So angry with my mother right now...

Grrrr... so difficult child has been 'out' since Tuesday morning. Tuesday he went to a friend's and stayed the night with our permission and Wednesday he went to a concert and stayed with that friend with our permission.

He was supposed to come home on Thursday but refused to come home until today (Saturday) some time. Has barely kept in contact with me and is just being a PITA. I don't know the people he is with, he won't give me a parents phone number and I don't know where he is.

So my thinking is that he should find his own way home (there are no buses past our place on weekends). Nope, my mom decides that she'll pick him up at 9am this morning because he was supposed to do yard work for her today. She said that if he wouldn't be picked up at 9am that he could find his own way home. difficult child calls her and says 'he has some stuff to take care of and can she pick him up at 12:30 instead?' So she agrees. Ugh!

Now he just got a job which is great news but he's been treating me very disrespectfully so I'm not in much of a mood to do much for him. He has orientation on Monday morning at 11am. He needs his banking information for direct deposit which means he has to get to the bank.

I am going to the trailer for a couple of days so he needs to take the bus on Monday and go to the bank and then get to work for 11am. Nope. Grandma is going to drive him to the bank and then drive him to work. Real hard life, huh?

So, what is difficult child learning thanks to my mother? That he can treat me like ****, call me names, come and go as he pleases and my mother will do whatever he wants. Ugh! I'm so fuming mad right now. I'd like to tell my mother that if she wants to kiss his butt so bad maybe he can live with her and she can deal with his nonsense.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
You know, that might not be a bad idea. She would learn what it's like to have him around 24/7. It is a good thing that he has a job but you're right, he's learning that grandma will do whatever he wants her to do. Maybe having him live with her will change him too. I know, wishful thinking but at least you'd know where he is (for the most part) and you won't have to deal with his koi. I would tell her that you're tired of the way he treats you and would it be okay with her if he lives with her. Sorry he's being the way he is. It really hoovers!! {{{{HUGS}}}}
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Geez. I'm sorry. I have no words of wisdom for you, just know I read your post and I'm thinking of you and sending you hugs and wishes for a changed outcome which is a win/win for all of you.
 

Hopeless

....Hopeful Now
been there done that and sorry you are having to deal with it. My mother still does not get how much of an enabler she is :(
 

KTMom91

Well-Known Member
I understand. Miss KT did move in with my mother for nearly a year. Mom finally got to see some of the behaviors in action, but everything was still my fault anyway.
 
B

Bunny

Guest
I have a great relationship with my mother in law, but she never believed that things with difficult child were as bad as what I was telling her they were. Then the in-laws came on vacation with us and she got to see things first hand! Maybe difficult child living with your mom might not be a bad idea!
 

lovelyboy

Member
I would even start the suggestion by making her feel good! Telling her that it seems as if she is getting along so well with him, maybe it will be good if he stays with her a while! :) mothers sometimes have this idea in their heads that if they can make it work they can proof its all your fault! Dont believe this lie!
 

Wiped Out

Well-Known Member
Staff member
(((hugs))) This sounds exactly how my mom would be if she were more physically healthy and lived closer. In her eyes my difficult child does no wrong!
 
Thank you everyone for your words of support. They mean a lot.

difficult child stayed with my parents over the weekend. Apparently my mother lied to difficult child and told him that she did not hear me tell him what the reference number was for when I ordered his concert tickets. She told me that she did hear me tell him. Ugh! Playing both sides. This was an issue because it resulted in a huge meltdown with difficult child last week where he ranted at me for 7+ hours.

Now she has him convinced that I am manipulative. She has done this with my sister and I our entire adult lives. She will take something my sister says and manipulate it to make it sound really bad and then tell me. And vice versa. So frustrating. She'll also make things up and tell the other one that we have said it. My sister and I are onto her now but we have gone for very long stretches without speaking to each other because of fights that my mother has stirred up by playing us against each other.

My mother thrives on this kind of drama and now she is doing it with my son. She did it with her siblings when we were little, then my sister and I and now this. I'm beyond frustrated and it's pointless to talk to her because she accepts no responsibility and will immediately play the victim role.

difficult child, husband and I had a blow up last night but it ended up that husband and I had a good talk with difficult child and then after husband went to bed difficult child and I had another long talk. We talked about going to the psychiatrist and the possibility of different diagnoses (I know he is depressed and then there is the possibility of Aspergers which totally upsets him). I also spoke to him about respect and how it devastates his father when he is so disrespectful to me. I told him that he needs to remember what gma is like and to always verify things with me when she tells him stuff because it could be a twisted version of the truth.

