Worry

He really moved out. 

It made such a difference in our home’s atmosphere.   I didn’t feel like I had to walk on eggshells and I was very glad to have so much less tension around me all of the time.    

Even though he lived away from us, he had no idea of how to live independently.  The daily face to face battles diminished.  Instead, we began to have daily phone and text battles.  Every circumstance in his life revolved around us and what he could get us to do for him.  He always made us feel despised, but at the same time, he expected us to take car of bike repairs, food, rent money, rides to and from work, help paying his fines, and even being a listening ear when he felt like everything was always going wrong for him. 

We helped him out with some things and not others.  We got his bike repaired, and then he complained that the brakes didn’t feel right and he refused to ride it.   He got upset when we would only buy him things like milk and cereal, not pizza and donuts.  When we were out of town or were involved in any other activity that prevented us from giving him a ride to work, he would go on and on about how it was going to be our fault if he got fired.  Refusing to help pay his fines meant that we obviously didn’t care about him having to go to jail.   

One morning, he called me from the County Jail.   After drinking too much the previous night, he couldn’t find his apartment and tried to get into someone else’s--which led to his arrest for criminal trespass and public intoxication.  He told me that he had been drinking because he had f-d up his life and there was no hope.  He felt that now he was going to lose his job, lose his apartment, and then have nothing, and no way out. He wouldn’t divulge anything else about what had been happening to make him feel that way.    

I didn’t know what had led up to his being at the point where he would say that he had f-d up his life, but I suspected that he was probably using drugs again.  I felt quite terrified that something bad would happen to him, if he was drinking and using drugs while feeling as down as he was about his life.  It made we want to take care of him and do anything that I could to keep him safe.  At the same time, I was very angry at him and just wanted to give him a lecture about making stupid decisions.  I said a lot of things to him as we drove home, but he just closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep.  I dropped him off at the apartment without hearing a thanks or a goodbye.  

Even though he always behaved horribly toward me, I couldn’t stop worrying about him.  If I didn’t hear from him for several days, I felt scared and anxious.  Then, he would get in touch--in his usual demanding way--and I would get irritated.  But, he didn’t seem to be suffering any of the gloom and doom that he had predicted about his life, so I hoped that he was going to be all right for now. 

I already had plans to go to California to spend some time with my daughter's family  and our new baby grandson.  I was excited to go, but was nervous about leaving my husband behind to deal with our son on his own.  Every time we go somewhere, my son seems to have immediate and dire needs for help.  

So, I wasn’t totally surprised when, late one night I got a phone call from him.  He sounded really depressed and talked about how nothing was going right for him.  Once again, he said that he had no hope and nothing to live for.  Except this time, he added that he was sick and having panic attacks.  He explained that it would help if he could play his guitar, but he didn't have it anymore.  It was at a Pawn Shop.  He wanted me to pay to get his guitar released.  If I had connected the dots that night, I would have realized that he was probably in with-drawl.  I know now that when he says he is sick and having panic attacks, he has been using a lot.   It also probably meant that he needed money for more drugs or something.  By having us pay to get the guitar out of the pawn shop, he could then re-pawn it to get the money that he felt he needed.  

I finally had to tell him that I was more than happy to keep talking to him, but I couldn’t really help him in any other way because I was in California.  He got very angry because I had not informed him that I was going to be out of town and started yelling at me.  

He blamed me for not saying the right things, for not being there for him to talk to, for not listening to him, and for always getting mad at him.  He told me that it was my fault that he was unable to accomplish anything that he wanted to do in his life, and that now he wanted to just kill himself.  He wanted me to know that if he did end it all, I would be the one who caused it and I would have to live with that for the rest of my life. 

It was hard to listen to him say those things.  He was right that if he did end his life, mine would never be the same.  I wished I knew how to make him feel loved, wanted, and needed.  Throughout his life, I had done everything I could to help him have joy, purpose, goodness, and success and it was heartbreaking that he didn't realize that.    I told him that I loved him with all my heart and would help him to the best of my ability in ways that I thought were right.  He refused believe any of it.  If he would have just opened his heart, he might have been able to feel the love, care, and concern that I had for him.  But, he wanted me to hurt as much as he was hurting, so he complained, ranted, raged, blamed, and threatened.  I honestly did not know how to reach him through all of that. 

I suggested that he talk to his Dad about what was going on with him.  He informed me that my husband is worse than I am and that he never listens and could care less about helping him.   He said that if I wasn’t willing to figure out how to get his guitar out of the pawn shop, then he might as well not live anymore and that maybe he would just not do his daily check in with his court appointed case worker so that he could just go to jail and die there.   

I asked him to think about going to the mental health unit at the hospital to get some help with all of those feelings.  I told him that all he had to do was ask and his Dad would be more than willing to drive him there.  Of course, he was not willing to do that, didn’t need that, and told me that I was stupid for even suggesting it to him.  He said he just didn’t want to live anymore, didn’t want anything from me ever again, didn’t want his job, and was just sick of everything.   Again, I told him that I loved him, cared about him, and wanted the best for him.  He called me a liar and said that he knew I never loved him or wanted him and that I should plan on never hearing from him again.  Then, he hung up on me.

