aud

Member
My son beat up his sister.he is 26 her 30.he has been charged with domestic abuse.this happened 5 months ago. Im afraid this charge is going to ruin his whole life. He was screamed at by his dad from the time he was a young boy. He was raped while in a hospital. Im feeling so bad for him

Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
 

Echolette

Well-Known Member
It must be very hard to have had this happen between son and daughter.

You don't mention your daughter, though... I hope she is getting the support she deserves after being physically assaulted by a family member? You don't give any details, but I assume (maybe wrongly) that only one of them had control over the beating, and it wasn't her...she'll need family love and support and therapy to get past this.

I am sorry for your son, but not a single thing of the ones you listed justifies excuses or explains beating his sister or anyone. Maybe the charges will help him get the help he needs before he hurts some one else.

I am sorry for your hurting mommy heart.

Echo


Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
 

Childofmine

one day at a time
I am sorry Aud, for the pain that you are experiencing. How are you?

It's a double whammy when the bad situation is between two people who you love so much, and both of those people are hurt badly.

One thing doesn't ruin a person's whole life, Aud. One choice. Your son made a choice to beat up his sister. But he will have to bear the consequences of that choice, as he should.

And Echo is right above. Bad things happen to people in life, really bad things like you describe your son has experienced.

What will we do with the bad things that happen to us? That is the key question, I believe.

Many times the dramatic event is a catalyst for real change. And when the authorities are involved and a process has begun, it's a good time for us to step back. Wait. Let time take its time. And use that time to rebuild ourselves.

He has made a big choice here, and something new will happen as a result of it.

Where are you, in terms of how you are doing right now, Aud? What are you doing to take care of yourself? That is paramount right now, as you are part of the fallout of what has happened here.

Put yourself first, Aud. Take care of YOU just for today.

Tomorrow, you can focus on your daughter and make sure she is getting the help she needs, including your love and support, and also your son,to share your love and support.

Hugs and prayers to you today, Aud. I am so sorry.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
My son beat up his sister.he is 26 her 30.he has been charged with domestic abuse.this happened 5 months ago. Im afraid this charge is going to ruin his whole life. He was screamed at by his dad from the time he was a young boy. He was raped while in a hospital. Im feeling so bad for him

Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
Hon, a lot of kids are screamed at by their parents and two of my kids were raped. One was eight and at a friend's house when she was raped by a visitor who was drunk. She told nobody until she was fourteen!!! Neither of my kids beat anyone up. Neither ever would. Both are now doing great. What happens to you happens and how you deal with it is your own decision.

in my opinion you should feel bad for your daughter, not your son. He is choosing to be violent and if he ruins his life, that is on his shoulders. It is not because his father yelled at him or that he was raped. It was because he decided to hurt his sister, which is frankly pretty heinous.

He will have ample time to get help, if he is willing to do so, and make amends to those he has hurt. He is still young, although way too old to be beating people up. It is up to him if he gets his life back on track. He is not the only person who had a tough start. Have you ever read "A Child Called It" by Dave Peltzer? His mother beat him, starved him and tried to kill him and he is a fine young man right now. He worked on is problems.

We choose the path we take and how we react to our abuse. There is no excuse for what your son did to his sister and he most certainly should face the consequences. Hopefully he will use this experience to get serious help. in my opinion he does not deserve your pity. He will more likely change if he realizes how unacceptable his behavior was.

I am sorry for your hurting mommy heart, but do feel it is better served feeling badly for your daughter. I hope you can find some peace and serenity in your day and concentrate on YOU rather than your grown kids who have to walk their own paths at their ages. You can not do it for them and do not let your son guilt you out. That is a common trait of our difficult children. We feel sorry for them because they harp on all that happened to them and we forget that, as bad as it may have been, not everyone who has gone through the same turns out to be violent or drug abusing or mean.

Try to think about YOURSELF today. YOU need to de-stress and YOU matter as much as your kids do.
 

