((((((((((hugs))))))))))
First of all, you are NOT as incapable as your mom tells you. the fact that you found us means that you can do a whole lot. It own't be easy to change the patterns that you have spent so many years learning, and it won't be fast. But you CAN do it.
First of all, get social services involved. You and your son are most likely eligible for a LOT of help. Given her limits, I am sure you don't have a job that would support you and provide child care, etc.... So get listed for food stamps, low income housing, TANF (temp aid for needy families) and any other source of support they have. If you don't all have health insurance, at least difficult child would be covered by the state kids' insurance and likely YOU would be also, esp if you don't have much income.
Do NOT be afraid of Children's Services. I have been involved myself with them. They will NOT take your child. For one thing, it is expensive to them to support him. It is far less expensive to provide the services you both need.
This next will likely be super hard, but trust me and take a deep breath, focus on the fact that this will make life far better for your child (and you, but right now that probably won't get you to reach out, so do it because this is a super unhealthy atmostphere to raise your son in - do it for HIM), and make an appointment with the local domestic violence center.
Yup. Domestic violence. You, and your son, are being ABUSED by your mother. She is emotionally abusing you. She is also destroying the mother-child bond that you and difficult child both need. For your child to grow to be a happy, successful adult he NEEDS a healthy attachment to you. He doesn't have it. YOU are the only one who can protect him. The Dv center has a LOT of resources and will help. How do I KNOW, for a stone cold FACT that what your mom is doing is abuse? Well, my mom has done quite a bit of it to me and esp my oldest but all of my kdis and my husband. She was super upset when we moved away when Wiz was 3 and spent years doing all she could to undermine us and get him to want to live iwth her. If I had a dollar for every time she offered to have Wiz live with her until some problem or other was better, I would living in Bill Gates' neighborhood. She did so much damage that by the time he was 14 I had to make him leave our home. He was so entitled, and so violent if he didn't get what he wanted or something upset him (like demands from me - things like "how was your day?" "any preferences for dinner?" types of "demands") that one of us was going to end up in the hospital or morgue. I tried for Residential Treatment Center (RTC), but after the judge and deputy who removed him dragged their feet on even basic paperwork for a month, I let him live iwth my parents. It worked, but mostly because without me in the middle of their relationship, Wiz saw what she really had done to us and figured out her games. See my thread about "discharged 504" to see what Wiz' little brother is doing and a post later in the thread about where Wiz is now.
You ARE capable of making these changes. It will be HARD, because you have a lifetime of things to overcome and unlearn. But you CAN do it. The dv center will give you free individual and group therapy, valuable connections, help you get social services (including children's services) to support and help you through this. Your mother will most likely rage and lose her mind because you are escaping her, but it will be the best thing you can do FOR YOUR CHILD.
As a teen with a baby, it was natural to live iwth your mom, at least for a while. But you are an adult now and you must take a long, hard, unflinching look at how this is all harming your child. Make it about him, at least in your mind. Get him away from your mom and make sure that you are both in therapy. I am willing to bet your mom will at least send a letter to the therapist, outlining all the ways you are not fit to raise him. Guess What? Any decent therapist will see all of the lies, manipulation, and unhealthy toxicity in her and the relationship and counsel you to cut ties as much as possible, completely if you can. Yes, difficult child will go off the deep end for a while. Short term this is bad. Long term? Keep him in therapy, keep working with his current therapist if she is good and with the DV people (and keep difficult child working with them) and the long term outlook will be a LOT different.
