Still Screaming Inside

I am jumping ahead in the timeline of events.  This blog was meant as a way for me to share my feelings about having a child who is an addict and what it is like to be a mom who wants to scream, but just keeps it all inside, instead. 

Lately, I have been doing a lot of that. 

I will keep writing about everything that has happened, too.  But, today is just one of those days where a lot of feelings and emotions are at the surface. 

Do you ever hear songs on the radio or playlists that seem to be just what you did or did not need to hear that day?  

Sweet Child of Mine by Guns and Roses is one of those songs.  Sometimes it brings back good memories of my son as we listened to music while driving in the truck together and other times it makes me miss him like crazy. 

Hotel California by the Eagles used to be one of my favorite songs.    I had never really thought about the lyrics, though, until my son became a drug addict.  As time went on, the last two lines of the song touched a chord in me and I wonder if the writers intended them to mean what I think they do. 

                The lines are:  “You can check out any time you like
                                                 But, you can never leave.”

Those words are a pretty good description of drug addiction.  Once someone is addicted, even if they get sober, they will always be an addict and will always be a guest at the “hotel”. 

Or it could even be worse. 

My son went from being a guest at the hotel, to establishing a long time residency.    I didn’t even know that it could get as bad as it has.   After the inpatient portion of rehab when he was just 14 years old, he was still bitter and angry at us.  Over the next few months of outpatient treatment and family therapy, he seemed to change and acted like he wanted more out of life than drugs.  When we went on a mother/son exploring and hiking adventure, we talked late into the night.  The positive plans that he shared with me about his future were amazing and I began to have a little bit of hope that my son would be one of the success stories.

 At group meetings while in rehab, he talked about his drug use up to that point and the extent of his usage was quite surprising to us.  These revelations convinced us that he clearly needed the intervention that had taken place.   Once, he shared that he would never ‘do heroin or meth because they really can mess you up’ and that he never would drink because he didn’t like how alcohol made him feel.   I optimistically began to think that everything could really work out for him.   I  just have never been able to completely give up on him, even though he has relapsed repeatedly and each time it has gotten worse.  There have been so many more bad times than good over the last several years.   And, now my worst nightmare has come true.  He has gone on to use LSD, cocaine, meth, and heroin and I have seen what these drugs have done to destroy his mind, body, and soul.   Over the last few years he has used heroin so extensively that he resorted to constant lying and even stealing from us to try to get the money that he needed for his drugs.  

I wanted to believe what he said and trust his promises, but the reality is that you just can’t naively believe and trust an addict, whether is 14 or 24.  He also is a good actor and he is a very, very good manipulator.  Keeping my heart open and believing that what he was doing or saying was real and honest, has ultimately caused me to feel like my entire soul was being crushed with disappointment and loss. 

I can’t even wrap my head around what drugs have done to him and what they have done to our family and relationships.  He is my child and I feel like I love him unconditionally, but do I love him no matter what he does?  Yes, I do.  I will never stop loving him.  But, I don't think unconditional love can be a real thing when you are the parent of an addict.  Do I accept him as he is?  No, I do not.  He has only been sober for a few months at a time on and off for the last 11 years.   Drug use has turned him into someone that I don’t even know, anymore.  Some of the things that he has done have made me afraid of being alone with him at our home.  This means that he can’t stay with us when he has nowhere else to go.   I can't accept his using, the horrible coarse language, and even his smoking.  I am angry at the manipulating, lies, deception, and the dark path that he has let himself go down.  

It upsets me that he has burned bridges with friends and professionals who were willing to do all that they could to help him.  Now, they have been forced to shut him out of their lives in order to protect themselves and their families.   If he wants to get off the destructive path that he is on and check out of the “hotel”, he does not have the tools or resources that he needs to be able to do it.  It is hard to accept that he has turned his back on all of the people who wanted to help him.  If he had only accepted rehab and sober living one of the many times that it was offered in the last several years, maybe things wouldn’t have gotten as bad as they have for him.  And for us.   