aud

Member
I m sry I know I didnt explain much. What happened was they got into a verbal argument but then my daughter totally lost it she called him a loser low life useless anything and everything she could think of to hurt him. Almost on a daily basis or at least a few days a week he would call her fat :censored2: fat c word. Well she finally exploded. You see right after high school I insisted she go away to college bc there was so much fighting at home between my son and his dad. My husband had no patience at all with our son. He was always yelling at him for everything and I mean even going back to when he was 6 or 7 years old. My husband past away when my son was 17 from melanoma. When my daughter graduated from college she moved out of state. She moved home a year ago. She moved home not with an open heart. On her first night home he came over to visit and talk to us about moving back in. So when he asked to sit down and talk to us she looked at him and said she looked up shelters for him to live at. Well that was it. He lived that winter for the most part in his car. So the hatered just grew. Then having him homeless was more than I could take and had him move back in. It was nothing but a disaster. The night she said all of that stuff to him and then he beat her up we had him arrested. You see when my son was on 7 years old he was misdiagnosed with epilepsy and treated for 4 years then we were told he never had it then he was diagnosed with bipolar and took 7 pills a day perscribed from the doctor. We put him in a physciatric hospital where he was raped. He used to call home and tell me they were holding him down and I would hang up the phone on him bc that is what the doctor advised us to do. He came out even more angry than when he went in but never told us about the rape until a few months ago. The hospital was shut down for workers raping the patients. About a year after my husband died my son went off his medications. Cold turkey and that was 2 years if hell. His moods seem to be better when he isnt around any of us alot. So can anyone understand why I cant help but think why couldnt she just keep her mouth shut. I know it dosent matter what she said or did nobody deserves to be beat up but my heart says something different at times. I cant help but think why did she want to move back home if she was going to move home with such a closed mind. As parents we just want our family to be happy and be able to get together. My daughter now has a ppo out on my son and it makes me sick and sad everyday. I wish my daughter could consider just a little everything my son went through especially not having a good relationship with his dad and never having the closer that he needed before he died.
My husband was the best provider I could of ever hoped for he would even go to our kids events with as little as 30 minutes of sleep as he worked alot. But patience he had not at all. Looking back now I see no matter how good of a provider he WAS I should of left him bc it was do dysfunctional with all of the yelling. Please someone help me with advice.

Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
 

aud

Member
Dear childofmine im not fine at all im getting more depressed all of the time and the therapist I was seeing for quite awhile stopped seeing me. She said unless I disowned my son there was nothing she could do for me and hung up in my face

Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
 

1905

Well-Known Member
Aud, you are blaming yourself for too much. You're a human being, you didn't leave your husband even though he yelled and it was dysfunctional. Everyone forgives you. Siblings yell and fight, everyone's, it's not your fault. It's not your fault he was living in his car, if his hatred grew, it should not have been directed at you and don't own that. You gave your daughter a hand up, which is very different than a hand out that you gave your son by letting him live there. Many have us have been done wrong by our difficult child's time and again. We want to help them and believe in them, sometimes the best we can do is to let them face the consequences of their actions. I promise you it is the best lesson. We got restraining orders and watched as our children were sent to jail, it's not pretty, it's a horror no words can describe. They have to learn this hard way, without mommy to fix it, it's up to them. Be there for your daughter and please don't diminish what she's going through. He is responsible for what he did, he can learn that he has to act normal or this is what happens, don't dare give him any excuses. Hugs, I'm sorry for what is on your plate.
 

aud

Member
Upallnight did your kids end up being ok even after you had to watch them go to jail

Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app
 

Childofmine

one day at a time
Aud, my son is in jail right now for the 8th or 9th time (I've lost count). You are in the dark night of the soul where you don't know what to do or where to turn.

Thoughts for you to consider:

1. Find a 12-step meeting for yourself---Al-Anon, Families Anonymous, Codependents Anonymous. It doesn't matter. Start going to meetings and keep on going. At one point I was going to a meeting every day. I was nearly insane with the fear and pain and despair and not knowing what in the world to do. Those meetings helped me. They will help you if you will go with an open mind.

2. Write down your thoughts every day. Spill it all out as fast as you can write. It will help.

3. Read positive things like Al-Anon literature---there is a ton of it online and it is free. There are also Al-Anon podcasts that you can listen to for free via ITunes.

4. Google and read everything you can on detachment. You must detach from both of your children and what they do and don't do. Only they are responsible for their actions. Not you. It doesn't matter what you did or didn't do in the past. They are adults now. They must learn how to live their own lives and take care of themselves. We are all wounded, Aud. None of our childhoods were perfect but we have to live lives as contributing citizens anyway. No excuses.

5. Start doing one nice thing for yourself every day. Something simple like a nap, a walk, a bunch of flowers from the grocery store, a special coffee or tea, a bubble bath. Being kind to yourself will help you rebuild yourself. When we are Hungry, Angry, Lonely or Tired (HALT), we can't deal with all of this awfulness. Stop, and take care of yourself first.

You have to be sick and tired of your own life before you are ready for a new way of living, Aud. Are you sick and tired enough yet? I nearly crawled into Al-Anon for the first time about 8 years ago. I stayed that time for a year and a half. I didn't get it. I didn't like what they were saying a lot of the time. I just wanted them to tell me how to make my ex-husband stop drinking.

Al-Anon is a program about working on me. Working on you. Not the other people who are causing all of the trouble (we believe). The next time I went back to Al-Anon was when my son's drug addiction ramped up-----about four years ago. This time I went with an open mind and I was ready to learn a new way of living. My way wasn't working. I was depressed, anxious, full of despair, fear and hopelessness, and I couldn't function in my everyday life.

I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. I was ready to change.

Change is hard work, Aud. It takes dedicated time every single day to fill your mind, heart and soul with new ways of thinking and new ways of acting. You will make mistakes, but that is okay. This is not perfection school. We are focused on making progress, not perfection. No single mistake or even group of mistakes will doom our adult children.

