Mikey
Psycho Gorilla Dad
It seems that Mother's Day wasn't so great for many of us, and our family is no exception. It started Thursday when I tried to get my son to at least acknowledge that he'd really gone off the deep end with pot since he "got healthy".
I guess that conversation didn't take, because the following evening (Friday) we had another episode. wife and I came home from a banquet and difficult child was gone. wife called on the phone, he was out with his pothead friend. wife begged him to not get stoned, said that was all she wanted for Mother's Day. He basically said "I don't care".
Saturday came, and he left for work and came back without saying more than 10 words to us. While he was at work, I wrote him a pretty stern letter that said it was time for him to face facts. Regardless of all the other "good things" he'd done in his life, the overall issue was now the drugs. Since he was making the rules, he'd only left me two choices to offer him. Either: <ul>[*]Deal with your drug problem and continue to get the benefits of our family , or [*]Continue to choose drugs and pseudo-friends over us, treat us like jerks for acting like responsible parents, and treat our home like a motel - and lose the benefits of the family.[/list] No punches pulled, no room for negotiation, nothing. His rules don't allow for options when it comes to us, so he gets the same black-or-white choice he forces us to make.
It's really pretty simple: we have to take care of him until he's 18 and out of school. Between now and then, he can either get help, rejoin the family, and gain the benefits, or he can choose to continue acting like a tennant in a hotel, and get treated accordingly (not to mention the lease will be up in May 2008, and it's non-renewable).
So far, silence.
The next day was Mother's Day, and he spent most of the day in bed reading. When he finally did stir, it was to ask if he could spend the afternoon with his girlfriend's family. I said to be sure and tell her mother Happy Mother's Day from all of us.
:grrr:
He didn't get home until time for bed, and said nary a word on his way up the stairs.
I said things to him that letter that I've never said before. But they needed to be said, and he has to choose. If I have to live with a stranger for the next 18 months, then I certainly won't go overboard trying to make that person's life easy at my expense (or at the expense of the rest of my family).
I also finally took away his "nuclear option". For so long, we've been hesitant to make any waves because we didn't want him to lose ground on the positive changes he's made in his life. Friday, when he was so mean to his mother, I finally realized that any good things that have happened in his life happened because he wanted them to happen. There's nothing I can do to make him continue to do those good things, and there's nothing I can do to stop him from throwing them away.
It's liberating, in a way, to finally realize this. He either will or he won't continue to make improvements in his life, regardless of what we do. So that leaves me free to work from the premise of protecting the rest of my family while trying to give him the opportunity to improve. He will or he won't, but he won't hold me hostage anymore with things I can't control.
Not sure where this is going to end up, since I've no doubt that part of this is also the normal teenage angst thing of a kid who's about to become an adult. But the problem is what it is, and he's made the rules. Now I'm playing by them, and we'll see what kind of life he chooses for the remainder of his time under my roof.
I sincerely hope that he chooses to get help. But if he doesn't, I'll grieve for the child that I raised and lost, because he's a complete stranger when he's living the stoner lifestyle. If that happens, I'll have to find some way to coexist with the stranger who replaced him until it's time for that stranger to leave.
:crying:
I guess I really have come full circle, hunh?
Mikey
I guess that conversation didn't take, because the following evening (Friday) we had another episode. wife and I came home from a banquet and difficult child was gone. wife called on the phone, he was out with his pothead friend. wife begged him to not get stoned, said that was all she wanted for Mother's Day. He basically said "I don't care".
Saturday came, and he left for work and came back without saying more than 10 words to us. While he was at work, I wrote him a pretty stern letter that said it was time for him to face facts. Regardless of all the other "good things" he'd done in his life, the overall issue was now the drugs. Since he was making the rules, he'd only left me two choices to offer him. Either: <ul>[*]Deal with your drug problem and continue to get the benefits of our family , or [*]Continue to choose drugs and pseudo-friends over us, treat us like jerks for acting like responsible parents, and treat our home like a motel - and lose the benefits of the family.[/list] No punches pulled, no room for negotiation, nothing. His rules don't allow for options when it comes to us, so he gets the same black-or-white choice he forces us to make.
It's really pretty simple: we have to take care of him until he's 18 and out of school. Between now and then, he can either get help, rejoin the family, and gain the benefits, or he can choose to continue acting like a tennant in a hotel, and get treated accordingly (not to mention the lease will be up in May 2008, and it's non-renewable).
So far, silence.
The next day was Mother's Day, and he spent most of the day in bed reading. When he finally did stir, it was to ask if he could spend the afternoon with his girlfriend's family. I said to be sure and tell her mother Happy Mother's Day from all of us.
:grrr:
He didn't get home until time for bed, and said nary a word on his way up the stairs.
I said things to him that letter that I've never said before. But they needed to be said, and he has to choose. If I have to live with a stranger for the next 18 months, then I certainly won't go overboard trying to make that person's life easy at my expense (or at the expense of the rest of my family).
I also finally took away his "nuclear option". For so long, we've been hesitant to make any waves because we didn't want him to lose ground on the positive changes he's made in his life. Friday, when he was so mean to his mother, I finally realized that any good things that have happened in his life happened because he wanted them to happen. There's nothing I can do to make him continue to do those good things, and there's nothing I can do to stop him from throwing them away.
It's liberating, in a way, to finally realize this. He either will or he won't continue to make improvements in his life, regardless of what we do. So that leaves me free to work from the premise of protecting the rest of my family while trying to give him the opportunity to improve. He will or he won't, but he won't hold me hostage anymore with things I can't control.
Not sure where this is going to end up, since I've no doubt that part of this is also the normal teenage angst thing of a kid who's about to become an adult. But the problem is what it is, and he's made the rules. Now I'm playing by them, and we'll see what kind of life he chooses for the remainder of his time under my roof.
I sincerely hope that he chooses to get help. But if he doesn't, I'll grieve for the child that I raised and lost, because he's a complete stranger when he's living the stoner lifestyle. If that happens, I'll have to find some way to coexist with the stranger who replaced him until it's time for that stranger to leave.
:crying:
I guess I really have come full circle, hunh?
Mikey
