Now he is really gone.

[Copabanana]

Yesterday M went to our other property (the office) to see if my son is sleeping outside. There is a large, cemented covered carport, with a somewhat secluded dirt area.

Yes.

He is like any other homeless person (we have had homeless there before. They leave their stuff, their blankets or sleeping bags under a tree, while they pursue their day.

As now is my son. How mortified am I that the very nice neighbors are affected this, not by some vagrant, the identify of whom is unknown, but my son. My own son.

My son is a perpetrator to me, from whom I cannot escape. I will not go back to bed, but I feel like I want to.

Now there is another terrain to do battle. Not just my house. We have a commercial property. It is one thing to vanquish my own house, as bad as that it. But a place of business, because it is my own?

He does not understand that I will have to oppose this strongly. Right now, M will handle it. He will go there tonight and turn my son away. I do not know what else he will say.

I am sick. Sick at heart.

It is like a multi-fronted war now. And I am the loser.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Oh Copa, I am sorry this is hard......I have felt a tinge of guilt, and possible coldness on my part in not searching for my "no contact" punishing Tornado. I have not spoken with her these five months. Her birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years Eve have come and gone.
I am stubborn.
I feel that if she has changed her ways, she would try and call, or something. Then there is that old dread that if she called, what would she want from me? Would an apology or attempt to rekindle some sort of relationship be genuine, or just another ploy to take advantage of me?
She chooses not to speak with me, and I have not felt the urge, or want, or even need to seek her out. Am I heartless? I do not know. It has just been too long of a haul, too much of the same old, same old. When thinking of her and all we have gone through watching her in action these years, she feels dangerous, toxic.

My son is a perpetrator to me, from whom I cannot escape. I will not go back to bed, but I feel like I want to.

This is exactly why I am so stubbornly placing my Tornado, way, way in the back of my thoughts and heart. Perpetrator. I am sorry Copa. Contact and having to deal with our d cs on a regular basis is infinitely more difficult, then not. While the unanswered questions and not knowing are hard, what you are struggling with now can be unbearable. Stay strong. I am glad you are determined not to go back to bed. Glad that M will champion this conundrum.

He does not understand that I will have to oppose this strongly. Right now, M will handle it. He will go there tonight and turn my son away. I do not know what else he will say.

I do not have answers for you, except for what you already know. Mental illness or not, son needs to understand it is not possible for him to do this. It is the hardest thing to do, turn our d cs whom we love, away from the one place, our home, but two places? This really sucks.

I am sick. Sick at heart.
It is like a multi-fronted war now. And I am the loser.

I don't see you as the loser, just stuck for now. What to do?

Copa, you need to care for yourself and live freely. You need to heal and breathe. He needs to see the strong Copa again. He will then know that he, too, may succeed.

This is good. Be good to yourself. M is dealing with this for now. It gives you some time and breathing room, time to think.
Maybe separate your emotions from it, hard to do.
Try and answer your own post, as if you were writing to a new member with the same issue. See how you would respond. Then think on it.

I am sorry I sound harsh. It is not that I lack empathy. On the contrary. I think our situations call for decisive action. Realizing that we are more free than we realize and that we can demand of ourselves that we consciously choose freedom and joy. And let our kids choose as they wish.

I saw this yesterday.......

My son is so impossible. So impossible for me to be around. I am so defended from him. This once most loving of mothers, is in a big green tank with 3 feet wide tires, and guns at the ready. And I am ready to roll. As far away from him as I can get.

So now you have the truth of it. I talk big, but it is bluster. I am hiding in my tank.

So I am the hypocrite you may think I am.

I do not think you are a hypocrite, Copa, stop being harsh on yourself. You are a loving mom in an impossible situation. We have to be able to look at ourselves in the mirror.

This is way different then your old posts. You have done much work to grow and change. There is no perfect solution in all of this, for any of us. I see a lot of progress and a very different way of looking at the problem. You are no longer consumed with what son is doing concerning his health issues. You have stepped back. Is being in your big green tank a way of stepping back, too? I think so. You are in self protect mode struggling with the real issues of how contact with son affects your health. Struggling also, with the desire to help him, but how?

You are not the loser, you are taking time to try to figure this out. You are in full battle gear, a soldier, ready to fight for yourself, but also championing for your son. Who the heck would know how to do this, when faced daily with it? It becomes unfathomable. Who can figure this out?

You will. M will. Figure it out, that is, the answers don't always come to us right away.
Remember to slow....way.....down.......breathe.

It will be okay.

You are posting and sharing.
The answer will come.
One day, one step at a time.
I am sorry for the pain of this.

I am going for my walk before I flake out....I will be thinking of you and praying for peace of mind, for you and for all of us.