I will always wish that he could be a part of our family again.  I want to laugh with him, do fun things with him, and see him have a good relationship with his dad, brother, sister, and nieces and nephews.   Right now, there is no way that he can be around his nieces and nephews.  My other two children don’t want their kids to see their uncle on drugs or coming off them.  They don’t trust him and they are angry with him.  My son doesn’t even like to talk about him or hear his name.  My daughter has thrown up her hands and said that she can’t be an intermediary anymore because it is too hard on her.  They are both tired of seeing him hurt us, use us, and tear our lives apart.  And yet, deep down, they still have a soft spot for him.  My older son has occasionally agreed to drive his little brother somewhere and buy him something to eat.  My daughter laughs at fun memories of him as a child.   Then she cries because of where he is at now. 

I cry a lot.  I think my husband cries more than I do.  We both have periods of anxiety and depression related to the feelings we have about the situation.  Things hit us at crazy moments that cause us to ‘lose it’.  Yesterday, I needed gloves to pull weeds.  I grabbed the leather pair that my son wore last summer while he worked in the back yard and immediately felt the tears welling up—just from holding a pair of gloves in my hand.  I thought about some of the fun times that we had working together, planning, talking, laughing, and joking around.   The backyard project was going to be hard, but he seemed glad to be able to help me with it.  I was happy to have him around.  Nothing makes me happier than to spend time with each of my children.  The summer of work and camaraderie lasted about 45 days and then we experienced one of the worst traumas of our lives.  

The consequences of that period of time have not ended for any of us, especially him.

It feels like we have lost him, permanently.  I find myself grieving as if he has died.  It seems very unlikely that he will ever be a part of our lives again.  He blames us for his current situation and takes no responsibility for his choices or actions.  We know that the years of continued drug use and heavy heroin usage during the last few years have taken their toll on his mental state.   He has said and done things that are unbelievable and are going to be hard to ever get over.  I don’t know how we will be able to heal from this.  He still refuses to accept help and may never get better.  In addition to advocating for rehab and sober living, we have now had to advocate for mental health help.  We have repeatedly pushed and asked and no one listens.  Time goes by and the system that he is stuck in just lets his mental health slip through the cracks as if it is not important.  These ciircumstances are out of our control and nothing is working in his favor.  He probably will never forgive us for his current circumstances and has said that we are not his parents, that we are the worst thing that has ever happened to him, and that he will pay us back for this. 

Sometimes, I feel as if I can’t forgive myself, either.  What if I hadn’t done this particular thing?  What if I had done that, instead?  I keep ‘shoulding’ on myself, trying to go back in time, and rethinking about what I could have done differently so that none of this would have happened.  I know it doesn’t help to do that, but it is impossible to stop my mind from going there.  It tears me apart and the questions don’t let me have any peace. 

Why, why, why has nothing worked out for him?  Why does he have to go through this?  His life began with battles that he had no control over.  He was born addicted to drugs.  He was abandoned by his birth mother.   He has extremely poor vision.  A condition called "slow proecssing speed" kept him from doing well in school, even though he is very smart.  Instead of being diagnosed with Attention Deficit Disorder, he was labeled as having Motiviational Deficit Disorder by psychologists.  He is oppositional defiant and has always battled with us over parental control.  With a pre-disposition to addiction, it seemed so unfair that he had to even begin to use drugs.  He didn’t think anything was wrong with marijuana and that it wasn’t a gateway drug.  Now he is an addict.  Why did everything have to be so hard for him? 

We were overjoyed when he was given to us.  We adopted him with high hopes and dreams.  We only wanted the very best for him.  And everything that we have ever done for him was to try to help him have that.  This kid was more loved and had more people in his corner than you could possibly imagine.   Everyone delighted in him and loved watching him learn and grow.  He was the cutest, smartest, craziest, most extremely stubborn and determined child that I knew.   We adored him.

And now, it is killing us that things have turned out this way.  I am tired of hearing that it is a learning experience and that we will be stronger because of it.  It definitely does not seem like it is making us stronger.  It is hard to feel strong when you are falling apart.  I don't know what kind of wisdom I have gained that I could share with others.  I wish someone could give me some wise counsel that would help the hurt go away and help me know what to do.  Nobody knows what to say or how to help us.  I don’t even know how to help myself.  I wish I knew what to do for my husband.  He is struggling very much.   

