Hi, I'm new to this forum. I have a 17 year old son who has ruined my life. To type that sounds awful, but its true. And the guilt tears me up for thinking these thoughts, but it doesn't make it any less true.
I have raised him as a mostly single mother. He is an only child. His dad has been in and out of his life as is convenient for him, in the past several years, mostly not. He was an easy, and seemingly normal, baby. The behavior problems start shortly after school started. There is no nice way to say this - he is extremely lazy. Will do the bare minimum of anything he is asked to do - schoolwork, cleaning up around the house, even taking care of himself. And usually only under extreme duress, arguing, threats, etc. From early on he seemed to care nothing about any kind of consequences - positive or negative - you could threaten or entice him with. He was unmotivatable. In grade school I took him to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with Asperger's and ADD (no hyperactivity). He did have some Aspergers qualities (few if no friends, relating more to adults, obsessing about things, speech issues), but other things did not fit (no problem with eye contact, for example). The ADD was also a bit iffy - he proved he could be very motivated and focus quite well if it was something he was interested in. Just not if he wasn't. Later, many other psychologists/psychiatrists/neuropsychiatrists, you name it, dismissed the Asperger's outright, couldn't agree on the ADD, added Anxiety/Depression, and Oppositional Defiance Disorder (which I now suspect may be its even more evil cousin, Conduct Disorder).
My the time he got to middle school it became intolerable, because we would fight over homework completion for hours. He would prefer to refuse to do work for hours and hours night after night than spend the 20 minutes to actually do the work. What he did do was illegible and sloppy and he would force you into an endless cycle of having to review his work and make him correct it. He also began PEEING in his room on the floor, whether out of sheer laziness or anger at me/life, who knows. He has ruined his room. When he was 10, he lured my neighbor/best friend's 6 year old son into some sexual play that resulted in my friend calling CPS on me and the first sign that my son's problems were beyond the scope of imagination. I put him in therapy with a counselor that specialized in this. At 10, they don't take these things that seriously. She did discover that my son had been abused by a teenage babysitter several years earlier, who I filed a complaint against. After a few months, the counselor called him "cured". My friendship was over and later the friend moved her family out of state as a result of the incident. I had the first of many mental breakdowns at this point, and considered suicide.
By 8th grade the behavior problems were extreme and he was failing every class. I took him to another psychologist who recommended I demand an IEP for my son. My son was then placed in a special classroom for kids with behavior problems, 6 kids and 3 teachers and a "quiet room" that was padded and locked. The relief in no longer having homework to fight over or getting phone calls daily from the school gave me a temporary reprieve.
But shortly after that, and into his first year of high school, we discovered my son had developed a serious problem with pornography. Every attempt to lock it down was worked around. He racked up countless bills in data usage on his phone, downloaded movies on our Comcast account, worked around our firewalls to view porn. And then, Thanksgiving Day 2010 when my son was 14, he was at his father's parents house and they caught him in the act of molesting his 4 year old cousin. All hell broke loose. Rather than coming with us on a planned family vacation to Hawaii that next week, my son went to Juvenile Detention, where he spent the next 8 months, ended up pleading guilty to 1st degree child molestation. This was my mental breakdown #2.
At age 15, he had a 1st degree felony record and became a registered Level 2 sex offender. His father completely turned his back on him. His grandparents were caught in the middle, wanting to help but forbidden to by their other children (the victim's parents). They helped by throwing money at the problem. So to avoid spending 2 years in JRA, my son went to a private treatment center across the country, for $14,000/mo. And after he did 9 months there, the state still deemed him too high a risk to come home, so he went to another residential program for more treatment and another 9 months (at $9k/mo). I cannot ever recover from the financial impact all of this cost me and his grandparents. It is unimaginable. While he was gone, due to the stress of all of it, I had mental breakdown #3 . I thought about suicide a lot. I thought about running away. I ended up completely upheaving my life - quitting my job, removing many people from my life who had failed to be supportive. And there were few people who really knew the extent of how horrible my home life had been/still was.
