Son called to be picked up from a dangerous situation-I refused. Sorry-VERY long!

[recoveringenabler]

I know that crazy making feeling well. This is how I handle it: first you have to realize that your son is going to continue to keep asking you for whatever it is he wants. You have to accept that right up front. The reality is that you are the one who has to say no, who has to set very, very clear boundaries. It takes a little practice since you've enabled him for a long time, so you have to break the pattern. You say no to the staying at your house. Then next he comes up with another request, you say no. You do it and you do it until you have all the boundaries around you, like a moat, where he will eventually learn that you are not giving in, he will not get what he wants, he has to go elsewhere or just stop asking you. Look at it like training, you have to re-train him. And yourself by the way.

I've had to do this with my difficult child too. It took time because I had to first figure out what exactly I was willing to do and what I'm not. At this point, I really don't see my daughter that much, she knows I don't want to hear what she is up to, it's too much drama and very upsetting to me, so she doesn't share it. She has respected every single boundary I've set and it's severely limited our interactions, but that is what it has to be for me to be sane and have a peaceful life. She can be a vortex of drama and craziness and I refuse to live in it.

This is the bottom line, whatever you accept, you live in. Decide what it is you will not accept, no matter what, end of story. You don't want him at your house sleeping over, so be it. You don't want him at your house at all, so be it. You meet him in public places in the daytime. You may want to drive him to the Dr. you may not. He will respect you at all times. He will never be violent. One violent episode, the cops are in. YOU decide the rules, YOU decide the boundaries. YOU take your power back, you tell him what you are willing to do. YOU get really, really good at saying no. And, in the beginning, if you can't say a direct no yet, you say, "I'll get back to you." Then you take a moment to remember your boundaries and call back and say NO.

He is simply manipulating you to get his needs met. That's how he's learned to get what he wants. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO COMPLY!!! Remember, he will continue to keep asking and manipulating...........that's going to be it for awhile........you don't have to get upset, you don't have to get depressed. Who cares if he doesn't know what he wants? If you get good at what it is you want, it won't matter what he wants because you will say NO. He is acting like this because you have been inconsistent with him. Say no and mean it. Then he will stop asking. YOU have all the power. But you've allowed him to think he has it, he doesn't, YOU DO.

It took me awhile to get that, but I did. You are in a pattern with him, and he won't break it because it works for him. YOU must be the one to break it, obviously, it doesn't work for you. So stop it. Tell him no and go on with your life. Each time you say no, you will get stronger, it's like a new muscle you're working, it's pretty weak now, but believe me when you get stronger, you won't believe the level of power you will feel. And liberation. And you will get your life back. You may be shaky for a little while, but you will get the hang of it.

Make a list if what works for you of everything you are not willing to do. Make another of what you are willing to do. The not willing to do list will likely be quite long. Good.

Take your life back now, don't allow his manipulations to control your life. I know how you feel. Hang in there, your way out of this is to take your power and say no...........HUGS.......

 

[scent of cedar]

This is the kid who put me in the ICU for 4 days, after hitting me so hard that I had a bleed on the brain.

I missed this part.

Are you afraid he will come after you, if you don't do what he says? Are you afraid of him, or of his friends, at all?

Possible to request a restraining order against him?

With this kind of history, you not only need to be done with him, you need to take immediate, permanent steps to be safe from him. And from his nasty pals.

How can we help you think through how to do that, blackgnat?

Barbara

 

[scent of cedar]

You do it and you do it until you have all the boundaries around you, like a moat

It took time because I had to first figure out what exactly I was willing to do and what I'm not.

She can be a vortex of drama and craziness and I refuse to live in it.

This is the bottom line, whatever you accept, you live in.

if you can't say a direct no yet, you say, "I'll get back to you."

call back and say NO.

YOU have all the power.

But you've allowed him to think he has it

You are in a pattern with him

YOU must be the one to break it

it's like a new muscle you're working, it's pretty weak now

Make a list

your way out of this is to take your power and say no

Recovering is right.

It isn't going to be so hard, really. It isn't about difficult child. You don't need to change a thing about him. Each of us learns that secret, over time. It isn't about the difficult child, and it never was. It is about US. It is about deciding to love ourselves, too.

Maybe, it's even about deciding to love ourselves, more.

Maybe the way to begin this is to make a vow to yourself. A vow that you will do one good thing for YOU. It could be anything. A pair of shoes you would like to have? Make them your talisman. Buy them as a symbol of your new beginning, a symbol of your next journey. Only this journey will be a series of small steps into health, and into wholeness.

Your life is precious. Your time on this Earth is short, however long you may live.

If you decide to do this, will you share your choice of talisman with us? This is the journey we are all making, really. Some of the parents here have made it. Their journeys are easier than ours, because they have chosen to captain their own ships. They love their difficult children, too. But they don't allow their difficult children choices to determine one, smallest thing in their lives. I wonder whether the difference between those with healthy boundaries and those without them has something to do with the feeling that we've failed our difficult child children, somehow?

There has to be some explanation for the way we allow their choices to define our lives, our whole idea of who we are and what we deserve.

