This just keeps getting better....

[welcometowitsend]

So difficult child called and wanted to meet for coffee. husband and I picked him up and took him out to a restaurant - bought him some food. Said he had no money - but was sporting a new haircut. Didn't give him any cash.

We were asking him how things were going. How did he like living with girlfriend. Oh just fine - he feels at home there now. Asked him how the meeting went with the youth worker at school. It went good. He has to go through a rigorous process to try and get welfare and hasn't decided what he is going to do yet. I told him that it was my understanding that the only way he was going to get welfare was if we refused to let him come home (in which case they can force us to pay support for him) or if he claims abuse. He is meeting him again next Friday.

We again told him we understood our part in this problem and asked if he understood his part? Wanted to know if he was ready to take ownership of anything he has done. Nope. He got disrespectful again, caused a scene in the restaurant and stormed out. Found a phone to call his girlfriend and had her brother come pick him up - amazing how he can use a phone to call them but could never do it to call me!

So, guess what he's doing? Claiming abuse! Now he is sending me emails saying we have both physically, verbally, emotionally and mentally abused him (2 so far tonight).

Says he started cutting himself because of all the pain we have caused him. I have seen him shirtless within the past 3 weeks (he's been gone for 2) - not a mark on him... and pant less within the last 4 weeks because he shaved his legs and wanted to know what I thought (he has a lot of leg hair for a kid his age and is embarrassed by it).

So, he might be cutting. If he is he has only just started doing it. A friend of mine let me know that her daughter was worried about him because he was talking about going 'emo' (this was many weeks ago) - not because he was sad or depressed but because his girlfriend thought it would be cool. Ugh. So, I will call the guidance counsellor at his school tomorrow and ask him what the options are when a kid says he is cutting. Maybe I can get him admitted to hospital for 72 hours if they think he is a danger to himself. Then I will call my family doctor and see what she says. Tell her or the hospital that his guidance counsellor and I suspect he could be bipolar.

difficult child says we haven't admitted any of our part in this problem and that we are blaming everything on him. Not true at all. We have admitted that we've made mistakes, handled things poorly on some occasions, said things we regret. Multiple times we have said this to him, including in writing. He doesn't want to hear it.

It is so painful to have him make these accusations against us. He is still saying IF I come home then this has to happen. He said that in one email and then in the next said he was afraid that if his father got angry he might kill him. Such bs!! On the one hand he says he will still consider coming home and on the other he is refusing to speak to his father, is calling him by his first name (because he doesn't deserve the title of Dad), and says he fears for his life? This is absolutely ridiculous.

Man, I hate the laws in this country. There may have been a time when 16 year olds were mature enough to make decisions for themselves but not anymore!

 

[susiestar]

He is sixteen, surely you can force him to come home. File charges against whomever he is staying with for custodial interference, child endangerment if they allow drinking/drug abuse/ or if he is cutting at their home, and harboring a runaway. this is bizarre. I guess laws are different in Canada, but this is just nonsense. i know in my town the cops would be laughing if a sixteen yo tried that - would have to prove that we were cutting him to get out of the house.

I am sorry, but this is nuts and who would uspport him in this

 

[DaisyFace]

This is nuts and any investigator with even half a brain should easily be able to spot the bs!

A kid who has TRULY been abused and then finds a way to escape that abusive situation "hides out" from their parents - they do NOT send them antagonizing messages. (Don't tell HIM that - just keep records of all the communications.)

 

[welcometowitsend]

Susie - Believe me I wish I could do all of those things. At 16 he is allowed to leave home and go his own way. We can not kick him out until he is 18 but he can choose to leave at 16. We can't force medical care unless we can prove he is a danger to himself or others (which maybe now I can). He doesn't have to tell us where he is or who he is living with. Nothing. It is absolutely ridiculous. I know in the US it is 18 but here in Canada it is 16.

Although, get this - I am legally responsible to make sure he goes to school until he is 18 whether he is living at home or not. And if he is truant I can be charged. How stupid is that? I do think there is a way around this but that would mean that we would have to sort of emancipate him and I'm not prepared to do that yet.

Anyway, not only are his girlfriends parents allowing him to live there right now, they are driving him around town with his girlfriend and giving him spending money! Club medication for him. Why would he want to come home?

A friend of ours is a police officer and my husband spoke to him this morning. He gave us a number to call to speak to a psychiatric nurse. They have a nurse and a police officer that go out and interview kids that have made claims like this and if they think he is a danger to himself/others they will take him away to the hospital, I guess. I'm going to call this morning. I think he is just attention seeking and if he has cut himself it is only so he can show the proper people how much 'damage' we have done to him. But, I have to take it seriously and follow through regardless - and maybe this is a way to get him psychiatrically assessed.

Sigh. Another pretty much sleepless night last night. husband and I are just reeling from the shock of all this.

husband said today that if we told him he could come home, do whatever he wanted, not have to answer to us or be accountable for anything - he'd be back in a second. Of course that isn't going to happen so I guess he probably won't be back unless and until he gets declined by welfare and his only option becomes the street. And he'll only return then so we can support him financially - it won't be to make amends or try to have a good relationship with us.

 

[keista]

Breathe. So he's trying to create a paper trail of "evidence" via the emails. Just because he says it, doesn't make it true. Just because he writes it in an email, doesn't make it true. Use those phrases in your responses to him.