I am certain that our son is hurting and feels very alone.  I have prayed for angels, friends, and grandparents who have gone to 'the other side' to be with him and to help him feel loved and cared about because our hands are tied and we can't do anything to help him.   

I don’t know when he will even be able to make decisions for himself again.  

If that time comes, I want him to be willing to do whatever he has to do to have a good, clean, sober, successful, and happy life.

I really hope it will happen sooner than later.

And, I have to accept that I might not ever get the chance to see it.

Or him, again.

I AM BACK

Without meaning to, I took a break from writing.  It has been quite a few years since I last wrote about my son.  It started to feel like writing about my son wasn’t helping my inner peace as much as I wanted it to.  After I finished a blog post, I was down and depressed.  That wasn’t supposed to happen.  My writing was meant to help me express my feelings, hopefully help others by sharing our story, and I wanted to be able to eventually show that a successful outcome was possible.  But we have had more ups and downs than I could have even imagined in the last several years.  Anger and addiction have not released their holds on our son and it has gotten really hard to even know how to deal with everything that comes up, let alone share details about it.  A few months ago, something awful happened and it made me realize that I do really need to keep writing.  I can’t keep all of this bottled up inside.  I wish I still wasn’t the mom screaming inside, but here I go again.

May 2014.

He had a broken arm, a new job, a place to stay, food, some computer time, and rides to work.  He had everything a seventeen year old could want.  And he wasn’t happy.  He constantly berated me, swore at me, called me names, and tried to pick fights.  I began to feel so bad about myself that I felt desperate and emotional all the time. In most instances, my husband felt just like I did.  In many ways, he was treated even worse than I was.

I told my friend, “I feel so bad.  He says horrible things to me whenever he doesn’t get what he wants, tells me what a bad parent I have been, and calls me terrible names.  I know I am not supposed to let him get to me and am not supposed to believe all of the things that he says about me, but hearing it over and over gets inside my head and makes me feel like I am an awful person.  When a blow up happens with him, he spins it around to where everything is my fault, making sure that I know that I am the worst kind of person, and that he is the way he is--because of me.  I just can’t stand it, anymore.  If I could disappear, I would.  I hate being in the house with him and feel like this constant negativity consumes about 80% of my life.  If it weren’t for my grandkids, my other two children, my husband, and my friends, I would hate 100% of my life.  I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I am constantly being verbally abused by him and that the only thing I can do is stay as far away from him as possible.  What kind of life is that?”

It was pretty hard to take days like this: 

Everything started with him waking up and demanding that I pay him to do chores because he needed some money.  He needed $32.00 immediately and wanted to do the chores over time because he thought he wouldn't be able to do every job that it would take to earn enough money in one day.  No matter how many times I told him that I would not give him chores to earn money, he would not let it drop.  One of the rules that he had been given to be allowed to live here was that he was not supposed to ask for money in any way; for any reason.  I pointed out that it was a house rule and that I was not going to change it for him.  He told me that as his mother, I should want him to have money so that he could have fun over the weekend. 

I reminded him that he already owed us a lot of money and that giving him more would just add to his debt.  We had gotten his electric guitar out of the pawn shop so that he wouldn’t lose it, but also weren’t going to let him have it until he earned the money to pay us back.  He said he was never going to pay us for the guitar because we had ruined all of the hopes and dreams that he had as far as his guitar was concerned (apparently, by not letting him have his electric guitar back on the weekend that he had a chance to join a band with the greatest drummer that he has ever seen).  

I said, “You are the one who moved out because you couldn’t live by our rules.  You pawned your guitar.  You wanted to be able to smoke pot.  We had nothing to do with your hopes and dreams being destroyed.  You did that all on your own and you can’t blame me for that.” 

