We don't know what to do 22 year old son

[Quicksand]

Thank you. I woke up with him on my mind and I can't get back to sleep. I'm a basket case, I'm not walking around hysterical, but I feel so sick and sad inside. I really believed him this time. Again.
My stomach hurts thinking of the humiliation he puts himself through by telling people- I'm doing this or that , barber school whatever and nothing ever ends up working out.

 

[Childofmine]

Quicksand, I'm up early too.

Right now you are feeling the very natural feelings----pain and grief and fear and despair---of doing something new---setting new boundaries, with someone you love. Boundaries don't come without their cost---to us and to them. But they are necessary in every relationship we have, and I believe they are the hardest to set with our own children, because for so many years they relied on us for every single thing, very effectively blurring the lines between us and them. For me, I almost thought I WAS HIM, so the separation was very hard for me and for him. He was "my baby", right? Except now he is a grown man, and it's time for us to separate (way past time). I also had to separate and let go of my older son, who is not a Difficult Child. That has been hard too.

These things are necessary. But when a person is not functioning well, like your son and like my son was, the process of separating becomes so much harder. We are terrified for them.

But, as you know in your mind, you've tried it all and nothing has worked. Letting him go, figuratively and literally speaking, is truly giving him a chance to grow up and accept life on life's terms. Something we all much do as we mature.

But also, we have to watch in most cases, as they descend even further after we start letting go. Our FEELINGS say one thing---rescue, rescue, rescue---and our MIND says another---tried that, tried that, tried that.

We have to learn how to separate our feelings from our actions. And for most of us, that is a very very hard practice to learn.

Feel your feelings, but don't act on them. So...what do you do with the agony? Stay very busy, fill your mind with new thinking (this site, books like Boundaries, Codependent No More, Al-Anon literature), get a therapist, pray, meditate, exercise, do kind things for yourself. I call this assembling a toolbox, and then creating a daily practice of using the tools that work for me. Even just 30 minutes a day of something new, one thing different to take care of YOURSELF in this new way, will create a sea change.

I have walked this same path of sleeplessness (I called it the Parade of the Terribles, the nightly obsessive thinking about him), fear, unable to function fully, exhaustion, despair, grief.

I had to fully grieve the loss of all of my dreams for my son, as he was homeless, in jail over and over again, high, on and on and on. Unthinkable situations. I had to let him go.

We are here for you as you walk this lonely hard road. Believe me, we are not different here. We love our grown children very much and we have done the very best we could do all along the way. Now, we all have had to learn new ways of living and behaving, and we help each other navigate this new path with what we have learned, realizing we all go at our own pace, and many times one step forward and many steps back before we can go forward again.

 

[Tanya M]

Good Morning Quicksand,
Oh how I remember those sleepless nights. As COM said, what you are feeling right now is the normal course of emotions.

This is a grieving process, while our DCs are very much alive we have to allow ourselves to grieve the loss of the child they once were and all the hopes and dreams we had for them as those are gone.
I was once where you are. I look back and there was that period of time I didn't think I would be able to get through all the pain, guilt and worry but I did.

How I did this was in letting go of my son. One thing that really helped me was to change in my mind the image I had of my son. I would always think of him as my little boy when the reality was quite opposite, he's a grown man, I started seeing him as he truly was, a grown man, no longer my sweet little boy. I also started taking my life back in little bits and pieces. There were things that I once really enjoyed doing but had stopped because I became so consumed with my sons chaos. My husband and I used to love to take long drives on the weekend, you know just go out exploring, stopping for lunch, looking through antique stores, just enjoying the day. We started doing that again and it was so good for us and our marriage.

It is so important to start taking your life back. Start doing things you once enjoyed or start finding new things to do. A very popular thing now is painting parties and I don't mean walls. We have a local restaurant that has a professional painter teach a class once a month. They will provide the canvas and paint. It's a blast!!

What ever it is, find something just for you.

You will get through this!!

 

[Copabanana]

I feel so sick and sad inside.