Responding to this post has been very good for me.

I love this site.

Barbara

 

[blackgnat]

Thanks as always for your collective wisdom and support.

I felt unworthy to be on this site, like I am NEVER absorbing or rather AM, but not acting the way I feel. I have been in this mode for so long and was making such good progress and then I get pulled back into it. I think it's that massive codependency thing where when HE is okay, so am I. When he was in the Mission, I never even thought about him. I knew he was safe, sober and being productive every day. The people he was living with cared about his well being.

Here is what happened last night. After all the "This is what I want mom, the streets, I'll be okay with Dan" etc., I get a call from Dan. He said he was out on a tattooing job in the city I live in. My son was there, asleep, but it was time to leave and he couldn't leave my son at this person's house. As I live so near, could I take him for the night (Hold on, didn't I just DO this? 24 hours earlier?). I asked why he couldn't stay with Dan. He said that he wasn't going back to the place that he usually stays and those people didn't know him either.

After much wrangling, I just caved. Dan promised me he would come pick my son up tomorrow (ie today). My son was a little drunk, very depressed and said that he couldn't manage the streets without someone like Dan to help him. And even Dan didn't want to do that. Dan kept telling him he was drinking too much and he didn't now what to do with him. He said nobody wants him around. I told him that his behaviors when he is using make him obnoxious. He, like all sociopaths, can be very charming and witty when he is clean.

This morning he said he wanted me to take him to the ER after I get off from work (I said I'd do it before-tho work is starting to get a little p.o'd with my absences) because he wanted to check him into the psychiatric ward. He says he is tired of living and I believe him. He said he would just sleep all day.

In reality, he needs a place to crash until I take him to Colorado. But I'm really just doing that so I can get him out of my hair. I am a coward. His father is a real problem solver and not emotionally vulnerable as I am.

So I did it again. I don't even know how to describe this. Beyond bizarre and absurd. Ridiculous, masochistic. I am the only one who can stop it, but I keep taking two steps forward and one step back. Will I be able to live with the guilt of dumping him? I want him out of my house. That isn't even going to BE mine, in 6 weeks.

All you wonderful people have dispensed the most practical advice, support and wisdom. Why isn't it going in my head? I just keep pulling the scab off and bleeding all over again.

 

[blackgnat]

Scent of Cedar, I think you're right about the way we handle our difficult children. I myself have NO boundaries, but I never really knew this until about two years ago. Even then, I didn't know how to make them.

I should correct that-I DO have a couple, wobbly as they are, but have so many others that are apparently invisible, worthy of being peed on, or completely negotiable...

As for feeling that I have failed my child, call me the Grand Poobah of THAT! That's when I know I am a control freak and am making it all about ME and how I want things to be. Didn't know THAT until recently, either!

Despite this, I'm a pretty happy person, honestly quite optimistic about everything else. Though I'm sure that'd be classified as denial. (Sigh) Sometimes though I think, well so WHAT if I'm in denial? If THAT'S my coping mechanism and it gets me through the day, is that SO bad?

 

[recoveringenabler]

OK, first and foremost here, you have got to stop beating yourself up, right now! This is the hardest thing any of us parents have to do, so adding self abuse to your plate is not useful. As the therapists in the codependency program told us over and over again, you do what you do for as long as you do and then you don't. It's hard. It's a process. There is nothing wrong with you, you are a parent! We all take one step forward and one step back, if we didn't, we wouldn't need this board, we would all just do it and be done! We need the support of each other so we can learn how to detach and let go. There is no make wrong, judgment or criticism here, unfortunately, you are doing that to yourself.

In the face of the information you received last night about your son, any one of us may have made the same choice, our love for our children far outweighs any logical choices at times. I've done all the same things. I think we all have to some degree. So, if you stop beating yourself up and recognize this as the hard journey it is and allow yourself to simply respond as you do when you do and begin the process of learning a different way to respond, you'll make it a lot easier on yourself.

You are not a coward. You are caught in the fog of loving him and enabling him and detaching from him. That's a tough place to be. Be gentle with yourself as you learn a new way. Be kind to yourself. Learn a different way of caring for YOU. Part of the issue is that you've been focused on him for too long you've forgotten how to nurture yourself. Please stop being so hard on yourself.

Is Colorado where his dad lives? And, he's going to stay with his dad now? How much longer will he be in your area? Did you get him to the ER this morning?

 

[Tiredof33]

I enjoy RE's posts very much. She has been kind enough to share the info she learned through a year long class, and her experience. THANK YOU!!

These children are extremely manipulative, and as has been stated before, they know what buttons to push. It is so painful to think our children are hurting. We are hard wired to put them first - they want to be taken care of - they do not want the responsibilities of being an adult.

in my opinion, a true difficult child is not going to change until they have to. I have relatives that are 35 through 50 that are still living at home, unemployed, because the parents let them.

BUT, as much as we all know what we have to do, it is still painful! I firmly believe that one day you will reach a point of saying to yourself, NO MORE. Then, and only then, will you be able to say no and mean it.

