I give up. It hurts too much to hope.

[Tanya M]

Copa, good job in telling him no.

Guardianship and payees are legal matters and you go to court not social security. It is a process.

I agree with SWOT, something like this you want to make sure all the I's are dotted.

I do not want him to die.

I know that feeling all to well. None of us want to see our children die and because our D C's make poor life choices they put themselves at greater risk. The only way I was able to get past that was to truly accept that yes, it could happen. It is out of my control. Something that made this crystal clear to me was a very dear friend of mine lost her 23 year old daughter in a car accident. Even if our children were to lead the most responsible lives there are no guarantees about their health or safety.
I still don't like the thought of something happening to my son but I've accepted the reality that it could happen and that's where I leave it. It could, it hasn't, so I cannot dwell on it.

Hang in there Copa!! We are all here with you.

((HUGS))

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Me: No. I will not front you money.

Those are the hardest words to say, Copa. You did it; you spoke the words that needed to be spoken. The cost of it is on you, now.

It is like a whole different version of Hell, to live through this part.

But you are here with us. We have been where you are, today. There is some comfort in that.

Had you fronted the $250, you would have been fronting other sums for other, equally well-presented reasons very soon.

Eventually, you would have had to say "No."

Living through this part is hellish. Living through the consequences can be hellish in undreampt of ways. If we enable, we encourage our kids to believe that if only the story is terrible enough, we will come through with money...we turn them into manipulative beggars. If we are able to say "No", then we have made a space for the child to find his own way.

I am suspicious that your son softened you up by taunting you with the dream in your heart: That he will enter treatment and will be okay.

My daughter has done similar things. It kills something in us to know that.

There are parents out there who have never had to face the truths we face routinely. They simply have no clue, those other parents. They judge us harshly. We would do the same, were our situations reversed. It is good to remember things like that. It helps us to understand just how difficult our situations with our kids are. We need to honor that, Copa. We are in very bad places when we love a child who is determined to self-destruct.

It is not a weakness for you to feel hopeless, Copa.

The situation is that dire; the consequences are that terrible. For me, that I loved her (or him, when it was my son in that position) was all I knew. I did love her (or him).

And there was nothing else that I knew for sure.

Nothing at all.

You absolutely should call Social Security. He obviously is not capable of managing his money. Once you are designated his payee, you will have a lot more control over him getting his blood tests & antiviral medication.

If you do this Copa, do it so that you will know you have done all you can. Do it so you can meet your own eyes in the mirror.

The other side of this is that if your son is ever going to learn to manage his affairs, this is the time he will learn that. Whatever he spent his money on, he did not spend it on the things that he is telling you matter to him now that his money is gone.

Where did the money go, Copa?

What will you be funding if you give him money, now?

D H put money into daughter's account weekly when she was homeless. It wasn't much money...but we learned later that it was a very great deal of money to people who have spent their own money and have no aversion to beating those whose parents have been foolish enough to send more.

That is what we learned, later. We would not put the money into her account until we had heard from her. It turned out that she was being beat until she made that call to us.

And the money we sent was being taken from her.

So, that relationship ended when the male was finally picked up for attempted vehicular homicide of our daughter that had happened some months earlier when our daughter still had money and a vehicle. Though the man had no license, of course, he was driving her vehicle. He had run that vehicle into a stone wall at high speed, claiming he was trying to kill them both. In any event, he was picked up some months later and taken to jail.

That is the day she called and asked to come home.

It was after that that the male who would beat and leave her for dead entered the picture again.

We gave them money, too. Enough to make everything legal for the vehicle they somehow acquired and a little more.

And you know how that ended.

When we gave daughter nothing, when she knew we would give her nothing, she set her life up differently. She complains bitterly about this state of affairs to this day; she did that when she was here with us on her visit this summer.

It has been very hard.

That is why I work so hard on our FOO thread, Copa. Because all these things nearly killed me, too.

What I have learned on the FOO thread is that the killing part of self recrimination and self blame and self hatred for having failed my children is come of messages hidden so deeply in the core of me that I took them to be true.

They were lies, Copa.

If we are ever going to help our kids, we need to know exactly why we are doing whatever it is we choose to do for them.

For me, I need to hear the virulence in the self condemnation that attends every ever-more unbelievable episode in the saga of the family D H and I have created. I have to try really hard to separate what is valid from what I was taught was valid about me and about what I do.

Sometimes, all I know is nothing at all.

I know that in theory I believe enabling is paving the road to Hell with gold. Nice road, at the end of things. But it still leads to Hell.

So, I don't enable.

And that feels really bad.