He is depressed and angry right now, he said he slept very little when he was gone and has started drinking. He was smoking last week too but says it tastes disgusting so hopefully that won't continue. I told him that he needs to be very aware that there is a difference between social drinking and drinking to self medicate. What he is doing right now is self medicating (drinking to make himself happy) and that is dangerous because he is flirting with addiction.

I guess the good thing is that he still wants to go to his dr. appts and find out what is going on.
 
T

TeDo

Guest
Boy oh boy does that sound like my mother. Are you sure they aren't sisters? In our case, my boys have witnessed some of the manipulation and see it for what it is. They recognize when grandma "lies" and they recognize when she twists words. They've seen it. Now they habitually ask me if she' telling the truth this time, especially if it's about me. Too bad you difficult child doesn't see it and takes what she says as the gospel truth. I am so sorry.

I am glad he's willing to go to the psychiatrist (fingers crossed he doesn't change his mind).
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
We talked about going to the psychiatrist and the possibility of different diagnoses (I know he is depressed and then there is the possibility of Aspergers which totally upsets him).
Can you clue the psychiatrist in ahead of time that difficult child is diagnosis-sensitive?
There are different ways of approaching it.

For a while, my difficult child "didn't want any more labels".
Because... the labels weren't doing any good, and he was getting a rough ride from peers.
It took a while of working "around" the diagnosis, to get him back on track.
Some things that helped...

- before actually giving the diagnosis, the psychiatrist gave us some things to try - interventions, accommodations etc. - that work with that diagnosis but not with some other dxes. Trying stuff and having some success meant that difficult child wanted more "success"... to get that, we have to go to the diagnosis level... and he came around.

- know ahead of time what doors open with a diagnosis. For difficult child, knowing that there were specific things that come with the diagnosis, helped. Auditory Processing Disorders (APD) = personal FM system (and he already knew he needed that, so... no fight on diagnosis). sensory processing disorder (SPD) = Occupational Therapist (OT) = mostly fun. ADHD = medications that cut the focus effort = less headaches. This of course is harder with a diagnosis like Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)/Aspie... but it stil pays to know ahead of time what positive things the diagnosis will mean for difficult child.

- Treat the label like a name. Whether you call your dog Buster or Hobo or Rex has no impact on who the dog is and how they behave. The label of a diagnosis doesn't change who your difficult child is.
 

TerryJ2

Well-Known Member
OMG, what an awful situation. I've dealt with-my difficult child refusing to tell me where he is, and it always had to do with-him doing drugs. It lasted about 6 mo's. I am so sorry about your mom's mental issues. That really throws a wrench into things. I would be tempted to send my difficult child to her, too, but it would mess him up even more.
I am so glad that you three had the Come To Jesus talk and it worked out the way it did.
Fingers crossed!
 
TeDo - If I catch it difficult child can see it for what it is but he won't pick it out when he's being fed it, Know what I mean?? Especially if he is already mad at me, which he was.

Insane - That is a very good idea. He is terrified of an Aspie diagnosis because of what he thinks Aspergers is - he thinks it is a sentence to being a social outcast, never having any friends, etc. - which is ridiculous because he does have friends. My sister's son is Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD)/Aspie and so is my cousins son but their symptoms are much more significant than difficult child. I did talk to him about it last night and he has a better understanding that he is not like nephew/cousin in the severity of his symptoms but that some of his inability to cope and the way he is handling himself are Aspie traits. Now that could be overlapping Tourette's symptoms or ADHD symptoms because they share traits with Aspies. I think he felt a bit better about that but it is still bothering him because we had a discussion about it a while ago that it could be a possibility and he asked some of his friends and they all said they wouldn't be surprised if he was an Aspie. That really upset him.

Terry - Thanks to you husband and I have a new mantra. Make 2 sandwiches and decide not to kill him. LOL. Most of the time when he starts getting to us husband or I will suggest going to the kitchen to make a couple of sandwiches - it breaks the tension for us and puts things in perspective. Not gonna kill him today!
 

InsaneCdn

Well-Known Member
I find that difficult children are like the "rest of the world". Want to get things done? Want cooperation? Dangle a WIIFM. You get far better response.

What is a WIIFM? W.I.I.F.M.? WII4M? (I've seen all three...)

What's In It For Me.

It doesn't ALWAYS work, and especially not when difficult children are being extremely GFGish.
But... my difficult child wants food NOW. SO... Go set the table... "so we can have supper". WIIFM = supper = more cooperation. I don't ask difficult child to do non-WIIFM tasks. If I can't find a WIIFM for him, I go find somebody for whom it is possible to create a WIIFM.
 
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