I feel absolutely frozen and my mind's a void

notsureeither

New Member
The past few weeks have been challenging with my difficult child, however, his grades have been improving and we have not had any outbursts lately. I am signing up for the Parent Project in September and it can't come soon enough. difficult child has 16 days left of this high school year. Get this, he was "expelled" from school this week for sending a text message to a girl he "likes" saying something disparaging about her. Apparently her father read the text and complained to our school. I couldn't believe it. So within 24 hours, I had to appeal the expulsion and meet with the big wigs at the school to appeal. Thankfully, he was allowed to finish the year with a recommendation for counseling. Problem? My difficult child thinks this whole thing is a joke. Our family counselor suggests he remain in the school because it is strict and he needs structure. He just won't take school seriously. I feel like I want to cry. My husband is besides himself. One of my own personal challenges is that I feel frozen and empty and unable to focus on other things. My difficult child's bad behavior is throwing me for a loop.
 

garrison

New Member
((())) Have you spoken to your DR. about your feelings? Maybe she/he can help.
I hate it when my kids act like something that is serious is no big deal. Maybe you can give a discipline that is a big deal. No phone maybe? Explain that the discipline isn't for the texting, it's for the attitude.
Some of the behavior I see from the tween/teen crowd really scares me. Maybe not the behavior its self but the indifference.
Stay strong mom, this to shall pass. Please talk to a professional about your feelings. There is help out there.

Garrison
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Hi notsure and welcome. I'm not sure (lol pun on words) is your post is in the best forum for it to be seen by the most members. This forum is for substance abuse and while we are glad to have you, if your issues do not relate to substance abuseIe can move it to another forum if you would like.

Nancy
 

notsureeither

New Member
Hi Nancy, I apologize for not putting in my signature that difficult child tested positive for pot and has been drinking. I have mentioned it in a few posts, but was typing so fast and furious that I neglected to put same in this text. Thank you for your kind words.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
Oh in that case pull up a chair, you are in the right place, although I'm sorry you have to be here.

For most of us this is how it all started, our difficult child's began getting poor grades, getting into trouble, apathetic about everything except friends, bad influences. For us it progressed to much worse, that's why we ended up here. I'm not suggesting it will be the same for you and hopefully if you catch this soon enough you can help him turn it around. I know many parents whose young teen began experimenting with drinking and pot and they went on to college and turned out fine. Not so with ours but we knew a log time ago she was different.

It'a good that the school year is almost over and he was allowed to stay. Hopefully the counselor can impress upon him the seriousness of this downward trend. I would make it a requirement that he attend counseling all summer, and make sure the cousnelor involves you and your husband so that you can stay on top of what is happening. The counselor does not have to disclose confidential discussions but your son is a minor and should keep you in the loop.

What are his friends like? Are they good influences? What is his part time job? It's good that he enjoys it and is not apathetic to that. Do you think any other drugs besides pot are involved? How often do you think he was smoking? I would suggest drug testing him but if this was just a one time thing perhaps you should wait until you speak with the counselor.

Nancy
 

notsureeither

New Member
Hi Nancy, Thank you for your words of support. Right now my son seems to think any authority figure is a jerk. One of his coaches described him as being "slick." I do not understand why he doesn't think of how serious these situations are, making holes in walls, getting talked to by the police, serving detentions, getting expelled from high school--HELLO??!! He is going to a counselor that we like and he is not afraid to speak with her. My husband and I do speak with her and meet with her periodically. My son's friends from school are very similar to him; knuckleheads. They want to find a "party on the weekends" and get away with stuff their parents aren't aware of. We have urine tested him for a variety of things and pot was the only thing that came back positive. My son loves a certain sport and he works at a sport's retail outlet. (I don't want him to figure this website out). He loves his jobs but he does come across idiots at work. He is very impressionable and at 15 sees older guys get away with things he can't. I'm trying to use the bait of a "driver's permit" to get him to finish this school year and to stay out of trouble during the summer.
 

Nancy

Well-Known Member
A drivers license is a good incentive to stay away form drugs and alcohol. We told our daughter if she was drinking or using drugs we woudl take the car away and we did. She did not drive for two years because we found a bottle of rum int he trunk. She said it was her friends but we knew better, didn't matter whose it was, they all drank. We simply were not going to have her drive if she was using anything.

I don't want to jump the gun here because what you describe might just be some typical teen behavior, although as parents we don't like it, it is common at that age to start experimenting with drinking and what we found is it is EVERYWHERE! But his behavior does sound like he may be doing other drugs besides pot. Have you tried bringing him to an outside lab for testing? We found a good one that accept sthe parents request and doesn't require an employer or other request for drug testing and would release the results to us. I'm not sure the home tests are that reliable.