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[Albatross]

I am so sorry, Copa. Please do not be so hard on yourself. There are no winners or losers, though it does feel like a war.

I have no advice for you either, but it seems to me in looking through this thread that ultimately what you want as a parent is to know that your son has what he needs; that is, living in a safe place independently.

He has this option available to him with his SSI and a subsidized apartment, but he will not follow through.

Living in the carport is no different than living in your house. It is not a solution to his problem. It is not what he needs.

I don't see this as vanquishing him, Copa. I see this as standing firm in your need and your expectation that he find a safe place to live independently. I see this as loving your son enough to insist that he get what he needs.

 

[Copabanana]

insist that he get what he needs

Thank you Albatross and New Leaf.

Me and M went to look for him tonight about 5 pm and M went an hour ago.

He found another guy sleeping there!!! M told him in Spanglish, please leave. The guy said: Why???? M responded: Policia. Oh, OK. He left. M called me to tell me he was waiting awhile for my son. Who did not show, so he came home.

I had mentioned to M, that we could go there and discuss the situation and to help him identify alternatives.

Do you want to solve this for him, M asked?

Well, no. Well, that is what you would be doing if you talk about it. He knows what he has to do. He is choosing not to do it.

We will go back him and I in an hour or so, to see if my son is there. My stomach hurts already. I will be running off my son when he will not be able to find a bed to sleep in. But I guess he already made the decision that a bed indoors is not his priority. He has his SSI check.

M thinks this whole thing is a power play by my son to either return here to our house or to regain entry to the other house. After all, free housing is better than paid. What an absolute jerk. I think I hate him.

COPA

 

[TheWalrus]

The games do get exhausting. The constant "raising the stakes" to try to manipulate you into whatever it is they are seeking from you.

I agree with M. He knows what to do and is making a choice not to do it, either because it isn't important to him or because he is trying to manipulate you.

My therapist pointed out that my daughter seems "content" with what she is doing; I am the only one upset with her couch surfing, lying, and using others for food, housing, transportation... Perhaps this doesn't bother him? Perhaps he, too, is content getting by however he can as long as he doesn't have to take true responsibility?

I agree with my therapist - I think she IS content. What infuriates me is that she KNOWS how it damages ME and uses that against me to get whatever she can with no regard to the pain she causes. Sometimes I hate her, too.

I hope that he has moved on and even realized you mean business and takes an active role in finding somewhere to go, even if it is a shelter. He may not. He may not for awhile. But for your peace, he cannot be allowed to punish you with his bad choices, using your love for him against you to break you down.

 

[Copabanana]

What infuriates me is that she KNOWS how it damages ME and uses that against me to get whatever she can with no regard to the pain she causes.

We do not exist as real people to them. This is a chess game.

he cannot be allowed to punish you with his bad choices, using your love for him against you to break you down.

Yes. Imagine this great love degenerating to this.

My son is my only child, Walrus. We were always so close. Our relationship, so gratifying to each of us. I am still stunned by what my life has become with my son. Really, I cannot get a grip. My son is 27 now. He has been gone from my home for 4 years. Honest to g-d. I feel like I am dealing with ISIS. And I am ready to surrender. Or try to cross the Mediterranean in a raft to get away from him.

That is part of the problem: I feel completely emotionally ill-equipped to handle this and to stand up to him. M is more rational and feels he has a way to respond. He does not let himself be eaten up alive. Like I do.

I know I am being histrionic. It is what I come to when he is near. How very, very sad for us.

Thank you very much for your response.

Take care.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

I think M is correct. Power play.
Copa, I found out two years ago from neighbors, that Rain was living in a makeshift tent in the back of our valley, a few hundred yards from our house.
I was mortified.
Of course the neighborhood mindset was what a horrible mother I was. Cousins across the road stopping me on my way home expressing concern, and "Why don't you just help your daughter?"
My stomach is churning just writing this post.

We had already tried a number of times to "help" and been stolen from manipulated and lied to.
The behavior didn't change.
I am sorry for the stress of it. I too, felt contempt for my daughters situation. It was definitely a ploy to make me break down with the shame if it. It was too late, I had already lost so much, and understood that I was just an opportunity to her.
She was living this way for all to see, so that I would feel the sting of it. It wasn't enough already that my heart had been ripped out and stomped on, many, many times.
I had to "create the bubble", it is my invisible protective shield, rhino skin, almost like an altered state. Your green tank. I do not think you are being histrionic. It is devastating to the soul to have our kids grow up and choose this lifestyle. The nearer they are, the harder it is. All we want is for the kids to be okay. Well, then, if this is their choice, what can we do?
We can stand strong against their pushing, their insistence that we look the other way and let our hearts be trampled on. We can stand our ground and say "No more".
The firmer we stand, the more they learn.

