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<blockquote data-quote="Childofmine" data-source="post: 635381" data-attributes="member: 17542"><p>LMW, I understand the shame and the embarrassment. For a long time, I isolated myself from some of my old friends, once all of this started. I live in a suburban town of 110,000 25 miles from a large Southern city in the U.S. Because of my business, I am very visible here, and I've lived here for 20 years. My son is homeless here. He walks around the downtown area, sleeps outside on the City Square at times, hangs out at the downtown McDonald's, gets a night here or there in the crummy motels around. He is now working at another McDonald's. He wears a backpack as most of our homeless people do, so he's easily identifiable. </p><p></p><p>I am now working to move myself---in my own head---out of the ditch of isolation. I can't do one thing about this. It is what it is. If people don't understand, I can't do anything about that either. This whole thing, LMW, is one incredible exercise in realizing I have no control over people, places and things. That is the biggest lesson I am still learning---a very good lesson---from the events of the past four or five years. Sometimes it seems like forever, since all of this horror began. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Well, actually, many people do understand this---we just don't talk about it. I am also realizing this, as the months and years go by, and we lose more young people to the disease of addiction and mental illness. Just within the past two weeks, a young man from a well-known family here committed suicide. He was 24. He was active in church, and everybody loved him. I don't know what his drug or alcohol history was, but there has been an outpouring of compassion for the family. Mental illness is everywhere, and it is much more prevalent than we realize. We are ashamed, so we don't talk about it. The more we are willing to take the step of talking about this, the more the veil of shame will be lifted. Mental illness, including addiction, is a disease. It is not something you did or didn't do when your son was growing up. It is completely out of your realm of control.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Ah. This is the $64,000 question, isn't it? How long will this go on? I think back to the Christmas a few years ago when difficult child and easy child and myself and difficult child's girlfriend at the time went to Oklahoma to my family's house for Christmas. This was before all of the true horror began, but difficult child was using drugs and alcohol at the time, and I didn't realize the depth. One night, while we were there, difficult child got drunk and caused quite a scene at my sister's house, where he was staying. He was awful. I was staying at my parents' house and when I got up the next morning, I found that they all had been up all night trying to deal with him. It was that day that I realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong. We left a day early and drove the 12 hours in silence to get back home. When we arrived, my easy child son, who was in college in a town five hours away, said this: Mom, do you want me to drop out of school and help you deal with difficult child? I said, very sadly, to him: Honey, you go back to school and live your own life. This isn't yours to solve. This is going to go on for a very long time. We will just have to take it as it comes.</p><p></p><p>How could i have known what was ahead? I couldn't, and I am profoundly thankful. It would have been too hard to even contemplate, all of the days and nights and arrests and outbursts and throwing him out and drunkenness and being high and trying to get him help and nothing working and living with him in jail, over and over and over again, and visiting him there, and hiring lawyers and bailing him out, and thinking, this time, this time, and getting him into multiple rehabs, and the suicide threats and calling 911 and seeing him arrested in front of me...I can go on forever. </p><p></p><p>We just don't know the future. I hope and pray your son will not go down and down and down. I do know this: You can either go down with him, or you can find a way to live with reality, whatever it is. And that takes a lot of work. Please seek help for yourself like others have suggested. You need it, even if he turns around tomorrow. </p><p></p><p>We are here for you. We are one of those places of help. We get it, and we care.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Childofmine, post: 635381, member: 17542"] LMW, I understand the shame and the embarrassment. For a long time, I isolated myself from some of my old friends, once all of this started. I live in a suburban town of 110,000 25 miles from a large Southern city in the U.S. Because of my business, I am very visible here, and I've lived here for 20 years. My son is homeless here. He walks around the downtown area, sleeps outside on the City Square at times, hangs out at the downtown McDonald's, gets a night here or there in the crummy motels around. He is now working at another McDonald's. He wears a backpack as most of our homeless people do, so he's easily identifiable. I am now working to move myself---in my own head---out of the ditch of isolation. I can't do one thing about this. It is what it is. If people don't understand, I can't do anything about that either. This whole thing, LMW, is one incredible exercise in realizing I have no control over people, places and things. That is the biggest lesson I am still learning---a very good lesson---from the events of the past four or five years. Sometimes it seems like forever, since all of this horror began. Well, actually, many people do understand this---we just don't talk about it. I am also realizing this, as the months and years go by, and we lose more young people to the disease of addiction and mental illness. Just within the past two weeks, a young man from a well-known family here committed suicide. He was 24. He was active in church, and everybody loved him. I don't know what his drug or alcohol history was, but there has been an outpouring of compassion for the family. Mental illness is everywhere, and it is much more prevalent than we realize. We are ashamed, so we don't talk about it. The more we are willing to take the step of talking about this, the more the veil of shame will be lifted. Mental illness, including addiction, is a disease. It is not something you did or didn't do when your son was growing up. It is completely out of your realm of control. Ah. This is the $64,000 question, isn't it? How long will this go on? I think back to the Christmas a few years ago when difficult child and easy child and myself and difficult child's girlfriend at the time went to Oklahoma to my family's house for Christmas. This was before all of the true horror began, but difficult child was using drugs and alcohol at the time, and I didn't realize the depth. One night, while we were there, difficult child got drunk and caused quite a scene at my sister's house, where he was staying. He was awful. I was staying at my parents' house and when I got up the next morning, I found that they all had been up all night trying to deal with him. It was that day that I realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong. We left a day early and drove the 12 hours in silence to get back home. When we arrived, my easy child son, who was in college in a town five hours away, said this: Mom, do you want me to drop out of school and help you deal with difficult child? I said, very sadly, to him: Honey, you go back to school and live your own life. This isn't yours to solve. This is going to go on for a very long time. We will just have to take it as it comes. How could i have known what was ahead? I couldn't, and I am profoundly thankful. It would have been too hard to even contemplate, all of the days and nights and arrests and outbursts and throwing him out and drunkenness and being high and trying to get him help and nothing working and living with him in jail, over and over and over again, and visiting him there, and hiring lawyers and bailing him out, and thinking, this time, this time, and getting him into multiple rehabs, and the suicide threats and calling 911 and seeing him arrested in front of me...I can go on forever. We just don't know the future. I hope and pray your son will not go down and down and down. I do know this: You can either go down with him, or you can find a way to live with reality, whatever it is. And that takes a lot of work. Please seek help for yourself like others have suggested. You need it, even if he turns around tomorrow. We are here for you. We are one of those places of help. We get it, and we care. [/QUOTE]
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