Nancy
 

Calamity Jane

Well-Known Member
Hi,
Reading your first post on this thread, you sound like I did almost 3 yrs. ago. We went through h--l with difficult child beginning when he was a sophomore in HS. He was youngest in class and in our state, legal adulthood arrives at age 18. For those 2 yrs., we did EVERYTHING humanly possible: therapy, psychiatrist to rule out mental illness, drug testing, grounding, no driving, etc. He could not have cared less. He was on a path of incredible self destruction, his grades were abominable, he was rude and vicious to us and his sister, and he and his friends were appallingly stupid. We wanted to get between him and his self destructive behavior in any way we could. Unfortunately, he had to find out the hard way, and he lost so many great things along the way.

He lost time: 2 years of HS when he should have been learning (he's naturally quite smart), but was ambivalent twd school and his grades suffered. He lost the will to study and the self control he would need to do well in college.
He lost relationships: his very sweet girlfriend broke up with him, and his relationship with our family was torn apart by his lies and drug use.
He lost his job. He had a wonderful p/t job, but drugs and partying friends and dishonesty came first, and he lost his job eventually.
He lost the respect of former good friends he used to spend time with.
He lost his innocence: he became an adept liar, phoney, scam and con artist, atheist, nihilist, depressive, suicidal person at a very young age. He
learned how to fake a drug test, con a teacher, steal money and credit card info--he was basically corrupting himself from the inside out. He's seen the underbelly of society, and gained not one bit of wisdom or knowledge from those experiences. All you can learn from hanging around with bums is how to be a bum.

No amout of common sense, pleading, grounding, crying, begging, warning, was able to do a darn thing. We got an alarm system for the house, and put it on every night. That was to keep him in the house once we were sleeping, and to keep him from letting his friends in thru the garage. We let the school problems add up, we didn't interfere, and let him take whatever consequences the school gave him. The thing is, before the drugs, he was a straight A, responsible, hard working kid, and all the teachers cut him extra slack because they knew him. We begged them to be tougher on him, but they just wanted to give him more chances. That actually harmed him because he interpreted their graciousness as chumphood, so he took advantage and didn't blink. We endured his HS graduation, squeaking by on such poor grades, and the summer from h**l before he went away to college. He was still a minor.
When he went away to college the first semester, he spent every dime he had saved on drugs in the first 6 weeks he was there. We didn't give him another cent. We told him he couldn't come home for Christmas break because he still did drugs and since he was now over 18, we didn't have to endure his lifestyle any more. He stayed at a druggie friend's house with 2 shirts and 2 pairs of pants and 2 clean underwears for a month. He had to eat what he could scrounge - he got no Christmas presents from us. It was the worst holiday we had ever envisioned...we were so sad our family was tearing apart, but we knew if we capitulated to his foolishness, we'd be doing him no good, and we'd be hurting our daughter as well.
His second semester of Freshman year was much better, and I think he realized the drugs and the lifestyle and the people were glamorous but essentially evil. He is trying hard to turn over a new leaf, but he really had to walk that road himself...we could not get through to him. Funnily enough, once he ran out of money, he seemed to run out of most of his "friends" - see he had a lot of money saved up, and he treated everyone to drugs and he was everyone's best friend. Until the money ran out, that is. That was a hard lesson to learn, but he had to learn it on his own.

He always only turned up positive for pot. He tells me now that he was doing meth and synthetic drugs and drinking as well, but only pot stays in your system for a long time, and we must've timed everything wrong, and never caught him on the harder stuff. He used some kind of acid in college, too, which he didn't pay for...someone offered it to him and he had a bad experience. Even if it's just pot, some kids, like mine, become like a different person...surly, apathetic, lack hygiene, sneaky, etc.

Do not feel frozen and empty...you need your strength for your husband and your other kids. Your difficult child is on a dangerous path, and the most you can do is to remove him from the environment and element he is currently associating with. If you can do that (Wilderness Camp, sending him away for the summer, etc.) that may be great, but if you do not have the resources to do that, he will probably continue his behavior because he only listens to his peers, not you or husband. You need to be strong, have boundaries, be a great example for your other kids, and never stop trying to talk sense into your difficult child. With facebook and phones today, we have such little influence on who they're speaking with and who they're spending time with. You can only control what you can control, and you must do that. Keep posting here...lots of great parents who will share their helpful experiences.
 

notsureeither

New Member
I so appreciate your brutal honesty and sharing. I was talking with my husband and he said that "things will get much worse before they can get better." Our therapist said the same thing. Now I'm wondering how to quantify that statement. As an aside, my younger brother started drinking at age 14 and died of liver cirrhosis at age 39. I cannot make any sense out of his life. It was a total tragedy. Knowing the sadness that my brother endured, it scares the H!*L out of me when I think of my son and his stupid behavior at age 15. I'm having a difficult time letting go.
 
Top