So it's almost 4:30 in the morning and once more I am unable to sleep. I found this site by googling in an attempt to make some sense of it all.
I'm in Florida and my son, who will be 29 this month, lives in Illinois. I love my son, my only child, with all my heart but honestly it has been an ever-increasing nightmare since he was about seven. I was a single mother most of his life. At that time he was diagnosed with ADHD. At 14 the diagnosis was changed to depression and anxiety. At 17 it was changed to bipolar and has remained so ever since. Each change in diagnosis meant a change in medications and a change in his mantra of "I can't help it, I have ADHD/depression/bipolar!" That was his catch-all excuse for his defiant behavior and lack of control over his actions and words.
When he was 10 he threatened me with a knife, put his hands around my throat and squeezed until he was interrupted by someone knocking on the door, and swung a 2 by 4 at me. I can't remember now what triggered those events, but I let them slide. He refused to accept discipline. If I removed possession(s) from his room he went into m room room and took my things in retaliation. If I grounded him he sneaked out of the house. (One time I caught him climbing out his bedroom window and foolishly tried to run after him. He started screaming for help that I was kidnapping him. This was around the time of Jeffrey Dahmer, and I'm surprised no one called the police). At 13 or 14 he started smoking weed and graduated to other things, which I will mentioned in a bit.
When he was 14 he slapped me in the face with a dried out palm frond because I told him we didn't have the money to go to Burger King. No biggie, it only stung for a second, but it was the last straw. He ran off after slapping me and I kept walking until I saw a cop sitting in his car. I told him what happened, thinking that there might be a diversion program I could get him into. Instead, the police picked him up and charged him with battery. In court he was placed on juvenile probation and remained on probation until he aged out at 19 for constantly violating curfews, school attendance, etc. No criminal charges other than the battery charge and one shoplifting incident. But enough to keep him in and out of juvenile detention and a couple of year-long residential programs.
When he aged out at 19 the nightmare escalated since I no longer had the juvenile court behind me. On three occasions he broke the glass in my front door. The first time I called the police but they told me they couldn't charge him since he lived there. I couldn't evict him since I rented my apartment, and the rental agency told me the only way they could evict him was if they evicted both of us. One police officer told me the only way I could get my son out of my house would be to move! Seriously???
In 2009 I started dating my husband and the behavior became even worse. I spent more and more time at my then-boyfriend's and more or less my son had free reign over my apartment...parties, no cleaning, you name it. If he wanted to start drama with me he would go next door to my boyfriend's apartment, and once when I wouldn't let him in he tore out the window screen and climbed in anyway. I'm still amazed my husband and I stayed together through it all. At one point my husband, who has a low tolerance for stress and drama, had a stress-induced stroke. He was in the hospital for a solid month and nearly died. In desperation I wrote my son a $500 check and made him sign a contract to the effect that he was leaving and no longer claimed residence in my home. He has not lived with me since, my husband fully recovered, and we got married in 2015.
Fast forward: Three years ago, shortly after I got married, my son moved to Illinois. It was wonderful at first. He got a great job with a prominent bank and was promoted twice within one year. He was happy, productive, living on his own, and making more money than I ever had. Then he met "Mr. Wonderful" (did I mention he's gay) and not long after they started seeing each other things started going downhill. Just one month into the relationship they had a major fight, but within days were back together. And this patter has repeated ever since. The boyfriend got my son started on meth...his attendance started going down the toilet...he took 3 leave of absences from his job to go to rehab, but never completed a program and no sooner had the door closed behind him but he was back at boyfriend's doing meth with him. He lost his job, obviously, for attendance and other reasons, several months ago. He squatted in his apartment for a few months until he was evicted. Now he is staying with boyfriend (who, coincidentally is 46 and living in his mother's basement) for the last month or so. They continue to fight and make up, fight and make up. I rarely hear from him unless he needs something, like the night boyfriend put him out of his truck on a snowy night and left him stranded and he needed me to call an Uber for him to get home (this was when he still had his apartment). He has no phone service since he obviously can't pay his bill.
At the moment he's in a psychiatric ward after a fight that resulted in him punching out the glass in boyfriend's mom's back door. He called me to let me know but otherwise wouldn't talk to me, just asked me to get messages to a couple friends of his. I keep imagining the worst happening to my boy either from staying at boyfriend's house or living on the streets. I don't know how to keep these thoughts from creeping into my mind, but at this point in time it's difficult for me to imagine anything positive happening to him. He's not really looking for a job and he's blown off a couple of interviews he's had because they didn't pay enough. I've urged him to apply for disability but he says that doesn't pay enough either....I guess total unemployment pays, though?
So most nights I lie away envying my sleeping husband and conjure up all sorts of things in my mind, and it's really draining me physically and emotionally. Gosh I so apologize for this being so long but I wanted to give you the background and I'm not very good at being succinct. Hopefully future posts won't ramble on like this one. Thanks for letting me vent, though, I really needed this!
