Hello all,
I've been lurking here for about a year and want to thank you for sharing your wisdom. I have hesitated to write because I didn't know where to start with all that has gone on, but will try to summarize.
27 year old son has been difficult since high school. Diagnosed with ADHD at that time. In recent years diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Now claiming has PTSD from car accident senior year of high school and trying to get disability. He has been on and off drug use since high school, and when it got so bad we couldn't keep him in the house, sent him away to several therapeudic programs. At 19, he was back in our house and sober for about 5 years. At 19, conceived daughter with girlfriend he met at young people's AA group. She was mandated to go there by court and never really worked the program. When he discovered this, he broke up with her. Their baby was removed from girlfriend's care at birth by child services because she came in to deliver high on marijuana and was homeless, and after paternity confirmed he was father, court gave custody to our son who was living with us and he brought her home. Our granddaughter is the light of our lives. We have raised her from infancy and love her like she is our own daughter.
Several years ago, marijuana became legal in our state, son started using it, then started using LSD, alcohol, poly drugs, started abusing prescription drugs. We could tell by his whacked out behavior and verbal abuse of us in our home. Two years ago, we asked son to move out, he did so, and we filed for guardianship of our granddaughter which the court granted.
Birth mother died a year ago from heroin overdose. She had not been in contact with our son nor has our granddaughter ever known her birth mother. Our granddaughter was born drug free, so birth mother managed to stay clean during her pregnancy.
After our son spent several months living with a friend and got a job, in an effort to get him launched and believing he was working on his drug problem since we attended court ordered therapy with him (but later found out he was fooling us and the therapist), we helped him move into a cheap apartment.
During 2018, between May-Oct, son was hospitalized 8 times, twice for overdose and the rest for being suicidal. Obviously he couldn't keep a job. We were afraid being homeless would push him over the edge to suicide, so we paid his apt rent during this time. In Oct 2018, he went to detox from alcohol and xanax of his own accord. While in the detox hospital, his church group leader arranged for him to attend an 18 month faith based rehab 50 min away where he would live and they also would give him a job in their thrift shop. The program asked and we agreed to pay a reasonable monthly amount that was equivalent to the cheap monthly rent on his apartment. The church leader and wife took him there from detox. Sadly, he returned to his apartment 24 hours later, at which point we said we were done helping.
The hard part is that in the 5 months since that time, in spite of everything, he has been progressing. He is being treated by an APRN addiction specialist who helped him during the 5 years he was sober in the past. He has a regular part time job at a company and does another part time job on his own time. He is barely making ends meet but the verbal abuse of us stopped, he has been sober for his visits with his daughter, and generally cooperative. During the past month, he has asked for some financial help to get caught up with his bills. We have helped him with part of his rent payment and some gas money and verified by seeing his receipts. But his requests for gas funds have gotten more and more frequent until today my husband talked with him about his plan for paying his bills. He said he is disabled from PTSD, is in the process of applying for disability, and although the conversation went well til the end, at the end he cursed my husband and then called him back to say something nasty to him. This is so heartbreaking because he seemed to have stabilized and when someone is helping themselves, you don't mind a small assist, but we already have his daughter to support and can't go on helping him indefinitely. Yet we do want to encourage his progress forward from where he's been. I feel like he's come too far to be put out on the street, but it's on him to come up with a plan and not keep treating us like his bank. Your input welcome! Thank you!
I've been lurking here for about a year and want to thank you for sharing your wisdom. I have hesitated to write because I didn't know where to start with all that has gone on, but will try to summarize.
27 year old son has been difficult since high school. Diagnosed with ADHD at that time. In recent years diagnosed with depression and anxiety. Now claiming has PTSD from car accident senior year of high school and trying to get disability. He has been on and off drug use since high school, and when it got so bad we couldn't keep him in the house, sent him away to several therapeudic programs. At 19, he was back in our house and sober for about 5 years. At 19, conceived daughter with girlfriend he met at young people's AA group. She was mandated to go there by court and never really worked the program. When he discovered this, he broke up with her. Their baby was removed from girlfriend's care at birth by child services because she came in to deliver high on marijuana and was homeless, and after paternity confirmed he was father, court gave custody to our son who was living with us and he brought her home. Our granddaughter is the light of our lives. We have raised her from infancy and love her like she is our own daughter.
Several years ago, marijuana became legal in our state, son started using it, then started using LSD, alcohol, poly drugs, started abusing prescription drugs. We could tell by his whacked out behavior and verbal abuse of us in our home. Two years ago, we asked son to move out, he did so, and we filed for guardianship of our granddaughter which the court granted.
Birth mother died a year ago from heroin overdose. She had not been in contact with our son nor has our granddaughter ever known her birth mother. Our granddaughter was born drug free, so birth mother managed to stay clean during her pregnancy.
After our son spent several months living with a friend and got a job, in an effort to get him launched and believing he was working on his drug problem since we attended court ordered therapy with him (but later found out he was fooling us and the therapist), we helped him move into a cheap apartment.
During 2018, between May-Oct, son was hospitalized 8 times, twice for overdose and the rest for being suicidal. Obviously he couldn't keep a job. We were afraid being homeless would push him over the edge to suicide, so we paid his apt rent during this time. In Oct 2018, he went to detox from alcohol and xanax of his own accord. While in the detox hospital, his church group leader arranged for him to attend an 18 month faith based rehab 50 min away where he would live and they also would give him a job in their thrift shop. The program asked and we agreed to pay a reasonable monthly amount that was equivalent to the cheap monthly rent on his apartment. The church leader and wife took him there from detox. Sadly, he returned to his apartment 24 hours later, at which point we said we were done helping.
The hard part is that in the 5 months since that time, in spite of everything, he has been progressing. He is being treated by an APRN addiction specialist who helped him during the 5 years he was sober in the past. He has a regular part time job at a company and does another part time job on his own time. He is barely making ends meet but the verbal abuse of us stopped, he has been sober for his visits with his daughter, and generally cooperative. During the past month, he has asked for some financial help to get caught up with his bills. We have helped him with part of his rent payment and some gas money and verified by seeing his receipts. But his requests for gas funds have gotten more and more frequent until today my husband talked with him about his plan for paying his bills. He said he is disabled from PTSD, is in the process of applying for disability, and although the conversation went well til the end, at the end he cursed my husband and then called him back to say something nasty to him. This is so heartbreaking because he seemed to have stabilized and when someone is helping themselves, you don't mind a small assist, but we already have his daughter to support and can't go on helping him indefinitely. Yet we do want to encourage his progress forward from where he's been. I feel like he's come too far to be put out on the street, but it's on him to come up with a plan and not keep treating us like his bank. Your input welcome! Thank you!
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