 12 Steps and Detachment. Cause telling them he is in the ER is NOT rescuing him. Visiting or calling is gentle support to someone in crisis. It is not fixing the crisis.

{{{{{{{{{{hugs}}}}}}}}}}
 

hearts and roses

Mind Reader
Thanks everyone.

The thing that is strange (not so strange, actually) is that my entire family is not unfamiliar with co-dependency issues, addiction and recovery. We've all had it touch our lives in one form or another. And we all know this about one another, so there is no secret. But my sister likes to believe that she's the only who has ever experienced anything so horrible or had to deal with this issue and the effort of detaching.

My feeling, on an intellectual level, is that they've had their heads buried in the sand for so long and so deep that now they are in a panic themselves. They have been attending Al anon constantly, which is great and I'm glad for it - it will benefit everyone. So, I am trying to use my detachment skills in this situation just as I have with my H in his sobriety and with difficult child, even easy child.

I can continue to offer support in loving ways by simply asking my brother in law "How's everyone doing?" and leave it at that. At some point, maybe I will get to visit my nephew during one of the designated visiting times, but I don't think anyone should visit for a while - he needs to settle first. But I would like for him to know that I'm thinking of him and praying for his well being, which I'm sure he does know. I just hope that my sister's twisted views don't get in the way or skew his and my relationship, as it's threatened to do in the past. She won't let anyone have their own relationship with any of her 3 kids - she's threatened by other's knowing her kids more than her and always has been.

Thanks for all the support - despite my own efforts to detach, it still hurts.
 

gcvmom

Here we go again!
She won't let anyone have their own relationship with any of her 3 kids - she's threatened by other's knowing her kids more than her and always has been.


That just screams co-dependency to me, because it's all about control -- wanting and needing to control everything and everyone in our life. Recovery is about recognizing that you cannot control everything and giving yourself over to that truth so that you are not ruled by the fear that drives us to seek out that control in the first place.

It's the people like you, Jo, in your nephew's life who will make the biggest impact in his recovery, I think.
 
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