Hi Niki, and welcome to the board. I've been out of town, but wanted to catch up and respond to your thread. Your son, at 18, sounds very similar to my son at that age.
They are just two very different people, who make their own choices.
My older son also sounds like your older son. He has thrived in his life. He is now 29. He was raised in the same house, with the same rules. He wasn't perfect---was a bit lazy in high school, but made good grades throughout, did what he was supposed to do, graduated from college and has a master's degree in math, a good job, a fiancee...etc.
He continued to sign up for AP and Honors classes after several years of proving he will not do all the work and gets very poor grades, refuses to do any lick of house chores after making sure over time that he does a terrible job at them, and spends so long in the shower or toilet that we begin to ration his time to save money on the water bill. Hours would pass. Hours. Not on homework or research or diligently inventing a lifesaving innovation for a third world country. Just several hours out of each day on the toilet "@" in the shower, and otherwise hiding. We suspected drugs, and though I continually searched his room, I found no drug evidecne, just began to find thefting evidence.
This sounds like my difficult child as well. He was in the gifted program---although in his case he didn't want to be in it. So he did what he does---he just didn't do the work. I was called to the school over and over again to sit down with teachers, etc., and him. He would slouch down in the chair, pull his hoody over his head, and basically check out. At first, I thought they just didn't get him. (HA, hahahahahahahaha...). In time I learned. He would say that they were just being unfair, that none of the teachers like him, and they are out to get him....hahahahahahaha. He would rally because he wanted to stay on the soccer team and do just enough to make sure he didn't get kicked off. He was on the team for four years, and somehow, that was what he wanted, and so he did what he had to do. I do think that masked some things, and so I didn't take any real action in terms of getting him more extensive help. Would that have changed the course of things? Who knows? I don't "live in the land of what ifs" anymore, though I did for years. I know I have been a very good mother, and when I knew differently, I have done differently.
I knew once he left my response to his requests, no matter how necessary, would be no. It's not ok. It's not ok to turn around and ask, let alone demand things of me after all Evan has done to us up to this point. He certainly has a lot to learn.
I think your stance here is way way, before I got it, in terms of the course of the story of difficult child and me. My son moved out after his first semester in college. He and his brother shared an apartment for about six months. It was a disaster for his older brother. difficult child would trash out the apartment, never help clean up, and basically live like a pig. He flunked out pretty quickly. Went to community college and dropped and withdrew of many classes there before we finally said no more. He had a million changes to change.
I don't accuse all our kids of being lazy, but knowing how smart Evan is, and how he had every opportunity I never had, and how he loved to manipulate, lie and steal rather than really earn his own reputation, he is clearly one of the lazy ones.
My son was very lazy too.
Niki, fast forward to today. Looking back, I think my son was quite possibly drinking alcohol he took from our house while he was in middle school. Who knows what else? He hid it all very very well through h.s. and kept it troublesome but still between the rails. After h.s. he ramped it up---the drinking and the pot smoking. His girlfriend was the one who called me one day, asked if she could come over, and sat in my living room for an hour and a half telling me the real lowdown. When she left I was reeling. I had no idea the extent of it all. She said he had to drink a "40" every day before they did anything. She said he smoked pot all the time. I didn't even know what a 40 was, Niki.
Our kids can hide their real lives very well. I was also naive, but hey, I can't know what I don't know. My kids both knew that underage drinking and pot-smoking of any age was very much a no-no in our family. I didn't really know anybody who "did drugs" especially not my own son. My learning curve has been immense.
I will say this to you today: If your son is using drugs, you will know soon enough. You will know when you need to know. And if he is, there isn't anything you can do to stop him anyway at age 18. If there is a co-occurring disorder, like depression, or a p.d. or some other diagnosis, there is no way to tell until he stops using drugs and that is treated first.
I used to lie awake at night and obsess over all of this. Well, maybe he is self-medicating because of this or that, and he just needs help. Blah blah. I drug him to multiple doctors, psychologists, psychiatrists, counselors, therapists. On and on. If I could get him there, he would sit there and say little to nothing. I went with him. I went without him.
Whatever. The only thing that works is for a person to want to change first. They have to want it. Until they do, there is no action that we can take that will make one whit of difference.
The details are just that, details. They are nearly irrelevant, but we will spend hours and hours and hours on them. I did too. I searched his car, his room, his backpack, over and over again. I spent enormous amounts of time and energy trying to "get the facts" about what was going on.
Today, I have let so much of it all go. I still love my son very much, and right now he is working a full time+ job, paying his bills and who knows what will happen next? He does not go to NA or AA. He drinks I know. He smokes cigarettes. He has two felonies and multiple misdemeanors. He is on state probation for the felonies. He is finally off county probation for the misdemeanors after paying nearly $1000 in fines and showing up every week and getting drug tested multiple times for months. He has satisfied that probation.
What will happen next? I have no idea. I have learned how to life my own life, regardless of what he does or does not do. It doesn't mean I don't care, and it doesn't mean that sometimes I am scared and I can go back to my old thinking.
I hope you are getting support, and I can recommend books like Codependency No More, Boundaries, Al-Anon literature, Al-Anon meetings, meditation, prayer, exercise, doing small kindnesses for yourself. We must turn the bright light of change onto ourselves, and work hard to live our own lives.
Niki, we are glad you are here, and we are here for you, no matter what happens. We get it. Welcome.
