Hope_Floats
Member
I’m not sure that we’re a band of angels here, but I’m about to join your chorus.
I am aware that there is no answer to this….none at all…..and that sometimes no response, where our difficult children are concerned, is actually the best response of all.
My 22 year old difficult child (who, like most of yours, only texts or calls when he needs something) texted me that he had rolled his car. It actually used to be my car. The car that I cherished because I had worked hard for it, had paid it off, and it had taken me to and from and through a job that I loved and which had allowed me to pay off debt, pay my bills, and do so with a fair amount of comfort and style, as it was a cute little car with some bells and whistles. By the time he finished with it, it was scratched up, banged up, filthy and trashed inside and out, had a nail in the tire and, now, a roof that’s crushed in by 18 inches and is completely totaled. Of course, “totaled” is an insurance company term that indicates that the damage repair would be more costly than the value of the car, so they pay out the “total”. So that’s not really an accurate term to use here because difficult child did not carry collision insurance on it (only liability, if even his payments were up-to-date on that).
This was the second car that he’d been given so far in his life. The first one was a high school graduation gift so that he could work and go to school (We gave him a laptop also for graduation. For school.) But when he went away (at my expense) for what was to be a yearlong rehab program on a self-sustaining farm in New Hampshire, we gave that car to a friend (it needed $1000 worth of repair work to be dependable at that point, due to neglect) and promised to help with replacing it after he finished the program. We figured that would be better than having a car sit idle for a year.
We didn’t realize that within three months of starting the program, difficult child would be “not getting along” with one of the other residents and would put his fist through a wall following an altercation with said resident and break three bones in his hand. This resulted in his being sent home because one requirement of participation in the program is doing actual work on the farm, which he then couldn’t do, and another requirement is journaling and other written assignments, which he also couldn’t do because the injured hand was also his writing hand.
So…..he came home to live briefly, temporarily with his dad while he recouped and found a job, who then helped him find an apartment to move into, paid his deposit and first month’s rent for him. Then I gave him my cute little car, since I was moving to another country for a few years with my new spouse who is on an expat assignment and no longer needed transportation.
That, in my opinion, was WAAAAY more generous than we had to be, especially since he had chosen to party his way out of his first semester of college and “just didn’t like” his way out of the second attempt of living at home and going to community college (he actually preferred to live at home and NOT go to school, but I required that he be at least a part-time student if he were going to live with me).
Of course there’s much more to the “party his way out of his first semester of college” story that would be very familiar to most of you. He has ADD and his high school academics were a bit of a struggle for him, so we were pleasantly surprised when he was accepted to a University, and one with an excellent student support center that specialized in helping students with learning challenges. Halfway through the semester, he started calling at night in tears, having anxiety attacks and saying he was very depressed. I learned that he had stopped going to his appointments at the student support center and was going to parties and drinking, smoking weed, and doing other drugs instead of studying (of course he had lied and told me he went to the library in the evenings, lol). I think the depression and anxiety were partly triggered by some social anxiety and fear of failure at school, but also by his knowledge that he was choosing very poorly and that his behavior was wrong. Way wrong. He wasn’t even TRYING to be successful at school. That just simply wasn’t his goal for being there. It was mine.
Anyway, at this point I’m pretty sure that he has borderline personality disorder that comes with the anxiety, depression, and substance abuse (pot, the terrifyingly dangerous synthetic pot they call “spice”, intentional overdose of OTC cough medicine, and some experimenting with LSD that I know of – there’s likely more). He probably has some antisocial personality disorder to go along with all of that, based on a few things he has said and done.
That brings us to where we are today. difficult child’s latest job was as a pizza delivery person. And now he has “totaled” his car. No collision insurance to replace it. I am very grateful that he was miraculously unharmed in the accident. That is no small thing. There is also, however, the “now what”? The “now what?” is that, due to his reckless driving (he flipped and rolled because he was going at an excessively high rate of speed around a curve), he has no car. No transportation to deliver pizzas or go to any other type of job, no transportation to go his therapy appointments with his counselor or to his doctor appointments to manage his medications (for depression and ADD). I don’t think he lives near a bus route. And the “First National Bank of Mom” is closed. Same for Bank of Dad.
His dad did ask by text to let him know if he needed any help. The reply: “U said u wanted to help. U can help me look for a car then haha”. Really. Haha. So glad he finds it funny.
I know that the car inventory is depleted at the banks of Mom and Dad. I know that is the right thing. I also know that you can all feel my pain at knowing that Mr. difficult child’s life just got a WHOLE LOT HARDER and everything in my being wants to at least keep his ship from sinking. He has legal debt, credit card debt, he’s behind on his rent (of course none of that is his fault, as you know), and now this. It just breaks my heart. Sigh.
So, what’s the answer of what to do? What do you do when the answer is “nothing”? You do…..nothing.