So, I just sit with those feelings. I get quiet. I play music. I think about doing yoga really hard, but just lately, I usually don't do it.

Cedar

 

[Copabanana]

He needs a guardian or his life will be in danger. That is a good reason to request guardianship.

The hepatitis. Call an attorney who does guardianship.

You can't change his choices. He may do so...but you can't.

Our sons will die at some point too, before us, or after us. There is nothing to be done about that.

There is a split here in how to see my son, which unfortunately is mirrored in my own psyche.

Do I see him as somebody I can and should protect from himself?

Do I see him as somebody with free will and the right to have such? Whose free will about choices about his mortality and lifestyle I must accept.

I can see it both ways. But I must choose only one.

How I see my son (and myself to some extent) could determine if he lives or dies.

Is it necessary and my responsibility as his mother to protect him from his poor choices? Or must I accept that he is his own person and will live or die as chooses?

I need to decide about becoming his payee and/or his legal guardian.

I think I have grounds to ask for guardianship, based upon the dangers to his health presented by his lack of medication compliance for his liver. I do not know if it is the right or wrong thing to do for him or for myself.

I know I can ask to be his payee for SSI. Or I can ask that somebody else be assigned to do so. I will call SSI about that, and see what comes of it.

However much I may sound strong, I am not. In a battle of wills with my son, I can win. But it is at extreme cost. I get excited easily, and lose it. I retreat. I feel I cannot stand the pressure and stress.

When he lives here, it feels like acid is being poured down my Esophagus by the gallon full. With my son I become unhinged.

I worry about myself if I become his guardian. Of course, I could change.

I think many of my problems with my son come from not accepting his limitations. I keep hoping he will choose to be different. My hope gives him too much power over me.

The thing is I do not think the gov gives SSI the first time to somebody who can choose to be different.

I do not think my son has the competency really to understand what the consequences are to not taking antivirals for his liver. He believes he can control inflammation that leads to scar tissue by consuming OTC dietary supplements. He believes that Omega 3's are the equivalent of an antiviral medication prescribed by a Hepatologist. He cannot be disabused of this idea.

I believe this he is rendered so frightened by his disease that he cannot wrap his mind around it enough to comply with treatment.

I also believe that his disorganized way of life, living close to the street or homeless sometimes, would make it difficult for even a competent person to maintain medication compliance.

I believe that he is homeless or near-homeless because he cannot solve his housing problem because of poor problem-solving skills. I also believe that he is taken advantage by other people and exploited because of his SSI.

My son is not like many of yours. My son from the moment he was born faced challenges. His parents were drug addicted and homeless and dying of AIDS.

My son went to a crisis nursery at 2 weeks and lived as if in an orphanage until I found him at 22 months. He was delayed in all things, and had been thought to have Autism, which was ruled out.

He had intervention from the beginning: language therapy, Behavioral Nursery School, IEP in Kindergarten, and non public school placement from 7th grade on.

Now for his strengths: He is very articulate. At core, he is confident and charming, but he can adopt this victim/martyr/ashamed stance that is very unattractive.

His psychiatric symptoms include body dysmorphia, anxiety, social anxiety, and depression. He also complains of mood swings. That was never confirmed by a professional.

My son is very, very handsome. He makes relationships. Friends who own a hotel by the ocean in a big beautiful city let him live there rent free for two years. People go out of their way for him. His psychiatric nurse practitioner and Hepatologist befriend him. They care and give him chance after chance.

He speaks 2 languages other than English fluently. He taught himself.

The thing about my son that stumps me is he seems so much more capable than all of the specifics about him that I cited. He did go to college one year. He is really, really presentable when he wants to be.

The psychiatrist who I speak to says I must accept that he has intrinsic limits that will never go away (he has never met him.)

I have a doctorate and a profession. I am articulate and have a degree of confidence. PEOPLE ARE MORE LIKELY TO BELIEVE AND TRUST MY SON, sometimes. He can present as if he is a substantial and reasonable and confident and capable person, for a few minutes. HE IS NOT.

But even I am confused. Especially me.

I think a mood disorder kicked in when he was in his late teens. I do think that his attraction to conspiracy theories is to the point of a delusion.

He is absolutely unmotivated to seek treatment and will not take psychiatric medication.

He has not used hard drugs that I know of. He has no criminal history that I know of. He is not violent, although he will react to protect himself, which can cross the line. He tries to do the right thing.

Much of his situation is not by choice. I believe this. He held a job as a nurse's aid for a year plus. I believe he could not sustain it because of his moods. He tried. When he left the job he felt suicidal and says he was 5150'd in another County. He says he has made suicide attempts (none in last 3 years, if you do not count not taking the medications for his liver.) He has had several involuntary hospitalizations.