Finally, he returned home last February after over 2 years away. He was now 17 years old. His school wouldn't take him back, they referred him to a specialized school an hour away for juvenile delinquints. At first, things were better. He did well at the school. He was mostly respectful at home, and did things we asked him to do. But slowly, things started to fall apart, and he started to revert back to the old behaviors. We did some family therapy, and it was a disaster. He is so mean and hateful to me it is unbelievable. And I'm hurt beyond hurt that he cannot be remotely nice to me or appreciative for all I've done. The grades are dropping again. I bought a car for him to share, but he was so nasty and ungrateful (and showed a scary lack of emotional control while driving) that despite paying for driving school I stopped driving with him or allowed him to get a license. He has tried but he cannot get a job, due to the felony. He owes $4k in restitution that he has no ability to pay.
A month ago, he became defiant with my son and my fiance (who has lived with us for the past 6 years) and I told him to either go to his room or leave. He left, then called the cops and tried to get me arrested for child abandonment. He told me his goal was to ruin my life. Well, he wasn't successful in getting me arrested (they just told him to be respectful until he turned 18 and he could leave), but he has been successful in ruining my life.
It is now one month until his 18th birthday. We've tried talking to him about his behavior. All we ask is that he is respectful to us in our house, and that he clean up after himself. We don't even ask him to do chores except occasionally get the mail or take the dog out because he is so abusive and argumentative. We are supposed to leave in 3 days for a trip to Hawaii - the trip he was supposed to get 3 years ago when he ended up in detention instead. We went over Thanksgiving on purpose because we are trying to invent that holiday into something positive, as it is forever ruined for me in my head because of what happened 3 years prior.
But it's not going to happen, because his behavior has deteriorated badly, and I can't reward him with such a trip, and I don't think I could handle 8 days with him. We are going to leave him behind, which means the house will probably be destroyed when we return.
And on his 18th birthday, he will become a homeless teen. Because I cannot live like this anymore. I'm on the verge of breakdown #4. He has no chance for success. No family that will take him in, no friends, no money, no job, no license, no HS diploma, and he is the lowest of all common denominators: the sex offender. And I can't do anything for him anymore. I'm sucked dry. I'm done. I'm in constant pain. I just need it to be over, he needs to be out of my house, and he needs to be responsible for whatever happens after that, even though I know it will be nothing good.
Thank you for listening.
I have raised him as a mostly single mother. He is an only child. His dad has been in and out of his life as is convenient for him, in the past several years, mostly not. He was an easy, and seemingly normal, baby. The behavior problems start shortly after school started. There is no nice way to say this - he is extremely lazy. Will do the bare minimum of anything he is asked to do - schoolwork, cleaning up around the house, even taking care of himself. And usually only under extreme duress, arguing, threats, etc. From early on he seemed to care nothing about any kind of consequences - positive or negative - you could threaten or entice him with. He was unmotivatable. In grade school I took him to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with Asperger's and ADD (no hyperactivity). He did have some Aspergers qualities (few if no friends, relating more to adults, obsessing about things, speech issues), but other things did not fit (no problem with eye contact, for example). The ADD was also a bit iffy - he proved he could be very motivated and focus quite well if it was something he was interested in. Just not if he wasn't. Later, many other psychologists/psychiatrists/neuropsychiatrists, you name it, dismissed the Asperger's outright, couldn't agree on the ADD, added Anxiety/Depression, and Oppositional Defiance Disorder (which I now suspect may be its even more evil cousin, Conduct Disorder).
My the time he got to middle school it became intolerable, because we would fight over homework completion for hours. He would prefer to refuse to do work for hours and hours night after night than spend the 20 minutes to actually do the work. What he did do was illegible and sloppy and he would force you into an endless cycle of having to review his work and make him correct it. He also began PEEING in his room on the floor, whether out of sheer laziness or anger at me/life, who knows. He has ruined his room. When he was 10, he lured my neighbor/best friend's 6 year old son into some sexual play that resulted in my friend calling CPS on me and the first sign that my son's problems were beyond the scope of imagination. I put him in therapy with a counselor that specialized in this. At 10, they don't take these things that seriously. She did discover that my son had been abused by a teenage babysitter several years earlier, who I filed a complaint against. After a few months, the counselor called him "cured". My friendship was over and later the friend moved her family out of state as a result of the incident. I had the first of many mental breakdowns at this point, and considered suicide.
