he has no housing, no car, no cell phone, and no job!
Well, Angela, we are twins! I am in the same boat and have been for many years. My son wafts into my small city and out again, to a big metro a couple of hours north of here. NOTHING. I mean NOTHING I have done has changed the trajectory of his life one iota. Including buying a house for him! Those here on this site witnessed all of this. My misguided attempts to control him, control contingencies, withhold support, give it, EVERYTHING and NOTHING helped change him or the way he lives. It only served to deplete me of my core, my energy, my will to live, my peace, and any other thing required to live well, or peaceably.
My nadir was the day I came here. I proposed what I thought was a good idea: I would enroll with him in community college classes. And that way I would observe and control if he went to class and did his homework! Can you believe this? That this actually made sense to me? But it got worse from there.
His trajectory downward in no way included college! If I said I got smart soon after I came here I would be lying. I didn't. It took years and years until I accepted that I could be okay. I could even thrive when he didn't. It took years to accept that we were separate people;
that my life was a separate life, that we were not symbiotic; that I could breathe, love, work, and be, as a separate organism, a separate mind, a separate soul.
But I did learn. And I am more than okay now. I have moments of sadness and moments of fear and panic, but I overcome them rather quickly and restore my own calm, my own center, and my own boundaries. If I can do this, so can you. I was a very very slow learner. You can learn quickly.
Others here have pointed the way. I will add my 2 cents. Every single thing that you can do for yourself, do. What does that mean? Walk someplace pretty, every day. By yourself. Find the kind of music that you adore and that inspires you to breathe deeply and forget your worries. Get Bluetooth headphones and Spotify and walk, listening to your music. If you can listen to music in your house without bothering others, buy a Bluetooth speaker, and set up Spotify. I have a very specific kind of music that transports me. In seconds, to bliss. You can find this too.
Find books that make you feel happy so that you forget the world and enter a new one. Best of all, a series so that there are 10 or 15 books of a series that create a place, with a network of characters. And allow yourself an hour or more to read thereby transporting yourself away from your misery. I read cozy mysteries, mainly. One series takes place in SW France. The one I'm reading now takes place in Paris (but it's scarier). Some people like to read historical novels or contemplative or spiritual books. I do too. But I find I really flourish when I read fun books.
Do needlework or art if you like that kind of thing. Doing this will regulate your breathing and focus your attention on the task and thereby reducing anxiety and calming you.
If you are spiritually minded, find a group in your town, or on the internet and immerse yourself. I do that. I meet 4 days a week.
If you garden or like indoor plants, do that. I do. This helps me.
What you are doing with these activities is little by little creating a separate self, from your child, and everybody else, for that matter. Your own little world of peace and contentment. We need to be separate selves. Many of us never learned how. When I came here for the first few years I must have posted 20 or 30 times a day many days. I posted on everybody's threads. That is how I learned. I could see more clearly other people's lives. And this is how I learned how to be in my own life.
You are NOT alone. We are here all of us walking in your shoes. Please keep posting. The people who have responded to your post, care deeply and they will stay with you.