There are all kinds of bad outcomes for both my son and I if I am designated his payee. He will hate the control. I will hate arguing with him.

The main reason to do so would to have some control over him, particularly to try to influence his health decisions. Actually, I do not see how I could do this, by just being his payee. Nor do I think this is ethical.

The main thing I want to control in my son is that he be safe and stay healthy. I do not want him to die.

In summary. I think I have decided to call SSI. I have to. But I do not know if I should request to be his payee. The other question is about legal guardianship.

The hope had been that by having control and responsibility to choose himself, he would learn and develop. This has not worked out so good.

Thank you everybody. I am very grateful.

PS When he left my town about 9 days ago, he had about 600 dollars left of his SSI. Except for 2 nights, he has resided in a treatment center that he cannot leave unsupervised. That means that he used up or lost $600 in 2 nights and that the real reason he entered treatment voluntarily is because he had used up all of his money. There was no desire at all to improve his situation. He got himself admitted for the bed.

 

[nerfherder]

Cop a...please see an attorney. Guardianship and payees are legal matters and you go to court not social security. It is a process.

Hugs. Will try to get on lo her later. You are not your son. He needs a guardian or his life will be in danger. That is a good reason to request guardianship. The hepatitis. Call an attorney who does guardianship. I have this over my son sonic. Hugs. Later.

This is true. I know in our county there's regular Guardianship and Emergency Guardianship. Your county's website might have a link for PDFs for the varied types of Guardianship available through the courthouse, if the two (or more) types are available through your county court system.

 

[Lil]

This is a sticky situation Copa. When you speak of him, he sounds capable of taking care of himself. Body dismorphia, anxiety and depression are all bad, of course, but there are people with anxiety and depression who function in the world without assistance. He has gone to school, he has worked. Being bad with money, not that unusual. Conspiracy theories? Weird, but not that unusual. Heck, half the comments on the Yahoo message boards yesterday accused the Chattanooga shootings of being a "false flag" event set up by the government. Even the resistance to taking his medications - Christian Scientists would think prayer would cure it. Lots of people are into holistic medications and won't take drugs.

May I ask what specific disability got him SSI? You are right, being given SSI on the first application, without denial and hearings, is actually not the norm. Most people get turned down.

 

[Tanya M]

Copa, unfortunately there are no easy answers when it comes to dealing with our D C's.
You have to really search you soul and do what you can live with.
Each one of us has our own stopping point, when we are just done and know there is nothing more we can do that will help. The key word here is "help". Of course there is always something we can do, we can continue to give money, bail them out of jail, buy them food, let them stay with us, pay their rent, buy them a car, buy them a bus pass, etc.............. the list is endless, but if by doing any of these things it is not helping but only enabling then it's time to stop.
You have to think of yourself somewhere in the equation. You have to care of yourself first before you can take care of him.
Even if you do gain guardianship over his SSI there is no guarantee that he will go to get blood work done or take his medications.
I do hope you can find someone at SSI or a lawyer that can help you navigate through this, that can help answer the questions that have yet to be asked.

 

[Copabanana]

May I ask what specific disability got him SSI?

Thank you for responding, Lil.

I believe it was Mood Disorder, not otherwise specified. That was what the Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner who approved him for the SSI put on the paper I needed to continue him as a disabled dependent on my health insurance. He did indicate his judgment and his insight were quite poor.

He applied for SSI in same County where he was born and a ward of the court, with the same social security number. They had access to his history. It might have contributed to his credibility.

Because Mood D X, N O S would encompass a third of the population, possibly even me.

He could well have a personality disorder that affects his thinking. But so might most of our kids.

He also has cognitive issues, like problems with problem solving and sequencing, etc. Which are complicated by anxiety.

Gosh, I do not know what to do.

 

[Lil]

It sounds like they continued his SSI from when he was a child into adulthood then? Certainly far more common than getting it right away when applying for the first time as an adult.

I don't know what to tell you...I really don't and I'm sorry about that. I'm sure his diagnoses makes him vulnerable to some extent, but he's not so disabled as to not be able to function. His thinking is odd, but not, well, crazy. There are people who don't even have his issues who are perfectly fine couch surfing and being homeless.

I think one thing to think on, very hard, is that becoming the payee on his SSI ties you to him more firmly than just being his mother. You'll become the person who pays his rent, pays his electric, pays his groceries. He may have suggested it originally, but he may really resent it now. Once you are on there, then what? Right now he's homeless, right? You need to read up on what becoming a payee entails. I really don't know. (You know it occurs to me that @SomewhereOutThere may be of help on this.) Say you find a place for him to live...and he refuses. Then what? Can you say, "No. I'm not paying for a hotel/food/clothing?"

