Is there no hope?

[RN0441]

Gershbunny:

I too thought it seemed kind of "cold" when I first heard about detaching. I didn't understand what it meant. I didn't think I could ever do it with our youngest son who we love so much. I didn't think I would ever want to do that!!

We had gone through five years of hell with him. Him continuing to make one bad decision after another starting at the age of 15. Then drug use came into the picture. We ran around like crazy people trying to fix everything. Attorneys, police, juvenile detention, jail, therapists, social workers, psychologists, psychiatrists, medication, in patient rehab, outpatient rehab, college courses, a car, lots of $$$, you name it; we tried it. Thinking THAT would be it. Just this one more thing. All the while our marriage was suffering, our other two children who were doing well were pushed to the side. Our joy was muffled. Our family life was shredded.

My how things have changed. He is still making some poor choices but now he is not living with us. It doesn't effect us every day. I miss him terribly but I know it's not good for him or us to be in our home any longer. I wish it wasn't this way but it is. I have to accept how he is right now and hope and pray that he sees the light and changes and finds the right path and wants a better life for HIMSELF. I had to accept that nothing I could say or do would change one damned thing.

I am in therapy for myself and it is helping me. This forum helps me. To be supportive to him with BOUNDARIES. We have to help ourselves. This can go on for many years and isn't a quick fix. We can't write the end of the story yet.

 

[Gershbunny]

Welcome Gershbunny,
I haven't give up hope and I totally understand how you feel. Maybe you could give us a little more information about your son and his situation. Does he chose to be homeless? What lead up to him being homeless? How long have u been having problems with your son? Maybe we could help more if we understood his situation better. I don't think anyone here has given up hope or otherwise we wouldn't be posting here. It's more about detaching from the situation to keep ourselves healthy.
I want to fix my son too. After a couple years of trying to figure out what was wrong with my son, I suspected drugs or mental illness I found out a few months ago that my son was a heroin addict, I did an intervention and sent him to rehab. He seems to be better now but I'm obsessed with checking on him. During all of this I didn't sleep or eat, I became so thin , having panic attacks, was just sick. I wasn't any good for anyone let alone my son. The point is that u have to be healthy yourself or your not helping anyone. It took medication for me to even function. I wanted to fix(control) my son and I still do. I just try to realize that I can only control myself and I learned that here on this site. I will never give up hope but my dreams for my son are not the same, I'm just happy he's alive and pray he stays off drugs.
You sound like a very loving mother, you should never give up hope but don't let your son destroy your life, health, peace and happiness. Keep posting, this is a safe place with people who understand.

 

[Gershbunny]

He does not want to be homeless, or so he says, he does work ,and works hard when he has work ,however his idea of finding work is to walk up to folks he knows and say "hey man ,got any work I can do"? He has even come to me and my husband for work. At times we have work for him other times we do not. I told him I can not be his employer,as I don't have the means to support him.

 

[AppleCori]

Hi Gersh,

This is one reason I always encourage people to direct their adult children toward social/community services.

They need to get out of the mindset that we (parents, relatives, friends) can or should provide for them--whether jobs, housing, money, or anything else.

They need to start reaching out for help from the community/government agencies. There are far more resources available from the community than what we can provide. Our help often keeps them stuck, both in their mindset and situation.

Sometimes our young adults feel entitled to our resources (not necessarily your son, I have no idea) and some feel they are above asking for "welfare". This keeps them from accessing services which could help them, if they do indeed want help.

Either way, they need to learn to survive without us, because we won't be around forever.

 

[BusynMember]

Well, heck, l, he knows asking people for work isn't the way to become employed.

We help our kids out on their homes and cars and dont want payment and my kids help us out too and maybe we take them to lunch, but not always and they never expect payment.

Its family.

I dont think a 32 /year-old man should get paid for mowing your lawn. Kids at 13 mow yards for money.

I'd insist he get a job the conventional way and not come home asking for money for household chores. Has he applied for disability or community services? Welfare? Food stamps? Shelters?

 

[susiestar]

There really IS hope, but not until we start making them live with the consequences of their choices. You might want to read a book called Choice Therapy by Dr William Glasser. I know about it because my stepMIL worked in prisons and juvenile detention centers teaching this method. It is astonishingly effective. In the prisons they taught the prisoners how to do the therapy and then after she would leave the prisoners would do this therapy with other prisoners. It is largely about what we do here - teaching people to live with the consequences of their choices, and that if they want different results, they have to make different choices. We used the methods with our son when things were bad. My father actually did this instinctively with both my son and with his students (he taught junior high for decades). It worked. My son used to be incredibly violent, esp to women who were younger than he was. Now? He is incredibly protective of women and has less than no respect or use for any man who does not. He is happy and healthy and building a career and living in his first apartment.

I also agree that the books recommended earlier will be a big help for you. When your son cannot get money or anything else from you, he will learn to make other choices. If he wants to stop being homeless, there is help out there, but you have to work for it. You have to do the paperwork and appointments at social services. You have to follow the rules for any program, and you have to do more than ask random people for work if you want a job. But he knows this most likely and truly doesn't want to do the work to get what he says he wants.

At this point all you really can do to change and find hope is to work on changing yourself and becoming healthier. If you want migraine info privately, you can start a private conversation with me. If you cannot figure out how, post on here that you want the info privately and I will set it up. There is a lot that migraines can steal from you, and there is a lot of info that is hard to find and some doctors don't even know. I will happily share the info that I have with you if you want.

