We had a short
meeting with the Probation Officer the day after he was released from the psych
unit. He was informed of his right to
have an attorney, of the charges against him, and of what to expect when he had
his court hearing. He was told that he
needed to be enrolled in school by the time of his hearing. The therapist at the psych unit also wrote a
letter to the school stating that it was in our son's best mental health interest to be enrolled as soon as possible.
We went to the
High School and met with his counselor. This counselor had worked with us during his
sophomore year. He rarely took advantage
of anything that she tried to do for him.
And, since he had switched schools, going to the school meant to help
students who struggle, and hadn’t made an effort to succeed there, she didn’t
seem very excited to see him back at her school. She told us that it was too late in the
quarter to earn any credit and that we should wait until the next quarter
started. I said, “There are quite a few
reasons that he needs to be in school, but in particular, he is going to appear
in court in a few weeks and the Probation Officer wants him to be enrolled in
school by then.” When she heard that,
she left the room to go talk to the Vice Principal.
As soon as we
were alone in her office, my son exclaimed, “I am not going to go to school if
I can’t get any credit! That is really
stupid.”
As if it was smart to purposely fail all of his classes during the previous two quarters at
school.
The V.P. tried to tell my son how important it was to
take advantage of the educational opportunity that he was being given and of how essential it was to have a diploma.
But, the only thing that my son could concentrate on was the fact that
he wasn’t going to earn any credit during the rest of the quarter. As time went on he just got more and more
angry.
On our way back
to the counselor’s office, my son told me that that he was re-thinking this
whole going to school thing.
As if he had a
choice.
He still thought
he should be in total control of his life, even though all of his decisions lately
had led to losing most of his free agency.
After the schedule was set up, it was time for the last class period
of the day to start. The counselor told
him to head to class and he said, “No, I am starting school on Monday.”
She informed
him that he was officially registered and from that moment on, he would be
marked absent if he missed a class. He still
refused. She went to get the Vice
Principal and while she was gone, he turned on me, f-bombing me, and accusing me
of setting him up to have to stay at school for the rest of the day.
That is what
happens to me in almost every situation with him that he doesn’t like. I am blamed for things that I don’t even do
or say. Even after the Vice
Principal talked to him, he would not go to his class. He did not care whether he was marked absent
or not.
He was still upset that afternoon when the DCFS therapist came to see how things were
going. Of course, the topic of school
came up. Our son told him that he was
going back on Monday, but that it was a waste of time. The therapist pointed out that part of school is socializing
and making friends and that would be good for him to start doing.
Our son stated, “I won’t be socializing or making friends.
I will go to school. I will come
right home. I won’t have any
friends. I will have nothing in my life
until I can move out in 18 months.”
I wanted to know
why he thought he couldn’t make friends and socialize.
His angrily answered,
“You will never like my friends. You
have never liked my friends. The only
friends I will have are friends who smoke pot.
Those are the people that I like.
And since that is not going to change, you won’t like my friends, and I
will never be able to have any.”
That was unfair
of him to say because I did like most of his friends quite a bit until they
started smoking pot with him. Then, I
was just as disappointed in them as I was in my own son. I told him that I didn’t want to fight with
him about whether he could make good non-drug using friends or not.
His answer to that
was, “I am not fighting with you, but if you want to fight, we sure as hell can
fight. I am ready.”
The DCFS
therapist told him that I didn't mean I wanted to fight, that I meant it wasn't something we should be arguing about and he tried to diffuse the situation. It was futile. As usual, once my son gets the feeling that he has been wronged in some way, he won't let it go.
I hoped that
maybe after 10 days in the psych unit, and with all of this family therapy we were having, that we
could start to get along better. But, it
seemed to me that my son was going to continue to be angry at me, my husband, and everyone
and everything that dared to interfere with his life plan--to move out and start smoking pot again without having to live by anyone’s rules.
He was just biding his time until then.
