Desperately in need of advice for my son

Childofmine

one day at a time
Hi Ms. Kay, I wanted to chime in and tell you we understand how awful and hard this is. Most of us have been right where you are. In my case, I lost my 29-year marriage to alcoholism, and within a year of my now ex-husband moving out my youngest son was completely off the rails at age 19 due to his own substance abuse (alcohol and pills).

We are here to support you. We want to help you process your feelings about what you are living with, and then, when you are ready, help you identify possible actions and options that are best for you and for your son.

It is exhausting and terrifying dealing with all of this day after day. You have to start taking good care of yourself, being kind and gentle to yourself, and working to let go of as much of what other adults decide to do as you possibly can.

We can only control ourselves and decide what we can and cannot tolerate.

We're here of you. Warm hugs today.
 

susiestar

Roll With It
I am so sorry you are in this horrible situation. I get the feeling you are a stay at home mom or that you at least are home more when your son is awake and home, so you see more of what he is actually doing. I had that problem with my husband. He simply didn't see my son doing the things I did, and my son didn't go after him because my husband didn't set or enforce rules. It was as though we were raising 2 different kids - the one I saw and coped with and dragged to the docs/'professionals' for help and the one he rarely saw and even more rarely saw upset.

One thing that helped us was having my son blow up one day when he didn't know I was on the phone with my husband. Hearing the things my son screamed, as well as how I responded, and hearing things breaking and the sounds of hitting truly freaked my husband out. He had NO idea how bad it was. We were NOT dealing iwth drugs, just an entitled mentally ill child, sadly. But the divide it caused in our marriage was very serious, as was the danger my son presented to my daughter and I.

I do urge you to do what is in your 12yo's best interests, NOT your adult son's best interest. There comes a time when you have to pick, because what is best for one is clearly NOT good for the other.

It really sounds like your son is hanging around with gang members. Most of those who sell drugs have some connection to a gang, and just leaving is not a real option. They come after you and will hurt your family. I urge you to take a look at him to see if he has any tattoos. If he does, get photos of them (use your phone if you can) and ask someone at the police station if any of them are gang related. Also ask to talk to someone about how to know if your son is in a gang. Ask what it means if he is, also.

I had a really hard time deciding what to do with our son. I knew I could get my husband to go along with my decision because I was the one being physically attacked by my son. I finally decided that I had to do what was in my younger children's best interests. All of the anger an fighting an chaos was harming them, so we had to get my son out of our home. Especially because many of the times my son was attacking me were because he had to literally go through me to get to my daughter, who was a focus for his rage for reasons that only made sense to his delusions. My son ended up living iwth my parents, and it was a good thing for all of us eventually.

I did have a problem because the courts, CPS, the doctors and therapists, and everyone else involved only looked at what was good for my son, NOT what was good for the other kids or even how anything would impact hte other kids. I finally told one therapist that I refused to sacrifice my younger kids on the altar of my oldest child's mental illness. It shocked the daylights out of her because I think she had forgotten about the younger ones even though she saw them in the waiting room before and after each session! That angered me, as did the general attitude that the only thing that was important was what my oldest needed and wanted.

Maybe you can discuss the situation with your husband in the light of how it is impacting your 12yo, and what would be best for HER.

I hope you don't see this as harsh, it isn't meant to be. I am in NO way implying that you haven't been worrying about how it all impacts your 12 yo. I know that is always in your mind because you are a mom, and a very good one at that. I just think that even the PO isn't keeping what is good for your minor child in mind as he makes decisions. I hope you know that you do not have to agree to having your son on house arrest in your home. If you think it is harmful for the family, you can refuse. If he is just breaking stuff when he gets mad, then the PO has zero business putting him on house arrest after you tell the PO of the rules he is violating. That just sets YOU up as the target of his rage.

Please don't stop coming here. Know that EVERYTHING we suggest is meant for you to take what is helpful and to leave/ignore what isn't helpful. We don't get insulted if you ignore some or all of what we say. There is a lot of support here if you want it. And if you really do not want suggestions, you can say in the start of your thread that all you can handle is support right now, and we will do our best to respect that.

(((((hugs)))))
 
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