(((((hugs)))))

 

[Echolette]

Visualize this: A grown woman (me) literally pulling my son (taller than me, bigger than me) out of the bed, pushing him into the shower, going back to check on him four or five times while he was in the shower, laying out his clothes, pulling and pushing him into the car (while he kept saying, I'm tired, I don't want to go...like a little kid) with his hoody pulled over his head, driving him to the counselor/therapist/psychologist/psychiatrist, going in, doing all of the talking while he sat hunched down in the chair...leaving the room so they could talk in private (ha!!!) and then waiting outside only to learn that my son wouldn't say a word. The entire time he wouldn't say one single word. Now, this is the literal definition of leading a horse to water...but you can't make him drink. And reading this, doesn't it sound ridiculous that someone (me) would actually do this. Thinking something good would happen.

This is a very powerful image. We can probably all insert a mental picture of ourselves here, doing exactly the same thing or something allegorically the same. I'm going to store this in my tool box. A woman dragging her larger-than-her son out of bed, laying out his clothes, talking at the counsellour. A woman representing all of us.

And I did this multiple times.

Ouch. Me too.

2. We can tell them (one time, not 20 times) about resources that are available. Even this is sometimes a stretch because adults can get their own information, right? They know how to get information. The fact that they haven't gotten the information likely means they don't want it. But...we can offer the information that we learn about, shelters, food pantries, assistance, free counseling, job search, rehab, detox, etc. I learned in Al-Anon that if you say it more than once, you're trying to control the situation...again taking the control instead of them having the control...trying to fix and manage...having expectations. And believe me, I said it all 100s of times. I thought he must not have heard me, so I would say it all again and again and again.

I thought for a long time about getting a tattoo on my thumb, right where I would see it every time I sat at a computer, or picked up the phone, or reached for my coffee. I was going to write "he is not deaf." To remind me that the reason he is not taking my superb advice or taking advantage of the many many perfect solutions I have posed, is NOT because he is deaf. It is because he chooses not to do the things I say. I said them once. That is enough. He isn't deaf.

Gershbunny, I haven't given up hope for my lovely son. He spiralled for many years, starting about age 14, maybe earlier. So cute, so musically talented, so social..and now this. He is in jail now, after several years of being on the street. He calls me for 5 minutes a day. He is a real student of the news now, the politcal debates, sports, whatever. We have nice chats. We talk about his discharge (he has been discharge three times to monitored facilities because of mental health issues, and each time he has TOTALLY BOMBED OUT and gone straight back to jail..once he was picked up while pissing in an alley in the most dangerous neighborhood in our large city. My son. My lovely boy). I love him. I haven't given up hope. But I will be neither surprised nor crushed if this discharge isn't the charm either. I will keep on keeping on, and so will he, and so will our relationship.

We do not judge you at all in making the choices you do. We are here to support you in the difficult task of being mother to a lost son. We have all made many choices, taken many paths, and you will find many people here on the forum who are still turning over every stone, providing money and housing and looking for answers. All that is OK, and we may even have some suggestions about more stones to turn. The important thing is that you are not alone.

Echo

 

[BWilliams]

I have just recently found this site, I have read several stories which are similar to mine. I have a son, my only son and my first born. He is 32. He went from being one of the most popular boys in town and school , in small town America ,to now being homeless in suburbia outside of L.A, for going on 3 years. We brought him here to give him a chance at a better life, as he was starting to fall apart in Kansas. Nothing we have done to help him actually helps him, it lets him get by for the moment,that is all. My husband who I married after he was 21, and he do not get along,some his fault some my husbands fault. My husbands son is thriving (very hard to watch). I have read many testimonies here and I am struck with one depressing realization, everyone seems to view their situations with finality. Why? is there no hope? should we all just walk away so we don't have to feel the pain ,the guilt, the shame that comes with this? call me an enabler, but I can not just give up. Something broke inside my beloved son, and I mean to find a way to fix it. Something broke with in all our children, isn't there a way to pool all of our stories and find the common denominator? there has to be a way to undo whatever caused this to happen to our children. Please don't misunderstand my thoughts. I am not judging, or laying blame, I am just desperate to find a way to undo the damage my son is causing himself. If I give up on him then he has no one, he has given up on himself. Somewhere inside my broken,sad child, is the happy ,confident, person I watched grow up. I MEAN TO FIND HIM! I have to find him. I have horrible nightmares that plague my sleep, and debilitating migraines that disrupt my wake. Please tell me there is hope, please tell me that all is not lost, please,please

I feel exactly the same way. My husband and son do not get along very well either and I really think that is one of the reasons this has happened. What on earth can we do to help them come back? My situation is very similar to yours. My son is broken-hearted and I cant fix him either, I have tried almost everything.

 

[Nomad]

I agree with others have said re: possibly guiding your son toward community services. Give him information regarding food stamps, shelters etc. Consider attending a support group for yourself to strengthen yourself. You might also discover other info. on services for your son that you can pass on the info. to him. But, he will have to make the decision whether or not to take steps to help himself. Keep yourself as strong as possible. Reach out for support yourself, as you did here by creating this post.
Wishing you well. We know this is very hard.