Someone might think that being taken away by the police and having criminal mischief charges added to all of his other drug paraphernalia charges would do something to change his attitude, but it didn’t.
Nothing got better.
Within one or two
days, I told my sister, “I can’t take it anymore. I feel like I am constantly being verbally
abused and the only thing I can do is stay as far away from him as possible.” I didn’t want to be in my own house. It was getting really hard to handle getting
beat up emotionally every day. I wanted
him to move out, but then when he WOULD take off for a few days, I worried about him and constantly wondered where he was and what he was doing.
He came back a few days after one of those disappearing acts with an eye
infection--an infection that he blamed me for.
He said it was because I never gave him contact lens solution so that he
could take his contacts out. Seriously,
it has been a constant battle with him ever since he was 12 years old to get
him to take his contacts out every night.
He never would. He would wear
them for months at a time without taking them out to clean and change
them. But, it was my fault that he had
an eye infection. It moved from one eye to the other and he missed a week of
work. That was a fun week.
On Sunday, we actually
decided to go to church to get some peace and quiet. We hadn’t gone for quite a few weeks because it is hard to feel like going to church when you are constantly getting yelled at. He was supposed to get ready to go to work
while we were gone. His eyes were still red
and he asked me what to do about it. I
told him to take a shower, put some anti-redness drops in, and get to
work. He wanted to know how he was
supposed to put his contacts in; what he would do if he went to work and they
sent him home; how was he supposed to
keep his eyes from getting red while he worked, etc., etc., etc. He didn't want to hear any of our answers or solutions. He just kept
going at us and wouldn’t stop his constant f-bombing. My husband finally got a little more upset
than usual and said that if he didn’t go to work and ended up getting fired, he
could just plan on moving out.
Immediately, our son jumped on that statement and wanted me to get him a duffle bag
so he could start packing. We ignored his request and told him that we were going to church and would be back in time to
give him a ride to work.
It was a relief to leave the house, but when we got outside, we saw our
neighbor. He seemed a little bit embarrassed to see us. There had been so much yelling in our house
that it would have been hard for him NOT to hear what had been going on. I said, “So, Jim, did you enjoy our Sunday
morning entertainment?” That broke the
ice. He said he did not know how we put
up with that and that he really admired us.
Admired. I would rather not be admired for having to deal with this impossible situation. I would rather not think of life with my son as an impossible situation.
We said we were
going to walk up to the church and that if he saw our house on fire or anything
else, to come and get us. He
laughed.
After a morning like that, we didn’t really feel like being at church, so we
just sat in the building for about 30 minutes and then went back home. Our son said he was ready for work. But, as soon as he got in the truck, he
demanded to know when he needed to move out.
We told him that if he kept his job and could treat us nicely, he didn’t
have to move out. He said that he couldn’t
possibly do anything that he wanted to do while living with us, As he got out of the truck he said that he was
going to quit his job and be gone the next day.
Two days later he left.
My grandsons and I were having a playdate one morning. We were having a good time right up until my son woke up. He demanded to know where our old Playstation was and wanted me to find it for him right then. I said that I was taking care of the boys and would not look for the Play Station until after they went home. He started to yell at me about how he needed me to find it right then, so I took the boys outside and left my poor husband alone inside with our son. The boys and I had fun playing in the water and having a picnic, but every now and then, one of the boys would hear the yelling inside the house and would say something about his uncle being ‘grumpy’. He was more than grumpy. He was absolutely horrible to my husband, screaming right into his face, following him around the house, blocking him from going into the office, and calling him all kinds of terrible names. He even said, “Sometime I am going to kill you, then I am going to kill her, and then I am going to kill myself.” Finally, he stormed out of the house with a full backpack and told me that he couldn’t stand living with us anymore.
The escalating turmoil was becoming too much to handle. I didn’t like how he acted with
the boys there and I felt very uneasy about the threat. I had no way of knowing if it would come back
to haunt me in the future, but I had a bad feeling about it. Having him out of the house was a relief and I wondered how long the respite would last.
A few days later at 7:00 a.m., he was back, acting like nothing had happened. He came in, got something to eat, took a shower,
and said he would like a ride to work.
But, as soon as he asked me to put his hair in a man-bun and it didn't look as great as he thought it should, the wrath began. Why should I even have to put his hair in a bun? It was ridiculous to be yelled at for that and it didn’t exactly make me want to take him to work, but when, I told him
to ride his bike, he demanded to be driven because there were clouds in the sky
and it might rain. And, just like every
other time, in order to get him to stop yelling, I took him to work. I made him take his bike with him because I didn’t
want him to assume that he was just automatically coming back home. I hoped that if he had his bike, he would choose to go somewhere else after work. He yelled at me all the way to Popeyes about
his hair, his bike, his job, my attitude, and everything and anything that he
could think of to yell at me about. I
told him to just shut up and his parting
shot was that I was being such a b****. It was always ME and never him.
He was supposed to go to court the next day.
I wished that I would get a chance to tell the judge, “At this point, I feel like
the son that I used to know doesn’t exist anymore. The person that he is – is selfish, mean,
angry, and uncaring. It is not good for
any of us to have him living in our home right now. Maybe if he had to live somewhere else under
the court’s authority, he could take some time to find out what he wants in his
life (besides the freedom to use drugs) and could eventually, when everyone is
ready, work on rebuilding relationships.
We would miss him and we do love him, but we don’t want to keep going
through these things with him every day.”
Of course, I didn’t get a chance to say it.
He actually made it to court without any drama and was given $675.00 in fines, 30 days in detention--suspended, and 40 hours of community service. While on probation, if he were to be caught drinking or using drugs, he would be punished in the adult system because he would be 18 by then. She told him that he had to complete the community service without any help from us and then said, “I have read the report on you and it does not make you sound like a very good person. You need to get more backbone than wishbone and learn to work for what you get and stop expecting it all to be handed to you.”
And my son said, “Yes ma’am.”
Then, came home and started yelling at
us again.
July 2014