Hopefully, son will see that his ploy will not work.

Eventually, my daughter left.
Then it was a whole different ballgame, wondering where, how, why..........
I do not think she has a clue of how much her choices affect her parents.

Each time I have the reality of this in my face, it is a retraining.I find myself getting a little bit stronger, oh I cry, I stress and worry, but each time the grief lasts a little less. The "bubble" gets tougher.

I feel for you Copa, I do so know the pain and frustration of this.

I had to look at it as part of a learning process, for she and I.

She was trying to force an issue, and I decided that I would not back down.
It is a battle of the hardest kind.
I kept it in the forefront of my mind, that it would not last forever, and that by my being tough and not backing down, I was really and truly "helping" her. Showing her that it was unacceptable.

We are not cold hearted people. We have been around the block a few times with these kids, and understand the necessity of them finding their purpose and meaning of life, and that progress does not happen, when they live with us.

I was reading ADads question about the western concept of encouraging kids to leave the nest and strike out on their own. We have a number of ethnicities here, including Hawaiian, who live as extended families. I have no problem with my adult children living at home. The thing is, there are rules, contribute to the house, work together, no drugs, no STEALING.
This works for some families.
With my d cs, it very quickly erodes from pushing the limits to outrageous destructive behaviors to themselves and everybody else.

It is unacceptable.

Unacceptable. It is a word I use often. It helps me stand my ground.
I love you, but your lifestyle is unacceptable in my home.
I love you, but you cannot stay here.
It has helped me turn the "Woe is me, this situation, my daughters...." into a stronger position.
I cannot stay in the lamentation stage, it is too damaging.

Stay in your big green tank, Copa, I think that is your bubble.

You are going to be alright. Let M handle this.
Keep posting here and let us know how you are doing.
As a mother who has been through and still going through this, I understand the sorrow and frustration and anger.

You can do this. It is a chess game, but you have the upper hand, you have played it before, and you know the moves. You see it for what it is and you are stronger.
The less you allow your son to roll over you, the more he learns he cannot, the closer he gets to understanding he needs to find his way.

You got this Copa, and we are here for you.

(((HUGS)))
leafy

 

[Albatross]

Copa, I found out two years ago from neighbors, that Rain was living in a makeshift tent in the back of our valley, a few hundred yards from our house.
I was mortified.
Of course the neighborhood mindset was what a horrible mother I was. Cousins across the road stopping me on my way home expressing concern, and "Why don't you just help your daughter?"
My stomach is churning just writing this post.

I had something similar happen the first time we made our son move out. He moved into his girlfriend's backyard (just down the block from us). Her parents were aghast, while also telling me how cute they thought it was, that he would be so devoted to her that he would sleep under her window.

When they found out he was sneaking into her room, he told them it was raining and they bought him a tent, then a sleeping bag when he told them he snuck in because it was cold outside.

When the arguments started to spill over into their lives, they paid for an apartment for the two of them.

When the arguments escalated into physical fights and damage to the apartment, they appeased the landlord and paid for repairs, culminating in my son throwing himself through a plate glass window in a blackout. Only then did they tell him his behavior was unacceptable. I think it would have been so much better for my son to say that when he moved into their backyard. They did him no favors.

 

[AppleCori]

It is so hard to know what to do in these situations, Copa.

You have tried to help him get a place through Social Services and he has refused to follow through. We can't begin to understand this mindset, but I guess we just have to accept it. Maybe someday he will reconsider.

I don't think it is a matter of not teaching or parenting correctly, when we are talking about our mentally ill/personality disordered/brain injured/Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) afflicted/attachment disordered/etc. adult kids. We just have to accept that they are wired differently, think differently, behave differently.

There is peace in that, I think.

Apple

 

[InsaneCdn]

I have no problem with my adult children living at home. The thing is, there are rules, contribute to the house, work together, no drugs, no STEALING.

Exactly. Contribution doesn't have to be money - I lived at home rent free for a number of years, while putting myself through school and starting my career. In return... I basically ran the house - cleaning, shopping, etc. Took the load off my parents. They didn't get to dictate when I did the cleaning etc. - just that it all had to be done before supper on Saturday every week. I could be flat out with work and school during the week, and clean on Saturday morning. Or I could bust butt on Thursday night, and go away for the weekend. We were all adults. We chose to live together, in a mutually beneficial manner.

And unless the situation can be "mutually beneficial"... it's somewhere we just should not be going.

 

[Copabanana]

I think M is correct. Power play.

We drove over to that house again, about 9 pm. No son.

M said, maybe he went to the big city. I said, I am worried about him.

M got up and went over at 5:30 am. He found my son at the other house.

He found my son there, sleeping on the front porch.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

Copa he is at M's sisters porch? Ouch.