I called my husband and he tried to reach out to my son, but he wouldn’t answer any texts or phone calls.  He wouldn’t communicate with us and we were both worried and very sad.  

So, I spent a lot of time snuggling my new grandson and had as much fun as I could with my grandchildren--even though my heart was breaking.  

Alone at home, my husband cried a lot.

Then, he decided to get an old guitar re-strung for my son to show him that we do care about him.

And we both hoped…that we would have a chance to give it to him.  

Someday.   

Summer

 I always wonder what I did wrong or what I could have done differently to change the outcome or the direction of my son’s life.

If I could go back in time, I think I would be a more intentional parent than I was.  But, not just for my youngest child—for all of my children.  In today’s world, there is so much information readily available about parenting that it makes me think I could have done better.  Mostly, I just wanted my children to be happy.  My husband and I worked to provide opportunities for learning, growth, joy, and fun.   We did as much as we could to have great times together.    

I hoped that my children would grow up thinking that I was a good mom.

Throughout the summer that my son turned 18, I was told hundreds of times what a bad mom I was.   

The tirades and episodes of degrading blame and recrimination were endless.  No matter how hard I tried or what I did to make our home life feel calm and peaceful, nothing worked.  It felt like we were in a sad, vicious cycle of caring for our son and wanting the best for him while feeling hurt, angry, and upset at him for the things that he did and said. 

One of the things that created a big problem between us was his job—mostly the part about getting to work.  We had provided him with a nice bike for transportation and we only lived a few miles away from Popeye’s.  But, I drove him to work more often, than not.  The problem was that he demanded, expected, and wasn’t thankful for those rides.  He took me for granted and abused my time as if it wasn’t important.  If I wasn’t feeling well, had an appointment, or wasn’t even home when he needed to be driven somewhere, it didn’t matter.  In his world, his needs surmounted any other priority and if I didn’t meet those needs, he was sure to tell me how awful I was.

It happened over and over again.  Sometimes, I just did what he wanted so that he would leave me alone.  Other times, I tried to make him take responsibility for his own life and schedule and then felt like I paid a huge price for it.  

One morning, he apparently overslept, came upstairs, and started yelling at me because—obviously--was my fault.  Then, instead of getting ready for work, he spent all of his time telling me everything that was wrong with me as a mother and as a person.  He went on and on blaming me for everything and anything that he could think of that made his life so miserable.  He was stuck in one of his relentless and irrational cycles.  

I knew that he would never have been able to make it to work on time without my giving him a ride, but the last thing I wanted to do was help him or do something nice for him.  Foolishly, I did it anyway--with hopes that if I did, he would stop his tirade. 

It didn’t work.  He yelled at me during the entire 5 minute drive.  For some reason, when we got there, he refused to get out of the truck.  I had no idea what he thought he was going to gain at that point, and felt very frustrated.  I don’t know how many times I said, “Get out and go to work”, but of course he knew I couldn’t do anything to make him, so he defiantly just sat there.  Every time I tried to use my phone to call my husband for some assistance, my son tried to grab it away from me.

I needed to get away from him, so I took my keys out of the ignition, got out of the truck, and walked to Wal-Mart.  I was in my pajamas with morning hair walking through a parking lot.  I am not the kind of person who goes anywhere in public without being dressed and ready for the day, but that morning, I knew that I would rather go to a store looking like I just woke up, than sit in my truck enduring a never-ending battle.  I called my husband and told him that I needed him to come and get me because our son wouldn’t get out of the truck.    

Then, I just stood near the Wal-Mart entrance, wishing that I was invisible.  When my husband picked me up, he said that he saw our son smoking behind the Popeye’s dumpster.  I got in the driver’s seat and drove us back toward Popeye’s.  My husband jumped out, quickly slipped inside my truck, and drove away without any drama from behind the dumpster.   As soon as my son realized that my husband was driving my truck, he started texting me. 

“I am coming to your house later today after I have to WALK back home.”
“I am GETTING my belongings.  If your husband won’t let me, I am getting them anyway.”
“Tell your f-ing husband that after I get off work, I am coming with a ___ ___police escort to get my stuff.  So tell him to be there.  Or if I have to get it without the police escort on my own time, I don’t think you will enjoy it as much.”

My husband was also receiving the same kind of mean and threatening text messages, so we decided to pack all of our son’s clothes and necessities into big trash bags.  We put them into the Jeep parked in our driveway and left him a message that he could pick up his things whenever he wanted to—without needing to contact us in any way.  

Then, since it was a Saturday, we left and drove up to the mountains.

We needed to try to escape the madness of our lives.

It was hard to enjoy being in one of our favorite places.

But we tried.