And there is the question of whether you can TAKE being his guardian/payee.

When he lives here, it feels like acid is being poured down my Esophagus by the gallon full. With my son I become unhinged.

Doesn't sound like having to deal with him day to day is going to be healthy for you.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Copa, I am reading along and I am so sorry you are going through this. I deeply understand your anguish and despair, I have walked in those shoes too.

I have lived with mental illness all my life, so I can feel what you are going through......my daughter is 42 years old and I've gone through the agonies of the damned, as you are, and many of us here have, to try to save her. She is similar to your son in physical beauty and intelligence with an uncanny knack for getting others to do for her. I went through a process of letting go that lasted awhile and one of the most difficult things to face is that I will not be able to save her from death, she might die as a result of her choices.......and there isn't anything I can do about it. I think that was likely the most difficult thing for me to face. As a mother, I think I really thought my will alone could prevent that. But I had to look at the issue head on and realize that there would not be anything I can do about it.......and it may, indeed, happen.

I don't know where you are in terms of support, but I had truckloads of support to be able to move through this journey and remain sane. If you don't have that, my strong advice to you is that you find it and find it now. This stuff is the hardest thing you will ever do and most of us need professional support to get through it. To tell ourselves that we cannot control the life and/or death of our child is a truth that can't be just swallowed whole, it has to be digested in increments and in my opinion, with a lot of help.

As others have mentioned, a large part of this is being able to separate yourself from your son. He is over there and you are over here. There are boundaries between you, you are not him, he is not you.It takes work to step back and recognize the space between you and he........if you allow yourself to be pulled around by his choices, up and down and sideways, you will forfeit your own life. I know, I did that and it took me to the brink of insanity.

Reading Codependent no more is a good start. I don't know where you live, but here in CA. the major HMO offers a terrific Codependency program run by trained therapists which is part of their substance abuse program. I went through that two year program and it changed my life, perhaps, saved my life. I had to have a lot of professional help from those who were trained in how to detach from those we love who are either involved in substance abuse and/or have a mental illness. I really don't know how I could have done it alone. I needed those professionals to continue to offer me other ways of looking at it, I needed them to point out how embroiled I was and how my helping and suffering was not making any kind of difference. I needed continued support to let go and accept what I could not change. I hope you can find that kind of help Copa.

At the worst of it, what helped me was to place my daughter in the hands of my perception of a higher power. I had to recognize that she had a different fate than I thought she should have, and I didn't know what that fate was, nor was I in control of it......she would have to walk her own path to her own destiny........without me. That recognition of her having a destiny of her own, separate from me and what I wanted for her, helped me to let go. I began to see how I may have in fact, been hindering her path.

Our adult children are not 'ours' they are not here to do what we think they should do, they are here to fulfill their own lives in ways that only they know. We are not a part of that. We birth them or adopt them...... and we let them go......it's that letting go part that gets so dicey when they are troubled and have mental anomalies. But, even when they are troubled like your son and my daughter, they still own their own lives, to do with how they will. I began believing and still do, that the most loving thing I could do, was to let my beloved daughter go in to her own destiny........whatever that is........even if it means she may die before me........I so hope that doesn't happen Copa, but it may......and I will have to deal with it then.........but for now........she and I are living our separate lives, our separate destinies..........

Sending you loving hugs Copa.......we are circling our wagons around you now......

 

[roxy]

I don't post here much any more, as my Difficult Child is now less difficult. However, I have lots of hard-won experience on the topic of becoming a payee for SS. When I requested that I be made payee for my daughter because she was turning over her entire check to the heroin user she fancied was her boyfriend, they refused. They actually told me at the local SS office as I wept that she was an adult and if she wanted her ss money to go for buying heroin, it was none of my business. That to change it, I would to get the form they provided to me signed my her doctor with an explanation from him about why she could not manage her own money. When I requested that her neurologist sign the form thru his office staff, he dodged me for weeks, while she racked up arrests for shoplifting things she could hock so she could turn over more money to him. I figured as soon as the ss money was gone, he'd be out of there. This io did not move her doctor, who told me she was an adult and he would not give me power over her money just because i wanted it. I finally went to my own physician, who is a woman and had treated my daughter a time or two, and tearfully poured out my story to her. She signed the paper. The SS office almost seemed put out that I had managed to wrest away the drug addict's gravy train. And I had been correct, the instant he discovered the check no longer had her name on it, he was out of there. I am still payee after 6 years, and it is working ok.