But you grieve. And you cry. And you keep asking…………why??
I am aware that there is no answer to this….none at all…..and that sometimes no response, where our difficult children are concerned, is actually the best response of all.
My 22 year old difficult child (who, like most of yours, only texts or calls when he needs something) texted me that he had rolled his car. It actually used to be my car. The car that I cherished because I had worked hard for it, had paid it off, and it had taken me to and from and through a job that I loved and which had allowed me to pay off debt, pay my bills, and do so with a fair amount of comfort and style, as it was a cute little car with some bells and whistles. By the time he finished with it, it was scratched up, banged up, filthy and trashed inside and out, had a nail in the tire and, now, a roof that’s crushed in by 18 inches and is completely totaled. Of course, “totaled” is an insurance company term that indicates that the damage repair would be more costly than the value of the car, so they pay out the “total”. So that’s not really an accurate term to use here because difficult child did not carry collision insurance on it (only liability, if even his payments were up-to-date on that).
This was the second car that he’d been given so far in his life. The first one was a high school graduation gift so that he could work and go to school (We gave him a laptop also for graduation. For school.) But when he went away (at my expense) for what was to be a yearlong rehab program on a self-sustaining farm in New Hampshire, we gave that car to a friend (it needed $1000 worth of repair work to be dependable at that point, due to neglect) and promised to help with replacing it after he finished the program. We figured that would be better than having a car sit idle for a year.
We didn’t realize that within three months of starting the program, difficult child would be “not getting along” with one of the other residents and would put his fist through a wall following an altercation with said resident and break three bones in his hand. This resulted in his being sent home because one requirement of participation in the program is doing actual work on the farm, which he then couldn’t do, and another requirement is journaling and other written assignments, which he also couldn’t do because the injured hand was also his writing hand.
So…..he came home to live briefly, temporarily with his dad while he recouped and found a job, who then helped him find an apartment to move into, paid his deposit and first month’s rent for him. Then I gave him my cute little car, since I was moving to another country for a few years with my new spouse who is on an expat assignment and no longer needed transportation.
That, in my opinion, was WAAAAY more generous than we had to be, especially since he had chosen to party his way out of his first semester of college and “just didn’t like” his way out of the second attempt of living at home and going to community college (he actually preferred to live at home and NOT go to school, but I required that he be at least a part-time student if he were going to live with me).
Of course there’s much more to the “party his way out of his first semester of college” story that would be very familiar to most of you. He has ADD and his high school academics were a bit of a struggle for him, so we were pleasantly surprised when he was accepted to a University, and one with an excellent student support center that specialized in helping students with learning challenges. Halfway through the semester, he started calling at night in tears, having anxiety attacks and saying he was very depressed. I learned that he had stopped going to his appointments at the student support center and was going to parties and drinking, smoking weed, and doing other drugs instead of studying (of course he had lied and told me he went to the library in the evenings, lol). I think the depression and anxiety were partly triggered by some social anxiety and fear of failure at school, but also by his knowledge that he was choosing very poorly and that his behavior was wrong. Way wrong. He wasn’t even TRYING to be successful at school. That just simply wasn’t his goal for being there. It was mine.
Anyway, at this point I’m pretty sure that he has borderline personality disorder that comes with the anxiety, depression, and substance abuse (pot, the terrifyingly dangerous synthetic pot they call “spice”, intentional overdose of OTC cough medicine, and some experimenting with LSD that I know of – there’s likely more). He probably has some antisocial personality disorder to go along with all of that, based on a few things he has said and done.
That brings us to where we are today. difficult child’s latest job was as a pizza delivery person. And now he has “totaled” his car. No collision insurance to replace it. I am very grateful that he was miraculously unharmed in the accident. That is no small thing. There is also, however, the “now what”? The “now what?” is that, due to his reckless driving (he flipped and rolled because he was going at an excessively high rate of speed around a curve), he has no car. No transportation to deliver pizzas or go to any other type of job, no transportation to go his therapy appointments with his counselor or to his doctor appointments to manage his medications (for depression and ADD). I don’t think he lives near a bus route. And the “First National Bank of Mom” is closed. Same for Bank of Dad.
His dad did ask by text to let him know if he needed any help. The reply: “U said u wanted to help. U can help me look for a car then haha”. Really. Haha. So glad he finds it funny.
I know that the car inventory is depleted at the banks of Mom and Dad. I know that is the right thing. I also know that you can all feel my pain at knowing that Mr. difficult child’s life just got a WHOLE LOT HARDER and everything in my being wants to at least keep his ship from sinking. He has legal debt, credit card debt, he’s behind on his rent (of course none of that is his fault, as you know), and now this. It just breaks my heart. Sigh.
So, what’s the answer of what to do? What do you do when the answer is “nothing”? You do…..nothing.
But you grieve. And you cry. And you keep asking…………why??