Think on this Aud: One time someone said to me, "Wow, you must think you are the most powerful person in the world if you can cause someone to be an alcoholic or drug addict. Or if you can keep them from being an alcoholic or drug addict." For some reason, Aud, that cut through my denial and my blindness. I heard that statement.

You didn't cause this. You can't control it. You can't cure it. The Three Cs, Aud.

Just for today think on these things:

1. No is a complete sentence.
2. Think.
3. Feelings aren't facts.
4. One day at a time.
5. Just for today.
6. Progress not perfection.
7. Mind your own business.
8. Keep it simple.

These slogans---as simple as they are---are the pathway back to sanity. Back to peace. Back to contentment. Back to serenity.

Even back to joy, Aud.

There are many more helpful slogans, Aud, but start with these. When I first heard Al-Anon talk about slogans, I dismissed them out of hand. They were too simple. They were even remedial and childish, to my mind. I wanted some complex answers to my complex problems.

Today, I realize the slogans are sometimes all we can take in. All we can hear through our pain and our misery. They are an instant antidote to our disease of enabling and of codependency.

Aud, I have a list of slogans printed out and on my refrigerator in my kitchen and hanging on the wall in my office. I look at them every day. They help me.

I know you are in deep pain and misery right now. To get better, you need to start taking steps for YOURSELF. That is where your focus and your energy needs to be right now.

Blessings and hugs and prayers I am sending out to you from me. Keep posting here. We get it because we have been right where you are. There is help and there is hope, Aud.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
I'm sorry all that happened. I don't let my adult kids move back home because they are adults. In an emergency, I would but not under the circumstances yours did. Although your daughter was verbally abusive, your son had no right to beat her up physically and he is getting what the consequences are for doing so. Also, being raped doesn't give anyone the right to assault others.Why do you think your daughter should not have him arrested? If it were me, I would have been on the phone calling 9-1-1. Maybe it's just me, but there is no excuse for violence in my world. You know where you end it up if you use violence? You end up in jail, where sadly a lot of our kids are. The police will not care that your son went through this or that. Most people in jail/prison have not have good lives. They still can not break the law.

I think they both should move out even if they are homeless and you need to learn how to take good care of yourself and disengage from their drama. Both of them sound very immature and you do have a right to stop taking care of both of them and to live in a peaceful home without grown adult kids acting like they are still ten. I told you what my own kids went through yet neither are physical or mean to one another. One in four kids are raped. It's startling and sad, but one in four kids do not go around assaulting others because of it. It is horrible to hear about, but you can heal from it. You do need to WANT to heal and to work hard at getting help. What is he doing to help himself? Why did he go off his medication? That is sort of the opposite of taking care of himself.

You need to learn radical acceptance if you want to feel better yourself. Radical accept, and I will post a link, says "It is what it is and I accept reality even if I don't like it."

Your daughter may not be a nice person. That may be a fact. You don't need to judge the fact, but accept it. I don't know her story.

Your son may be a violent person who can't walk away rather than fight when insulted. This may be a fact and you don't have to like it, but accept it. Here is a link to radical acceptance or else just look it up on your search engine. It's amazingly soothing!



I have to agree with COM. Your focus needs to be on yourself now because you are no good for anyone, including yourself, if their drama makes you very ill or kills you. You can not control them and your pity doesn't help your son. In fact, it probably makes him use that pity and guilt to get stuff from you.

Sorry you are hurting and sending warm thoughts and hoping you have some serenity in your day.

God grant me the SERENITY to accept the things I can not change,
the COURAGE to change the things I can,
and the WISDOM to know the difference.
 
Last edited:

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Ok, here's a link to Radical Acceptance:

http://www.tarabrach.com/articles/trauma.html

Your ex is NOT the reason your son is violent. He is violent because that is how he chooses to behave and he will not get help for his problems that have upset him in years gone by. He passed up those acceptable options. My own father, who is still alive, was a terror. His favorite thing to say to us was, "Not one of you gave me one moment of pleasure. Not one!" H e liked to call us losers and worse (put in the cuss words). None of us hit anyone. We all had issues because of him but we went to counseling, not jail, and learned that the words were HIS problems, not ours.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE TO PHYSICALLY ATTACK SOMEBODY ELSE. If you feel like doing it, go for help. Do not act on it. Your son was in the wrong and your daughter sounds very immature and you need to learn how to live a good life even though your grown children are struggling. Your life matters too. What happens to them hereafter is on their shoulders. They are approaching middle age and you can't protect them anymore.

Hugs a nd I do care. I just want you to see that there is never an excuse for violence and that your daughter and son probably should not even live together or be at your house. You can't live forever. They both need to be able to live on their own, even if they learn how to do it the hard way. If that were me, and I am not you of course, neither would be allowed to live at home. That's just nuts in my opinion. Why don't you deserve peace in your own home? That kind of baby malicious baiting and taking the bait should end at very early ages, pre-teen, or they need serious help and seem not to be getting it. I would let them figure it out on their own. You can not change either of them. JMO.
 
Last edited:
Top