Me too.

I woke up with him on my mind and I can't get back to sleep.

None of us seem to be sleeping well. Or wake up feeling sad and ill.

Quicksand, try to give yourself an interval of time to grieve, while you do really, really nice things for yourself. Take a stand for you. You count, too.

Your son is a man, now. He must learn to be one. That is something that mothers cannot teach. He will learn.

This is your time, now. There are currently other threads that might interest, benefit or distract you. That are centered more on our learning and not so much on the pathology and acting out of our kids.

Join us.

 

[SeaGenieTx]

Do you guys get panic attacks? I can be fine for about an hour then my mind starts racing and I think what if my son has a drug overdose or gets in a fatal car accident? I think for a split second oh no! I need to be with him, make the pain go away. Then I stop and think.... that ungrateful SOB - is he worried at all about his mom? No. Forget it - he can fend for himself on the streets... These thoughts go back and forth all day and night. I feel like Im riding in a damn circus clown car. My emotions are running circles around me. My son is a man? He is 23 with the mentality of a 17 year old and as much intelligence as a box of rocks.

 

[Tanya M]

Do you guys get panic attacks?

I never had panic attacks but I did have episodes of my mind racing wondering if he was dead, alive, did he hurt someone, all kinds of scary thoughts.
It's very normal to have those kind of thoughts when you are at the beginning of detaching.
I found that when I was being consumed by those thoughts that slow deep breathing helped me to center myself. I would remind myself that I had no control over my son and his choices. Yes, all the horrible thoughts that we can think of could most definitely happen but our worrying about it won't stop it.
When you start to feel that way, remember slow deep breathing.
I've said it before, there is no roller coaster on this planet that can compare to the emotional roller coaster we ride in dealing with our DCs.

 

[Quicksand]

I keep second guessing myself. maybe we're being too harsh. It's his birthday tomorrow and I already had him pick up his cards from our porch. It's only been a week, but I'm not ready to do the whole "happy birthday, everything is great" thing. I've never known the right answers. I think my own lack of self esteem has been a contributor to the problems. The vile way he spoke the last time he was here..I know he was high, but wouldn't he realize the next day or the day after or the one after that, that he could at least acknowledge his errors? Or if he really wanted to go to school he would say yes,I want help? I know I'm just grasping at straws. I'm about to pull out my codependent no more book!

 

[InsaneCdn]

I know he was high, but wouldn't he realize the next day or the day after or the one after that, that he could at least acknowledge his errors?

Not necessarily. If he was high enough, he won't remember.

 

[Bookie]

Wow. Reading all of your posts is mind boggling. I am new to this forum and all of this letting go and and feeling I am not doing the right thing is hard to deal with. My son will be 21 in Nov. I am a single mom and though his dad is around .....he's really not around. He was diagnosed with NLD in Kindergarden. My son doesn't want to grow up. He is angry. Scared. Emotional. Defiant. Nasty. I am his everything. We go to therapy. His social life is FB. His thoughts of life are delusional. Doesn't think things thru. His dad is helping with him getting a job but so laid back about it it's driving me crazy!!!! And my son doesn't want me to be a part of that. No drugs. No drinking. Just no motivation. Very dramatic. Fights structure ( which these kids need desperately). Can be so loving to me and then when I push or nag (because he does nothing!!!) he is so verbally abusive.
I am very active and keep my life busy but he is so important to me. I am so overwhelmed and feel guilty for not being able to help him. He is such a good kid but he's a young immature child in a man's body. He says I'm the only one he trusts.

 

[Quicksand]

I'm so messed up, I don't know what to do. I have severe guilt. I'm sure I'm not rational. I'm in no position to help anyone else because all I want to do is take it all back. I comb through my decisions and try to find where we were wrong, where he went astray. I think- is he that bad? Am I being too harsh? He's always been immature and we expect too much. All I can do is lay in bed today.