I'm in Florida and my son, who will be 29 this month, lives in Illinois. I love my son, my only child, with all my heart but honestly it has been an ever-increasing nightmare since he was about seven. I was a single mother most of his life. At that time he was diagnosed with ADHD. At 14 the diagnosis was changed to depression and anxiety. At 17 it was changed to bipolar and has remained so ever since. Each change in diagnosis meant a change in medications and a change in his mantra of "I can't help it, I have ADHD/depression/bipolar!" That was his catch-all excuse for his defiant behavior and lack of control over his actions and words.
When he was 10 he threatened me with a knife, put his hands around my throat and squeezed until he was interrupted by someone knocking on the door, and swung a 2 by 4 at me. I can't remember now what triggered those events, but I let them slide. He refused to accept discipline. If I removed possession(s) from his room he went into m room room and took my things in retaliation. If I grounded him he sneaked out of the house. (One time I caught him climbing out his bedroom window and foolishly tried to run after him. He started screaming for help that I was kidnapping him. This was around the time of Jeffrey Dahmer, and I'm surprised no one called the police). At 13 or 14 he started smoking weed and graduated to other things, which I will mentioned in a bit.
When he was 14 he slapped me in the face with a dried out palm frond because I told him we didn't have the money to go to Burger King. No biggie, it only stung for a second, but it was the last straw. He ran off after slapping me and I kept walking until I saw a cop sitting in his car. I told him what happened, thinking that there might be a diversion program I could get him into. Instead, the police picked him up and charged him with battery. In court he was placed on juvenile probation and remained on probation until he aged out at 19 for constantly violating curfews, school attendance, etc. No criminal charges other than the battery charge and one shoplifting incident. But enough to keep him in and out of juvenile detention and a couple of year-long residential programs.
When he aged out at 19 the nightmare escalated since I no longer had the juvenile court behind me. On three occasions he broke the glass in my front door. The first time I called the police but they told me they couldn't charge him since he lived there. I couldn't evict him since I rented my apartment, and the rental agency told me the only way they could evict him was if they evicted both of us. One police officer told me the only way I could get my son out of my house would be to move! Seriously???
In 2009 I started dating my husband and the behavior became even worse. I spent more and more time at my then-boyfriend's and more or less my son had free reign over my apartment...parties, no cleaning, you name it. If he wanted to start drama with me he would go next door to my boyfriend's apartment, and once when I wouldn't let him in he tore out the window screen and climbed in anyway. I'm still amazed my husband and I stayed together through it all. At one point my husband, who has a low tolerance for stress and drama, had a stress-induced stroke. He was in the hospital for a solid month and nearly died. In desperation I wrote my son a $500 check and made him sign a contract to the effect that he was leaving and no longer claimed residence in my home. He has not lived with me since, my husband fully recovered, and we got married in 2015.
Fast forward: Three years ago, shortly after I got married, my son moved to Illinois. It was wonderful at first. He got a great job with a prominent bank and was promoted twice within one year. He was happy, productive, living on his own, and making more money than I ever had. Then he met "Mr. Wonderful" (did I mention he's gay) and not long after they started seeing each other things started going downhill. Just one month into the relationship they had a major fight, but within days were back together. And this patter has repeated ever since. The boyfriend got my son started on meth...his attendance started going down the toilet...he took 3 leave of absences from his job to go to rehab, but never completed a program and no sooner had the door closed behind him but he was back at boyfriend's doing meth with him. He lost his job, obviously, for attendance and other reasons, several months ago. He squatted in his apartment for a few months until he was evicted. Now he is staying with boyfriend (who, coincidentally is 46 and living in his mother's basement) for the last month or so. They continue to fight and make up, fight and make up. I rarely hear from him unless he needs something, like the night boyfriend put him out of his truck on a snowy night and left him stranded and he needed me to call an Uber for him to get home (this was when he still had his apartment). He has no phone service since he obviously can't pay his bill.
At the moment he's in a psychiatric ward after a fight that resulted in him punching out the glass in boyfriend's mom's back door. He called me to let me know but otherwise wouldn't talk to me, just asked me to get messages to a couple friends of his. I keep imagining the worst happening to my boy either from staying at boyfriend's house or living on the streets. I don't know how to keep these thoughts from creeping into my mind, but at this point in time it's difficult for me to imagine anything positive happening to him. He's not really looking for a job and he's blown off a couple of interviews he's had because they didn't pay enough. I've urged him to apply for disability but he says that doesn't pay enough either....I guess total unemployment pays, though?
So most nights I lie away envying my sleeping husband and conjure up all sorts of things in my mind, and it's really draining me physically and emotionally. Gosh I so apologize for this being so long but I wanted to give you the background and I'm not very good at being succinct. Hopefully future posts won't ramble on like this one. Thanks for letting me vent, though, I really needed this!