But yes, you have "evidence" that he is cutting, so maybe you can get him involuntarily committed for evaluation. I think that's a great plan. Seems that difficult child thinks this is all a game right now.

 

[buddy]

I agree he is just trying to set a stage and it looks very amateurish so let him. If you respond maybe if you say things like we were so glad that you wanted to eat at the restaurant with us again, Your new hair cut looks very nice, As we said we are happy to work things out with you, and we continue to hope we can find a therapist to work on the issues that are causing such distress (dont say to whom)...............I suppose then you are laying the trail to cover what you have proposed and and said.

Hoping by your keeping track of all you say and who you contact etc...his efforts to discredit you will be easily seen.

I do feel badly for him, in a general, why do you have to do this the hard way sense. Cant really be fun to be living in that state. But, he needs to get past this to be able to really move on and have a life. Throwing his parents under the bus is not going to be beneficial to him. Well, eventually he should get it (if the welfare people dont feed into his story that is)

 

[TeDo]

It's interesting how he never said a word about abuse until AFTER you made the comment

I told him that it was my understanding that the only way he was going to get welfare was if we refused to let him come home (in which case they can force us to pay support for him) or if he claims abuse.

He's trying to set you up. He knows he doesn't stand a chance of proving you won't let him come home so abuse is the ONLY other option. Personally, I would let him email all he wants but I wouldn't respond. I know that will be hard but it will keep anything you say from being twisted. I really hope you're keeping hard copies of all the emails.

Since he says he's cutting, absolutely take him seriously. If he's checked on and he hasn't, when they ask why he said that, he'll be scrambling for an explanation about why he lied. It would also be a lie documented by someone other than you. Paper trail you know.

((((HUGS)))) to you and husband. If he kept this up, as hard as it would be, I would emancipate him. That way you're not legally liable or responsible for ANY of his poor choices but it doesn't mean you stop loving and caring about him.

 

[welcometowitsend]

His guidance counsellor and the psychiatric nurse on the crisis hotline agreed with all of you. They both said he sounds like he is playing games and adding a guilt trip in.

His guidance counsellor again stated that I needed to consider mental health issues with difficult child. I agree - I am just not sure how far I want to take that at this point. I have found out that I might be able to get a Form 2 - a court order to have him picked up by police and forced to hospital for a psychiatric evaluation. The problem with that is he could be out within an hour, depending on how he handles himself. I'm going to wait on this for a couple of weekends - he is already pretty mad at me right now and also, he has said he hasn't 'cut' in a month or more so I might not be able to get him picked up at this point.

So, on the advise of his guidance counsellor I called his girlfriends father last night and told him that difficult child has said he's been cutting and that I know for a fact he is carrying a pocketknife. He confronted difficult child and difficult child said he hasn't cut in over a month - strange, don't you think? Given that he left home 2 weeks ago and his life was in crisis the couple of weeks prior to that? I have seen him shirtless on countless occasions and never seen any marks on him. And I saw his legs about a month ago - no cut marks. So, guess he's not really cutting. Don't get me wrong, I'm not taking this lightly. I have contacted everyone that needs to be contacted but I am also thinking realistically here. Cutting yourself with a guitar pick or a key or a ruler is not someone that is serious about hurting themselves. But it can escalate so I will keep on top of it.

Anyway, difficult child was pretty mad that I called girlfriends dad. He called me and gave me **** for that. Again I offered him the option of counselling (I emailed him earlier yesterday and offered him an appointment that I had set up on Wednesday and he turned me down). I told him that he needed to develop some coping skills to learn to deal with life's problems so that he didn't feel the need to harm himself. His response was that nothing in his future could ever be as bad as the abuse he had suffered at our hands. I didn't take the bait.

Then I said that even though I disagree with him on the abuse issue that if he feels he has been abused he should definitely take the counselling to deal with his feelings around that. He said, no, that if I would just grow some ba((s and admit that I had abused him all of his problems would be solved. He didn't need counselling.

At that point I let him know that I was no longer willing to discuss this topic with him unless it was in front of a counsellor. I told him that there were plenty of other things we could talk about that didn't involved this problem so that we could still maintain a relationship with each other. He hung up on me.

So, I emailed him and let him know that the offer of counselling still stands and I will let him know when the appointments are and/or he can let me know when he would like to go and I would make an appointment for him. I got a very different (in tone) email back from him saying sorry, he couldn't go this Wednesday, he had a field trip. Maybe some other time.

I feel like emailing him back and saying "Oh right, I remember paying for that field trip! Have fun!"

If he keeps this nonsense up the girlfriends parents are going to see the light and ask him to leave. Maybe the girlfriend will see the light too and realize that she doesn't want to be involved in this.

My worst fear for him right now is that he does manage to get student welfare, gets a room in some hole in the wall, girlfriend dumps him and he is going home alone to a crummy place with no girlfriend. That sounds very lonely and depressing and I would worry that he might become suicidal if that happened. I can only keep the lines of communication open as best I can and hope that he has the wits to come to us when he gets to that point.

I think he is going to purse the student welfare option until it is exhausted so I think my best bet right now is to let things lie, communicate with him on superficial topics and wait him out.

One of my friends is taking me out for lunch and boy do I need the break! Going to take a deep breath and recharge for the next round.