 

[SeaGenieTx]

I have NO family left except my son, who a week ago I kicked out for the 3rd and final time. If I can survive this horror anybody can! My best friends left me too - one moved away, the other shacked up with a guy and no longer has time for me. There is literally no one left to betray me - everyone is gone! I never dreamed my son would become addicted to pot and who knows what else. He watched my oldest brother (a major pot smoker) die of cancer, and my other brother (an alcoholic) lose his job, become homeless and die on the streets (drank himself to death). My son won the lottery with the addiction gene I guess, he smokes pot all day long, then drinks and parties all night and recently (reason why I kicked him out) I discovered he was doing inhalants (whipits). "Mom, pot is not bad, nature/God gives it to us...." "Mom, whipits are not that bad - just a party favor". Me: "You are 23 and frying your brain, you cough and hack like you already have lung cancer, now you are inhaling tubes of compressed gas? What else are you doing to blow your brains out?". You can't grow up, get a job, respect your mother - I'm sorry you are outta here. I was called delusional, psycho, crazy and "I just can't believe you mom" as he left.

I found the whipits container box hidden in his room and that just did it for me. I threw his suitcase at him, made him leave and changed the locks. Have not heard from him - it's been a week. I know he is ok because I have full access to his bank account. I'm watching all his transactions so I know he is alive and what he is doing. So far going all over town buying stuff at head (pot) shops, buying food, withdrawing cash for partying.

It's extremely difficult for me, I have no one to talk to or any support except for this forum (which I have to say is priceless). The advice and support I have received on here has truly helped me more than paying for a shrink.

I just have to do what I have done when I've lost my other family members - keep going! Lucky for me and all the s**t I've gone thru, I know I will be ok. Doesn't surprise me that my own son would betray me, everyone else has! I refuse to curl up and die over it. I gave that kid 23 years of my life and this is what I get.

I will not let my son destroy me. I am 52 and now I am going to do some living (start checking off items on my bucket list). I might just have to plan those trips alone, go out to eat by myself, be the lonely cat lady for awhile. I woke up this morning with a voice saying "Lady this is YOUR life!". I'm very lonely but the only cure for that is to stop wallowing in self pity and get out there and make the most of the time I've got left. Otherwise I'm going to give myself an ulcer staring at the walls crying and worrying about my son.

It's hard - I love my son but if he wants to self destruct that is his choice. I've rowed my boat out to save him so many times. I've rescued him over and over but instead of thanking me & being grateful for everything I've done for him - he has poked holes in the boat! Son, that boat has now sunk. I'm the Captain now, I've got a new big ship you can't sink, you no longer have permission to come aboard.

You have to stay strong and keep going - it's the only way. Thank goodness I have a decent job and I've recently lost almost 30 lbs. I'm more determined than ever to lose another 20. Eating right and exercising have kept me sane. Today I am going to go look at a women's athletic club close to my work. I might join it so I can go be around people and work out (swim, maybe find one of those Zoomba classes). I have to keep my mind occupied - otherwise it just causes me total misery. Someone on here said something that really resonated with me... "Think of your son 95% of the time = 95% misery, think of him only 2% of the time = 2% misery". Trying like heck to keep it at 2%.

 

[nerfherder]

A martial arts class could be fun with the right teacher. Aikido 's a really good one if you never looked into one before. The right northern mantis kung fu school, a judo class with a good age mix of students... Be cautious about the Tai Kwon Do belt factories; but if there's a TKA school nearby (a thoughtful overlap of TKD, Aikido and Karate - an old girlfriend of mine trained in one) that's a good option too.

Hapkido will push your physical limits but a good teacher will be aware how much of thay is below the neck, and how much is between the ears.

 

[BusynMember]

Do you guys get panic attacks?

I used to.
Horrible ones.
I have had a lot of diagnoses in my day since I started therapy at 23 and psychiatry has evolved. The only consistent diagnoses I have had, from one psychiatrist to a psychologist to a therapist for all these years are: mood disorder not otherwise specified (called, in the old days bipolar II, but it really isn't like bipolar so they changed it), generalized anxiety disorder, and panic disorder. From 23 until now probably every therapist I had diagnosed this. I had a feww add things like Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) thoughts (which I think is wrong), but these were the Three Big Ones.

