Hi all, I’m new to posting, but not to reading. I’ve been around for over a year now.
So my story, it’s a long one like most here. My only son is 23 years old, diagnosed when he was very young with a mood disorder. They called it not otherwise specified (Not Otherwise Specified) but only because you can’t say the “Bipolar” word in the medical field until they are 18, so he’s been bipolar for the last 5 years.
When he was young I would get knocked to the ground so many times with his issues, assumed to be a “bad” parent, get back up as actual responsible parent, figure it out, without a road map, and take it on.
Schooling was a major battle with the local school district. I could go on about that, but by the middle of first grade he was placed in a great out of district school which he went to through high school. He did very well and graduate, he has an IQ of 132.
Doctors, there were bumps until I was able to get him in with a doctor who was not taking new patients, only referrals from other parents where a very nice parent who I met in a support group referred us in. He was 8 years old at the time. His doctor continued to be his doctor until he was 18, she is a child psychiatrist so after 18 he has bounced here and there with doctors until today.
Socially I’ve had him in social skills groups, done all I could do in the neighborhood to try to have him included (installed a swimming pool, had a house where young people were invited over and such) and had him involved with other social activities but he’s always just not fit in very well and that’s just the way he is.
I thought things were really rough when he was young but HOLY MOTHER OF WHAT THE!?! when he turned 17 and seemingly overnight moved from socializing with the marginally geek outcasts to the antisocial squad!! Like a freaking jump off a cliff!! I think his buying a car with money he saved from childhood drew the antisocial social young people to him for the ability to have ‘rides’ to wherever they may have wanted. He went from a group of friends who were weird and obviously social outcasts to another group were social outcasts because of their horrible behaviors!
And so it started. Some of the highlights are:
~ Xeroxing twenty dollar bills to buy pizza. That’s a federal offence so the FBI were at the police station to talk to me when the summoned me there. He was very lucky that because he was a minor they didn’t do any more than give him a good talking to and kept my copy machine for 6 months or so.
~ Stole jewelry from me and pawned it. I found out when the police called me. He was charged as a first time offender and had to pay restitution to me and do 30 days (my suggestion) of community service. He didn’t think he could get in trouble for stealing from his family because his friends didn’t. He’s not known for stealing to this day so I guess he figured that’s not such a good idea.
~ Started with smoking synthetic marajuana which was sold at a local convenience store. That stuff is illegal in our state now. Also Coricidin cough and cold in lethal quantities from the local drug store. Then when he moved on to having drug connections acid was one of his favorites and I think whatever he could get his hands on. Currently it seems marajuana is his only drug.
~ He’s been in a very expensive failure to launch program in Utah, two rehabs, numerous short term stays at the hospital for mental health inpatient and one over dose (coricidin cough and cold). He ran away from the failure to launch place with the help of a bishop from the Mormon Church who gave him a bus ticket from Utah back to the east coast because the bishop a bs story he told him.
~ For a couple years until September of 2017 he was living in sober living and not so sober living houses a couple of hours away from here. The agreement was that we would pay his room and board and for groceries if he could show receipts. He was to work and pay his other bills, eventually all of his bills, go to the doctors, and stay off of the drugs and alcohol. I knew I couldn’t have him in my house because he would run over top of me with his mouth, and not keep any agreements. While he was living away from here he also didn’t keep his agreements but I would let him go without often hoping he would feel the burn and decide it’s easier to live within societies norms and become responsible for himself. Didn’t happen.
~ He has charges for smoking pot in a public parking lot, hasn’t completed the 10 hours of community service or paid three quarters of the fines, bench warrant, maybe, who knows, I don’t care, not my problem.
~ I purchased a car for him in 2016 to replace his car which he had beaten down to nothing. He was supposed to repay me for the car, he made a few payments but then stopped paying me. He then sold the car for spending money late summer of 2017.
~ He’s had so many jobs I can’t count. He works a bit, becomes disillusioned with the job quits or just stops showing up and then jobs hunts (not really) borrows money from me (up until the summer of 2016) which is never paid back and then gets another job when he has no other choice.
~ In the summer of 2017, right after he sold the car, we told him if he didn’t get a job or volunteer for at least 20 hours a week we would no longer pay his room and board. He didn’t get a job, came up with a fantasy that he was going to move to North Carolina to a friend’s house (he’s hypomanic) and then eventually moved to a different friend’s house closer to my area in the fall after couch surfing and sleeping in abandoned cars.
If you made it this far, thanks! That’s the history up until I made a huge mistake of letting him back in my house December 1st of 2017 only to have no other choice than to have him removed via a restraining on February 16th.
I’m trying to hold steady and not do anything for him other than provide uber rides to Social Services and the doctor’s. He’s making it easier with his fantastic stories of abuse that was supposedly handed out by me from his childhood to now. He’s been calling everyone I know who he has a phone number for to fill them in on what a “mommy dearest” I am “behind closed doors”. I know from the stories that he’s manic, and most likely believes himself. I can do nothing to make him take his medication, which currently doesn’t include an anti-psychotic anyway.
On the upside, he did go to the hospital for a three day stay after the court proceedings for the restraining order were completed. And because he had nowhere to go from the hospital he now has a case worker from a local organization for the mentally ill who is helping him with wraparound services for housing and other support. The people at this organization seem to be trying to encourage him to take care of his medical needs in order for him to get support from them.
I’m glad this group is here, I can’t talk to anyone in real life who understands how difficult this is. With my son’s stories the people who know me think I should just run from him and never look back. Yeah if he was a neighbor or distant relative maybe..
