I guess I should clarify a bit. Yes, I am terribly frustrated by his behavior, but, No, I won't be kicking him out until he's at least 18 and there is a suitable living arrangement in place. With that said though.....I guess I am just sooooo frustrated with it all. Yes there is the diagnosis issue but at the same time, he knows what he has, his medications work and the parts of it that he can control.....for the most part, he doesn't. I think THAT'S what gets me the most. Maybe I'm off on this but to me I kind of look at it as being (somewhat) similar to a medical issue such as Diabetes for example. If you know you have Diabetes and you take your medications, you know you also have to, at the very least, watch your diet. You have to put some effort into it even with the medications. He knows what he has, he takes his medications, knows they are working but refuses to put much effort into his own behavior. He blames everything on others or trys to say that his medications need adjusted. Again, I realize some of this is also a symptom but there ARE parts he could control/work on if he chose to. He doesn't choose to.
husband and I have tried various techniques to deal with his mouth and attitude over the years. Nothing has really worked at all. And at this point there is little we can do to him. He doesn't participate in any extra ciricular activities at all, no sports or hobbies, he doesn't really have anything in his room of interest anymore because he doesn't take care of it. He doesn't go anywhere so grounding is pretty ineffective. Spanking....aside from various other reasons why that wouldn't work, he's 6'1 and I'm soooooo not. Extra chores or things of that nature are ineffective becuase you would have to literally physically make him do it and agin, he's 6'1. Ask him to do something at home or even just ask him a question...all in a normal tone of voice and you get your head bit off. He will sit there and ignore you and then yell at you when you keep at him to do something as simple as fill the dog's water bowl or even move his feet out of the way. I will talk to our team members about it and basically just get vague comments along the lines of "Yeah, that's hard to live with" or "I agree, he shouldn't be doing that". That's part of my frustration too. They all know exactly how he is. His counselor is the only one who can talk to him effectively about it but the results only last a day or two at most so it's the same thing over and over again. Sometimes I get the impression that, while the team members are all good at what they do and are good people, difficult child is such a challenge and no one has a clue that they are all just kind of going through the motions until he ages out of their area. (I don't mean that in a disrespectful manner towards them at all, by the way....we've all come to the conclusion that we've done all we can and at this point it's up to him)
I'm just so stressed and frustrated by him and I don't know what to do but hang on till he's old enough to make other arrangements. Then I feel guilty because we've only had him for 8 years. I can't even begin to imagine how things have been for those of you with difficult child's his age or older and have had them since birth. Right now I can't picture that we will have a "typical" relationship at anytime, even after he grows up and is on his own. I know it could happen but I'm in a place now that doesn't put an optimistic light on the future of us as a family.