You also need to remember that just because you have guardianship, there is still the issue of making them do things against their will. It is not easy when they resist. Seems to me all you get is responsibility for them, with very little leverage if they object.

 

[InsaneCdn]

Does he need guardianship and a payee? Possibly, perhaps closer to probably.

Does it need to be YOU? I think that is the bigger question. Ideally, it would not be you. It would be someone assigned by the system. So that all of this control layer is not you, it's someone else.

 

[BusynMember]

Since ur son has a mood disorder, substance issues. Hep. B and is already on ssi u could probably get guardianship. Sonic has autism. If I'd just let him make his own choices he too would be homeless, broke, unemployed and maybe dead. He was born with some brain damage because his birth mom took drugs. Sound familiar?
It never occurred to us not to file for guardianship. He is fine with it and is relieved we pay his bills. It all comes out of his own money...ssi and work. He is a very happy young man.
I had to go to court and he came with and was agreeable so it was easy. I don't check on everything he does. We are close. He pays for his own apartment with his money, his food, cable, and cell.
It may be different if an adult child doesn't want guardianship but frankly your son is already acknowledged as impaired and is living like an impaired person. He doesn't even know that he needs his hep. B drugs to live. He isn't trying to die. I think he doesn't get it.
If it were me id file for guardianship. If you are waiting for a lightbulb moment that will make him capable of taking good care of himself, I don't think he can.
In some cases there are bad choices made. In your sons case I strongly believe he is too disabled to live without some help. I could be wrong but I don't think so. It is not shameful to be partially disabled. Brain damage from birth mom and injury plus untreated hepatitis b and a mental illness....my opinion....He needs help even though he is an adult. Please consider. Hugs.

 

[Copabanana]

I just got off the phone with Social Security and there are no easy answers. They absolutely will not consider intervening. He must request a payee directly.

He already did request a payee earlier this year. We went to a local SS office and he requested affirmatively that I be his payee.

The supervisor decided unilaterally not to honor his request. I doubt at this point he will go in to request this again.

I believe he will oppose me if I request guardianship. He is so articulate and persuasive that when he was last 5150'd he was able to convince the Administrative Law Judge to release him. And that was with professional staff arguing against him.

This is very hard for me.

There is his life to consider. Whether he lives or dies. His safety. His health.

His potential to mature.

How an adversarial court proceeding would affect our relationship.

How my taking a stand against his potential and his capacity would affect him, would affect me.

He depends upon our relationship. I do not want to risk destroying the integrity of that.

How it will affect me if I do not do whatever I can to protect him. There is a plus and and minus to this, however. By protecting him, I limit him.

The Social Security Rep brought up the possibility of his returning home to live with me if I was so concerned. I thought about it a second.

As horrible as it felt, I heard myself responding, maybe that is the only solution.

I will speak with M. I think what I might do is to ask my son if he will consent to an evaluation by a psychiatrist to assess his competency and need for a guardian, his realistic ability to continue to manage his affairs and his life. And go from there.

I will speak with M when he gets home. There is so much to consider.

I am still very sad but I am no longer attacking myself. That is a very big thing. I felt very alone when I woke up. I no longer feel alone as I write this.

I am grateful to you all beyond words. I have many, many words as you all know. To say that my gratitude exceeds their number is to say a lot.

Thank you.

 

[allusedup]

Work on the guardianship Copa. And I would talk to his doctor and ask him to lay out all the consequences to smoking pot and not taking his medications. You CAN do those things for him. I know this is so hard for you. Ia am so sorry you are in such pain. You remain in my thoughts and prayers!

 

[allusedup]

I wrote the above before your above post showed up, Copa. You are extremely intuitive and intelligent and you know your son best. I know despite all of our advice, you will know and do the right thing for him. I am so glad you are not blaming yourself now. That will help you move forward.

 

[allusedup]

Work on the guardianship Copa. And I would talk to his doctor and ask him to lay out all the consequences to smoking pot and not taking his medications. You CAN do those things for him. I know this is so hard for you. Ia am so sorry you are in such pain. You remain in my thoughts and prayers!

 

[allusedup]

Sorry guys, I am new at this, lol

 

[BusynMember]

Guardianship doesn't go through anyone but the courts. A judge decides by medical records not your son. There was not much talking to the judge. You get an attorney.

 

[Tanya M]

Copa, you sound so much better than you did earlier today. I'm glad.
As you said you have much to consider. Take your time and really think through all the details and if you decide to have him come home make sure you consider a time limit.
Holding you in my thoughts.

 

[tishthedish]

Copa, I'm reading along and my heart is with you. Sometimes hope is a four letter word. It was, and often still is, with me. Take good care of yourself. Hugs and prayers coming your way.