So my story, it’s a long one like most here. My only son is 23 years old, diagnosed when he was very young with a mood disorder. They called it not otherwise specified (Not Otherwise Specified) but only because you can’t say the “Bipolar” word in the medical field until they are 18, so he’s been bipolar for the last 5 years.
When he was young I would get knocked to the ground so many times with his issues, assumed to be a “bad” parent, get back up as actual responsible parent, figure it out, without a road map, and take it on.
Schooling was a major battle with the local school district. I could go on about that, but by the middle of first grade he was placed in a great out of district school which he went to through high school. He did very well and graduate, he has an IQ of 132.
Doctors, there were bumps until I was able to get him in with a doctor who was not taking new patients, only referrals from other parents where a very nice parent who I met in a support group referred us in. He was 8 years old at the time. His doctor continued to be his doctor until he was 18, she is a child psychiatrist so after 18 he has bounced here and there with doctors until today.
Socially I’ve had him in social skills groups, done all I could do in the neighborhood to try to have him included (installed a swimming pool, had a house where young people were invited over and such) and had him involved with other social activities but he’s always just not fit in very well and that’s just the way he is.
I thought things were really rough when he was young but HOLY MOTHER OF WHAT THE!?! when he turned 17 and seemingly overnight moved from socializing with the marginally geek outcasts to the antisocial squad!! Like a freaking jump off a cliff!! I think his buying a car with money he saved from childhood drew the antisocial social young people to him for the ability to have ‘rides’ to wherever they may have wanted. He went from a group of friends who were weird and obviously social outcasts to another group were social outcasts because of their horrible behaviors!
And so it started. Some of the highlights are:
~ Xeroxing twenty dollar bills to buy pizza. That’s a federal offence so the FBI were at the police station to talk to me when the summoned me there. He was very lucky that because he was a minor they didn’t do any more than give him a good talking to and kept my copy machine for 6 months or so.
~ Stole jewelry from me and pawned it. I found out when the police called me. He was charged as a first time offender and had to pay restitution to me and do 30 days (my suggestion) of community service. He didn’t think he could get in trouble for stealing from his family because his friends didn’t. He’s not known for stealing to this day so I guess he figured that’s not such a good idea.
~ Started with smoking synthetic marajuana which was sold at a local convenience store. That stuff is illegal in our state now. Also Coricidin cough and cold in lethal quantities from the local drug store. Then when he moved on to having drug connections acid was one of his favorites and I think whatever he could get his hands on. Currently it seems marajuana is his only drug.
~ He’s been in a very expensive failure to launch program in Utah, two rehabs, numerous short term stays at the hospital for mental health inpatient and one over dose (coricidin cough and cold). He ran away from the failure to launch place with the help of a bishop from the Mormon Church who gave him a bus ticket from Utah back to the east coast because the bishop a bs story he told him.
~ For a couple years until September of 2017 he was living in sober living and not so sober living houses a couple of hours away from here. The agreement was that we would pay his room and board and for groceries if he could show receipts. He was to work and pay his other bills, eventually all of his bills, go to the doctors, and stay off of the drugs and alcohol. I knew I couldn’t have him in my house because he would run over top of me with his mouth, and not keep any agreements. While he was living away from here he also didn’t keep his agreements but I would let him go without often hoping he would feel the burn and decide it’s easier to live within societies norms and become responsible for himself. Didn’t happen.
~ He has charges for smoking pot in a public parking lot, hasn’t completed the 10 hours of community service or paid three quarters of the fines, bench warrant, maybe, who knows, I don’t care, not my problem.
~ I purchased a car for him in 2016 to replace his car which he had beaten down to nothing. He was supposed to repay me for the car, he made a few payments but then stopped paying me. He then sold the car for spending money late summer of 2017.
~ He’s had so many jobs I can’t count. He works a bit, becomes disillusioned with the job quits or just stops showing up and then jobs hunts (not really) borrows money from me (up until the summer of 2016) which is never paid back and then gets another job when he has no other choice.
~ In the summer of 2017, right after he sold the car, we told him if he didn’t get a job or volunteer for at least 20 hours a week we would no longer pay his room and board. He didn’t get a job, came up with a fantasy that he was going to move to North Carolina to a friend’s house (he’s hypomanic) and then eventually moved to a different friend’s house closer to my area in the fall after couch surfing and sleeping in abandoned cars.
If you made it this far, thanks! That’s the history up until I made a huge mistake of letting him back in my house December 1st of 2017 only to have no other choice than to have him removed via a restraining on February 16th.
I’m trying to hold steady and not do anything for him other than provide uber rides to Social Services and the doctor’s. He’s making it easier with his fantastic stories of abuse that was supposedly handed out by me from his childhood to now. He’s been calling everyone I know who he has a phone number for to fill them in on what a “mommy dearest” I am “behind closed doors”. I know from the stories that he’s manic, and most likely believes himself. I can do nothing to make him take his medication, which currently doesn’t include an anti-psychotic anyway.
On the upside, he did go to the hospital for a three day stay after the court proceedings for the restraining order were completed. And because he had nowhere to go from the hospital he now has a case worker from a local organization for the mentally ill who is helping him with wraparound services for housing and other support. The people at this organization seem to be trying to encourage him to take care of his medical needs in order for him to get support from them.
I’m glad this group is here, I can’t talk to anyone in real life who understands how difficult this is. With my son’s stories the people who know me think I should just run from him and never look back. Yeah if he was a neighbor or distant relative maybe..
.