I KNOW how hard it is to overthrow those things you learned from the cradle. I am still working on this. For a couple of decades every therapist I saw told me that I needed to cut ties with my gfgbro and if my parents didn't change then with them also. the last ten years or so they all said to just cut ties, that change was not a realistic goal for me to have for them. I was raised that family was EVERYTHING. If a family member needed it, you did it. To the degree that when my 14yo cousin was in serious danger of sexual and other abuse from her stepdad, I was willing to take her out of that state, to meet with another relative to hide her. husband and I were actually willing to just move iwth her - against the custody order, knowing it was illegal. This is the kind of thing I was taught family did with no hesitation. But from the time I was a teen I realized that while this was the "rule", the "family value", it just didn't apply to ME. Or later to my kids. I couldn't call a relative after 9:30 with-o hearing about how inconsiderate I was for months. But others could call me at 2 am, blather on for hours about NOTHING, and if I got upset or hung up, well, I was a horrible person and sister/daughter/cousin/slime under a rock. I needed something? WOrk it out. Gfbro WANTED something? Jump NOW! I also could not object to things other did, even if it hurt or endangered my children. Gee, put chewing tobacco in my child's sandwich and yell at her when she won't eat it - who did I think I was to object to that? Put booze in the baby bottle (not a teaspoon, fill it up!) and then hide it and the stuff the kid puked on? Why did I have a problem with that? Keep Gma out of therapy? OMG I was the worst person on earth and she was getting custody!!! Go to alanon? Who was I to do that, and what person am I telling them has a problem? How dare I keep it private?
So you see, I know a lot of what you are living with. Not all, and your mom goes a lot farther than mine did - mine wanted me to feel I could do anything, everything, and then to do it for everyone else in the family while they did NOTHING in return for me. Not just brother, parents, this applied to cousins, uncles, etc....
It is HARD to cut ties. I only cut ties with gfgbro last June. I realized that my kids had nightmares and panic attacks because of his behavior for a week or more after we saw his vehicle in a parking lot. Not even him, his vehicle was enough to induce this. It was time to put my role as Mom ahead of my roles as sister, daughter, cousin, niece, friend. It has been hard and lonely in some respects, but it has also been wonderful and had far less stress than I knew was possible. My family here on this website helped me do this, and helps me see things as they are instead of how my family wants me to see things. They also help me to realize and remember that I am worth loving and caring about and being treated with respect, courtesy and love.
We will be here for you for as long as you want us to be. We won't always agree, and will won't hide that. But we won't hold a grudge, slam your head into the pavement when you are down, refuse to speak to you, or be ugly. We will apologize if we are out of line in some way, and let you apologize if it is appropriate and how you feel. We won't blow smoke up your nose but will tell you when you are getting it right and/or doing a great job. We won't lie to you.
But you have to start to get some help other than here. You are SO worthwhile, you DESERVE a happy life. Your mom is keeping you tied to her because she is afraid and because she likes to manipulate you. It is habit now.
Call the DV center or stop by to make an appointment. You not only are being abused by your mother, you have been for a long time and the DV center will help you if you ask for it and just keep going back to it.
Scary as it is, reach out to social services and children's services if they are different agencies where you live (here they are the same one, but they are not always in every area). Get an appointment to speak Occupational Therapist (OT) a social worker. Tell your mom you are at work, out with a friend, at a school function or the therapist. Whatever works. If you can't get a bus, ask them to come and get you - social services usually can set it up and so can the domestic violence center. Or skim a few bucks here and there from the budget and take a taxi. Or ask SO to drive you.
At age 24 your mom's income will only be factored in while you live iwth her. Even then, as you and difficult child are a separate family legally, you can probably get assistance with-o her info. They may ask for a statement from her about hwat she helps with/provides financially, but explain that she is abusive and you are afraid of her and need to be out of your house because she is harming your child (even if not physical harm) and they will help. There may be waiting lists, but the sooner you sign up the sooner you will get help and get out from under her.
Come here as often as you want/need. We will be here. If you are not ready to do all of what I suggest, it is okay. Take one thing and do that. I would suggest calling the DV center, because that will give you the most help toward making the other changes. Your mom has NO right to know what you tell them and NO right to see your or your son's medical, therapy, or school records. Take her name off of those things. You don't have to tell her. Just give a note to the school/doctor/therapist/social service agency and they will just stop answering her questions. She can give them info, but they cannot tell her anything.
I am sorry things are so bad. ((((((((((hugs))))))))))