A panic attack is so scary. For a while I did not want to leave my hosue. Once I left a cart full of groceries during a panic attack, ran to the parking lot and drove home, missing many red iights, just to get home to my safe place. I could have killed myself or somebody else.

There is a lot of help, both behavioral and medications for panic disorders. If you keep getting them do reach out for that help. Genie, my only real family is my husband and kids and grands. Ma sound like a lot, but not much and no extended family. If you need a friend to talk to, you can always PM me. Don't be shy. If you want to read about or post about family of origin issues (mean mother, sister, brother, aunt, uncle) there is now a forum for that...Family of Orign Forum. It has helped me c ome to grips with my life in spades. You are welcome to read or post there as well.

 

[Quicksand]

He sent me a text on Sunday that said:
I need therapy or treatment
Please help me

I called him, but he said I can't talk.
So, we communicated by text.
I asked if he was ok and if this was an emergency situation.
He said no, not an emergency but would I get him an appointment with a therapist. He said he doesn't want any drugs, just a therapist.
I got him an appointment for Thursday.hopefully, this is a step in the right direction...

 

[InsaneCdn]

Well, when they call and ask for something that is healthy and appropriate and within your ability - it's not enabling. Whether he takes it in the right direction or not is up to him but he can't accuse you of standing in the way.

 

[Copabanana]

I need therapy or treatment
Please help me

Does this help you Quicksand with your sense of self-doubt about the decision to move back?

As long as we are pushing or pulling, or taking away the hurt from their mistakes, they will not take responsibility for changing anything.

As long as we are the ones who are suffering, they believe the suffering is our problem to fix. They believe they can keep going as they had been, doing whatever it is they want. After all, the costs are ours to bear, not theirs.

They feel control by controlling us and fooling us and lying to us. Instead of a sense of control that comes from taking real responsibility for the course of their own lives. They feel power in resisting us...and you know where that ends up.

What you have done is allowed your son to feel his own locus of control and responsibility. So that he can really evaluate his situation and what he needs.

It cost you a lot of suffering, I know. But you got a solid result. It will not be a straight line to better, but it is a start.

They are not our babies anymore. They are young men who have to function in the grown up world. College or a career are secondary, for now. He needs to get on his feet and stable.

Even if he were doing stellar, for both of your good, you would have had to pull back emotionally. I know it is hard. It is hard for me, too.

Keep it up.You did really, really good. Keep posting. I am happy for you.

 

[Childofmine]

I need therapy or treatment
Please help me

This is exactly what every single one of us hopes and prays for from our DCs.

See what happens. Go slow with yourself. I am praying he is at THE rock bottom, not just A rock bottom.

That he is ready to surrender and accept help.

Please let us know how you are in navigating this road. We care about you and want the very best for you both.

 

[Quicksand]

I asked him to meet me for lunch so I could give him the paperwork that the therapist needs filled out and a check (made out to the therapist). He said: I can't. What time on Thursday?
I said: I'll leave it in the mailbox for you.

We shall see.. He will not speak to me, only via text. My daughter deleted him from her "snapchat" because it was bothering her seeing him posting pics of him having a good time all over town, while we are all sick with worry about him. Her friend is keeping a watch though. He posted pics of him at the restaurant that we always go to on his birthday (on Saturday which was his birthday) and another party at some really nice house with a birthday cake, having a swell time.
I'm cautiously optimistic. I do not think he has reached his rock bottom-yet.

 

[Childofmine]

Quicksand, what he is doing is very typical. Just be as patient and calm as you can be, and let circumstances play out right now. You don't have to force an issue or take any action. It is sometimes very good for them and for us to have some time and distance with little communication. They learn they can exist without us and we learn the same thing about them. Hang in there. We are here for you.

 

[Quicksand]

Thank you. I hope, one day I can help someone like you guys have helped me.