 

[4now]

I have 3 sons. The 2 oldest have been difficult since early teens. My youngest although raised in the same household has always been able to go his own way. I've had all of them live with me as adults at one time or another for different reasons. The difference is when the youngest lived with us for a 2 month period between housing ( with his wife and 2 kids our grands) it was a pleasant blending of families and shared responsibilities. They tried hard to contribute and not be a drain on our time energy or resources. It is a memory my husband and I cherish. Unspoken rules were followed. The underlying theme was mutual respect for both families sharing the house. With my other two it is always the lack of respect and boundaries that makes the time together unpleasant and stressful. We tried to welcome middle son, his wife and grands it was stressful. Mostly because of son. He reverts back to a teenager. Resentful. Provoking and testing boundaries. It is definitely a stressful experience

My point being. Our D C children are usually hard to live with period. My 2 Difficult Child have had issues living with pretty much anyone because they don't respect anyone else's boundaries

 

[Copabanana]

Copa he is at M's sisters porch? Ouch.

I was unclear. Sorry. M found him sleeping on the porch of the house where he had let him stay, where M had been working.

My 2 Difficult Child have had issues living with pretty much anyone because they don't respect anyone else's boundaries

That pretty much says it, 4. No respect for anyone's else's boundaries, as in, give me anything that is yours so that I can trash it and trash you.

Update: M came home and told me more in depth about what transpired. M told him he would help him look for a place. As, my son is doing nothing at all. While I think this was a mistake, I am letting M handle it. M has an acquaintance that rents rooms. Unfortunately, the available room was just rented. M is over there now seeing if he can work something else out.

M's idea is that he puts son to work (again). That lasted not even to lunch time because M gets exasperated because son only wants to get water, go to the bathroom, and then wants lunch (at 10 am).

I guess M sees how useless I have been (after all my imaginary green tank with guns at the ready and 3 foot wide tires only helps so much.)

My son is spending the day at Barnes and Noble, into the night. The only solution he came up with for M is that he go to the mountains (pretty much like my green tank) where there are not so many drugs. M answered, in your mind only. Think about it, where there is no law. Where do you think people go to use drugs, if not the mountains? Who knows. I will let them figure it out. I am in my green tank.

COPA

 

[Copabanana]

Well, M just went to pick him up. He kept calling and calling. We kept asking over and over again: what are your plans for solving this?

And he kept repeating over and over again, I guess I have to take the consequences.

And we kept repeating over and over again, not consequences, responsibility.

If you take responsibility in the front of things, you control the consequences.

Guess who won?

I was strong. Until when I hung up, M said he thought he was hungry, and wanted to come home to eat. Guess how quick I called back.

I am defeated. I do not have my green tank with the 3' wheels. I am defeated.

COPA

 

[BusynMember]

You did not lose because your son ate at your house. We are mothers. We love them. Sometimes we bring them home for a meal. It is ok.

 

[New Leaf]

You are not defeated, Copa. You are a mom offering her son a meal.
Detaching does not mean we have absolutely no contact or no kindness.
Who knows what may be a turning point for any of our kids.
Stop being so hard on yourself.
(((Hugs)))
leafy

 

[Feeling Sad]

Copa, I have had very bad vertigo for 3 days and can barely walk.

You are NOT defeated and you have done NOTHING wrong. Life is made up of gray zones, rarely black and white.

Find your son a current social worker, case manager, and a therapist. He needs 'tools' as much, or more, than we do.

You said that he doesn't realize that he is mentally ill. His conspiracy theories need to be 'quieted' so that he can truly focus on the adult tasks at hand. When one is constantly preoccupied, very little may be accomplished.

Throw out any rational or common sense that you expect him to know. But, expect him to do these things step by step. Be clear.

My son is much, much more ill. I doubt that he knows why he was taken away by the police. Remember, I was the bad guy in his delusions. He still doesn't probably realize why..... or the horrible police scene was quickly woven into the complex fabric of his delusions.

You are doing the right thing. He has the best chance of getting better away from you. I have been reading a lot about this subject.

You are still strong and in control. Feeding him a meal shows compassion. Compassion does not negate rules, structure, and clear expectations. In fact, these things SHOW compassion to your son, as well.

You do not need a tank, or a bed to hide in. You are much stronger than you think!

Love yourself and breathe.

 

[Copabanana]

Copa, I have had very bad vertigo for 3 days and can barely walk.

Do you have labyrinthitis?

If not, what is causing it? Could it be related to your pre-diabetes or brain?

Have you gone to the doctor?

Get well. I do not think you should drive or think about going to work.

COPA

 

[New Leaf]

I agree, Feeling go see a Doctor please. Copa, it is late for you, are you okay?
leafy