Of course, that made him mad and he said, “You would think my f***ing mom would do something nice for her kid and give me some money!”  Hearing him use the f-bomb with the word ‘Mom’ made ME so angry!  I was tired of hearing it all the time.  I turned around and said in my upset mom voice-- with the tone that he perceives as yelling-- “Don’t call me your f***ing mom!  I am your MOM, but I am not an f***ing mom!”   But, he exploded in the middle of my words and did not hear the part about my not wanting him to use that horrible adjective in association with my name anymore.  He took my exclamation out of proportion in his usual irrational way and said that I finally admitted after all of these years that I am not his mom and he yelled “Thanks a lot you f***ing b**** and punched a hole in the wall.   

He wouldn’t listen when I told him that was not what I meant and he knew it.  I just wanted him to STOP swearing at me and calling me names and f-bombing me. He was upset and began to yell at me right in my face.  I tried to get away from him and pushed him back.  But, as I pushed, he did a Tae Kwon Do downward thrust on my arms.  His guitar string bracelet caused a long red scratch on my arm. 

I ran up the stairs to lock myself in my room, but when I tried to close the door, he put his foot in it and then my door broke.  Of course, he blamed me and told me that it was my fault for slamming his foot in the door and he stormed back down the stairs.  I tried to call my husband.  He didn’t answer, so I called my older son and told him I needed help.  He said he was coming, but I felt like I had to get away, so I grabbed my keys and ran out to my truck and locked the doors.  I was out there in the driveway when my son came charging out of the house yelling at me to just give him some money so that he could leave.  I cracked the window a little bit and said, “No. You called me names, you hurt me, you punched a hole in the wall, and you broke my door. There is no way I am giving you money, loaning you money, or letting you earn money. Right now, you are out of control and you just need to go somewhere else and calm down.” 

He almost broke the window on my truck trying to shove his arm inside to unlock the door. When I tried to drive away, he screamed at me that I was trying to break his arm.   I didn’t like having this all go on outside where the neighbors could witness it, but luckily my older son arrived and got him away from my truck.

I could hear him telling his little brother to just go away and leave me alone.  But, he said, “All I wanted was for her to give me some f***ing money!  If YOU asked her for money, she would give it to you.  She doesn’t even treat me like I am her child.  I am just a dog that she got at the pound.  She would return me if she could.  She would treat a dog better than she treats me.  She is not my f***ing mom.”  He threw his phone at me and told me that he didn’t want anything I had ever given him, again.  

My older son is very good at keeping his cool and he just told his brother that what he was saying was a bunch of bull and he helped me get into the house.  

He said, “Mom, we can’t just let him get away with this.  He damaged your house, hurt you, and something has to make him stop.  I am sorry that I have to do this, but I really feel like I have to call the police.”

We wouldn't let my son come back in the house.  It seemed like he was going to leave, but he walked away, came back, yelled, walked away, came back, and yelled some more over and over again.  Finally, he just stood on the porch pounding on the door and screaming at us to give him back his phone. 

When the police arrived, they found him at the front door and they handcuffed him.  I had to answer all of their questions and I felt like I couldn’t remember what happened first, last, second, or when and where. 

When he told his story to the police, he tried to blame me for freaking out when he said that I was ruining his life and that I had told him I wasn’t his mom and that all he was trying to do was get his phone so that he could leave.  They lectured him about his behavior and told him that he owed me an apology.  He was given a ticket for criminal mischief and they took him to youth services.   

Great.  That was helpful.  The Youth Service Center is not like juvenile detention.  As soon as the police drop a kid off there, they immediately call you and tell you to come and pick him up.  It doesn’t do anything but let a few hours pass by so that people can calm down. 

Sure enough, within about an hour, my husband and I received the phone call.  But, we said that we would not come and get him without speaking with a mediator first.  That gave us a few extra hours to have a little break from the drama while they tracked down a social worker.   

He was so combative during the meeting that nothing really got resolved.  He just blamed the whole incident on me.  He said that if his f***ing ‘mom’ would have just been nice enough to give him some money to take his girlfriend out to dinner for her birthday, we wouldn’t be having this discussion right now.  A few hours hadn't made a difference in his attitude.  Nothing was going to change his way of thinking.  The social worker just gave up and we had to leave with him. 

As soon as we got back to our house, he grabbed his bike and rode off. 

He did not come back that night.

And that was okay.