Some people reach this point before others, it took me a long time. Looking back on what my son has put me through I wished I had said no and stuck with it long (years) ago. Guilt always made me give in. Getting over the guilt is huge.

My son knew I was not going to let him go hungry, I could finally tolerate homeless, but not hungry. Once I found out I had been giving him money for food, paying for new eye glasses (that he broke in less than 2 weeks when they had a fight and he threw them down and broke them) and I was actually thinking of getting a part time job to help him finish school. HE WASN'T GOING THAT SEMESTER - THEY WERE PARTYING WITH MY MONEY!

That was my breaking point - I felt like a fool for falling for his conn again - yours will come - as RE stated - stop beating yourself up - do some things for you.

I wish I could tell you that after my son understood I meant NO MORE things were perfect - he has been NC for about 6 months and it gets easier - but they are our children and we love them - part of us will always want to reach out and make it better for them. If we only could - we can't - only they can make it better for themselves.

With time, I have come to accept this is how my son may be for the rest of his life - I can't continue with this - I have a right to a life too. My health is improving and most of my days are so much calmer now. I still have days where I need to be reassured I am doing the right thing - that's when I come here for support. I also want to help others as they have helped me.
(((hugs and blessings for us all)))

 

[nerfherder]

OK, lemme put on my New Jersey accent.

Blackgnat, y'aint a coward. A coward wouldn't ever be reading this forum to begin with. You got a boy who knows how to get what he wants, even if it means getting wasted so's he can be all vulnerable. He's figured out how to get people who want to be his mommy, or daddy, or whatever, to have someone like him so they can feel their existence is justified. He's the coward, he's the one giving up that final level of control, the kind you got to work at and MAKE work. It's so much easier to do it his way.

Sounds like his friend Dan has just about had enough. So he goes to the link in the chain higher than him, but unfortunately that's you.

RE had it right. Sometimes we go two steps forward, one step back, and sometimes we stumble backwards a lot further than that one step 'cause someone left something on the floor behind us. But you're aware, you know what you need to do, and you're looking at how to fix yourself. That's pretty awesome right there. And his behavior plus your helping is risking your job, but does he care? Nuh uh.

"I love you and (not but!!!) I can't help you anymore." If he wants to be a Flying Walenda, he needs to know that there's some places you just can't string a safety net.

 

[blackgnat]

You're all so right-I've been doing this dance for so long that I don't even KNOW what my needs are. I don't know how to take care of myself without having that underlying anxiety that somewhere and some time, he will resurface and I will have to face those agonies of letting him fail, or compromising my own well being by caving.

I don't yet know how to let go. When he was at the Mission, the actual distance between us was very healing. I guess I'm expecting the same to happen when I take him to Colorado. That's where his dad and brother live. Thing is, his brother, who is 2 years younger and doing well, has already had a bellyful of his brother. He only moved to Colorado in February so by me taking my difficult child there, I feel like I'm sabotaging my younger son's life. He had to grow up with all the attention being on his brother.

Anyway, I took him to the psychiatric hospital yesterday and they admitted him. I just dropped him off and he wanted to know if I was going to wait! It's never enough, is it? I said no . He called me last night and wanted to know if I could visit him. He's not LISTENING to me!

But that's really nothing new. As long as HIS needs are met, everything is up for negotiation...

 

[scent of cedar]

I am glad your son is somewhere he can receive the help he needs.

Sending gentle hugs, blackgnat. You have been through so much....

Barbara

P.S. When someone writes a post which seems especially relevant for me, I respond by quoting the parts that resonated with me the first time I read it. It would be helpful, I think, if you were to go back to Recovering's post to you on this thread. The one about being gentler with yourself? I think that will help you, now.

 

[blackgnat]

Thank you so much for the good vibes.

He called me today and is now on FOUR medications, instead of the two that he is supposed to take, but doesn't .

Apparently, a side effect from one of these medications is, " a rash that could be fatal". Okkkkkaaaayyyy.

He asked me if Dan had called and I had to say no. (Thinking -in my rescuing way-omg, he is going to know that this person doesn't value him....) and he said , "Well I want to get some more ink before I go to Colorado and Dan said he would do it, for a little bit of money." (Dan is a tattoo artist)

I thought, "Where is this money is coming from? What are you prepared to do for it?" (Even though I know the answer....) but I said, "That's the least of your problems, son".

It is statements like this that help me in my grounding process.....Really? You are on two more psychiatric medications and you can only think about whether you will be able to get this guy to give you more tattoos? For a little bit of money?

Ayayayayay.

 

[welcometowitsend]

Blackgnat - I guess the positive for right now is that he is in hospital and on medication and hopefully getting some much-needed therapy.

I can certainly understand you desire to leave him in Colorado with the hopes that he can have a fresh start. But also your trepidation about leaving him there and the effect is may have on your other son.

If he is willing to stay in the hospital and get help would that be an option? It doesn't sound like he has any intention of changing at this point whether he remains in your town or in Colorado. I'm wondering if therapy and medications might help change that thinking and THEN he could be flown to Colorado for a fresh start.

Hugs to you. Stay strong, you are doing the right thing.