By 8th grade the behavior problems were extreme and he was failing every class. I took him to another psychologist who recommended I demand an IEP for my son. My son was then placed in a special classroom for kids with behavior problems, 6 kids and 3 teachers and a "quiet room" that was padded and locked. The relief in no longer having homework to fight over or getting phone calls daily from the school gave me a temporary reprieve.
But shortly after that, and into his first year of high school, we discovered my son had developed a serious problem with pornography. Every attempt to lock it down was worked around. He racked up countless bills in data usage on his phone, downloaded movies on our Comcast account, worked around our firewalls to view porn. And then, Thanksgiving Day 2010 when my son was 14, he was at his father's parents house and they caught him in the act of molesting his 4 year old cousin. All hell broke loose. Rather than coming with us on a planned family vacation to Hawaii that next week, my son went to Juvenile Detention, where he spent the next 8 months, ended up pleading guilty to 1st degree child molestation. This was my mental breakdown #2.
At age 15, he had a 1st degree felony record and became a registered Level 2 sex offender. His father completely turned his back on him. His grandparents were caught in the middle, wanting to help but forbidden to by their other children (the victim's parents). They helped by throwing money at the problem. So to avoid spending 2 years in JRA, my son went to a private treatment center across the country, for $14,000/mo. And after he did 9 months there, the state still deemed him too high a risk to come home, so he went to another residential program for more treatment and another 9 months (at $9k/mo). I cannot ever recover from the financial impact all of this cost me and his grandparents. It is unimaginable. While he was gone, due to the stress of all of it, I had mental breakdown #3 . I thought about suicide a lot. I thought about running away. I ended up completely upheaving my life - quitting my job, removing many people from my life who had failed to be supportive. And there were few people who really knew the extent of how horrible my home life had been/still was.
Finally, he returned home last February after over 2 years away. He was now 17 years old. His school wouldn't take him back, they referred him to a specialized school an hour away for juvenile delinquints. At first, things were better. He did well at the school. He was mostly respectful at home, and did things we asked him to do. But slowly, things started to fall apart, and he started to revert back to the old behaviors. We did some family therapy, and it was a disaster. He is so mean and hateful to me it is unbelievable. And I'm hurt beyond hurt that he cannot be remotely nice to me or appreciative for all I've done. The grades are dropping again. I bought a car for him to share, but he was so nasty and ungrateful (and showed a scary lack of emotional control while driving) that despite paying for driving school I stopped driving with him or allowed him to get a license. He has tried but he cannot get a job, due to the felony. He owes $4k in restitution that he has no ability to pay.
A month ago, he became defiant with my son and my fiance (who has lived with us for the past 6 years) and I told him to either go to his room or leave. He left, then called the cops and tried to get me arrested for child abandonment. He told me his goal was to ruin my life. Well, he wasn't successful in getting me arrested (they just told him to be respectful until he turned 18 and he could leave), but he has been successful in ruining my life.
It is now one month until his 18th birthday. We've tried talking to him about his behavior. All we ask is that he is respectful to us in our house, and that he clean up after himself. We don't even ask him to do chores except occasionally get the mail or take the dog out because he is so abusive and argumentative. We are supposed to leave in 3 days for a trip to Hawaii - the trip he was supposed to get 3 years ago when he ended up in detention instead. We went over Thanksgiving on purpose because we are trying to invent that holiday into something positive, as it is forever ruined for me in my head because of what happened 3 years prior.
But it's not going to happen, because his behavior has deteriorated badly, and I can't reward him with such a trip, and I don't think I could handle 8 days with him. We are going to leave him behind, which means the house will probably be destroyed when we return.
And on his 18th birthday, he will become a homeless teen. Because I cannot live like this anymore. I'm on the verge of breakdown #4. He has no chance for success. No family that will take him in, no friends, no money, no job, no license, no HS diploma, and he is the lowest of all common denominators: the sex offender. And I can't do anything for him anymore. I'm sucked dry. I'm done. I'm in constant pain. I just need it to be over, he needs to be out of my house, and he needs to be responsible for whatever happens after that, even though I know it will be nothing good.
Thank you for listening.