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. 

Broken Arm

By everything left unspoken, our son continued to stay at our home and we found ourselves constantly walking on egg shells around him--trying to avoid conflict.  It never seemed to work.  

One morning, I was working in our office,  when he came to me and asked if he could have a ride to the skate park.  I told him that I couldn’t take him anywhere until I finished what I was working on. 

Then, the barrage became relentless the entire time that I was trying to finish my work and get ready:  “You have to hurry…  You are making me late…   Will you put my hair in a pony tail?  It doesn’t look right.  Look at all the hair that you didn’t get in it.  I look like a heroin addict today because my hair looks so stupid…  Well, there is no way I can go to Applebee’s to apply for a job looking like this…  Are you almost done?  I was supposed to be there an hour and a half ago…  I can’t find my I.D.  That is just great.  Now what am I going to do without an I.D?”  (It was in the pocket of a pair of his pants).

It was like being with a five year old who has no capacity for patience.  And he was trying MY patience to the point that I wondered if he was purposely goading me into starting a battle.   I was biting my tongue and holding my breath and doing everything I could to keep my cool even though having him want to be in charge of my time schedule was driving me crazy.

I finally was able to drop him off, but of course, in addition to all of the things that I had done so far that day to ruin his life, I topped the morning off when I wouldn’t give him any money for lunch.  He got out and slammed the truck door shut without so much as a “see you later.”

We hadn’t heard from him all day and by that evening, I was more than happy to have some precious “away” time with my husband.  We went out to dinner and had just started to eat our meal when my husband’s phone began to ring and we “missed” 20 phone calls from our son. 

When the phone kept ringing and ringing, it seemed like we might as well just answer his call and find out what was so urgent, even though we would have liked to continue our dinner without the drama that was possibly coming our way.  As soon as my husband said hello, our son colorfully said, “If you cared at all to answer your f-ing phone when your son calls, then you would have found out half an hour ago that I fell at the skate park and broke my f-ing arm.  It is raining and it would be really nice if my “parents” could tear themselves away from whatever they are doing to come and get me.”  When my husband tried to get a word in to ask if the arm was broken or just bruised, our son accused him of being "snippy" with him.

We hurried to finish our meal and then picked him up at a grocery store where he had gone to get out of the tiny bit of rain that had started to come down.  The grocery store happened to be right next to an Insta-care, so I told him that I needed to look at his arm to determine if we needed to stop in at that Insta-care to get an x-ray.    

He was so mad at us for having the nerve to finish eating before we came to get him (even though we DID skip dessert) that he wouldn’t let me look at his arm and refused to see a doctor.  He said, "If you could just be NICE parents and buy me a a Little Caesar’s pizza (since I haven't had anything to eat all day), then, you could just take me home and leave me the hell alone."   

Wanting to avoid one more thing for him to get upset about, we actually did stop to pick up a pizza. 

When he got what he wanted, instead of being a little bit grateful, he unleashed his anger again about the events of the night as if it were our fault that he had hurt his arm and as if he needed to prove that we were terrible parents for thinking he was lying about breaking his arm and making him wait as long as we did before we picked him up.      

It wouldn’t have mattered if we had been five minutes away when he called, he still would have found a reason to take everything out on us.  Even though it was pointless to try to defend ourselves, we told him that we came as soon as we could and that even though OUR meal been cut short, we had just willingly bought HIM a meal and that maybe he should be thankful instead of angry.  When he wouldn't drop it, we suggested that if didn’t want to show any appreciation for what we are able to do for him, then maybe he should stop asking us to do things for him. 

He agreed that he would never ask us for anything.

Again.

At home, he didn’t seem to be in a lot of pain and wouldn't even take the Ibuprofen that I set out for him. 

But, the next morning, he knocked on my bedroom door and said that he thought he probably DID need to go to the doctor.   He finally let me look at his elbow and it was really swollen and he said it hurt really bad.  He wanted to know when I would be able to take him and I told him that I could be ready in about one hour.

 

He said that was okay and then as he turned to leave my room, he told me that I needed to tell his dad to get off the computer so that he could use it while he waited.  I said, “YOU can go ask him if you can use the computer while you are waiting.”

He replied, “He is a dick and will keep using it as long as possible just so that I can't.”  This was as far from the truth as it could get.  If he had asked my husband to use the computer, my husband would have gotten out of the office as soon as possible, just to avoid another fight.

I started laughing because it was so ludicrous that he would say that about my husband, fully expecting that it would make me do what he wanted me to do.  He got angry and said, “What is so funny?  I like jokes.  Please tell me what is so f-ing funny.” 

I said, “That you seriously think that if you call your dad a dick and say awful things about him that I will go ask him to let you use the computer.”

I guess the only thing that he could do with my explanation was get angrier.  I was sitting there in my bed waiting for him to get out of my room so that I could get dressed and ready to take him to the doctor and he wouldn’t stop going on and on with his tirade about how badly I treated him.  After all, he simply wanted to watch some shows on the internet while he ate breakfast and I should have wanted to help him do that.   

I grabbed my phone and began sending text after text to my husband to tell him to come upstairs and rescue me (even though he should have been able to hear that there was an angry exchange going on).   But, his phone was not with him in the office and he had no idea that I needed him. 

I finally told my son that we were finished talking and that he was more than capable of asking his father for the use of the computer.   If he felt that he couldn’t take care of that himself, then he was out of luck.  I even suggested that if he needed entertainment while he ate that he might try to read something.  

He said, “I can’t read while I eat, MOM!  I am blind and I have a broken arm.  How am I supposed to eat and hold a book right next to my face, MOM?”

I said, “Look, I just offered an alternate entertainment solution to you.  If you don’t like my suggestion, don’t do it.  Quit getting upset about it.  It is stupid to keep this conversation going.”

Then, he turned everything around and got mad at me for using the word "stupid".  He said he wasn’t allowed to tell US that what we are saying is stupid, so why should I be able to tell him that what he was saying was stupid?  I replied that I hadn’t said that what he was saying was stupid, I said that it was stupid to keep this conversation going.  But, that if I did say that something he was doing WAS stupid, I had every right to do that because I am the parent and he is the kid.

Then he left my room, went into the bathroom, and supposedly called someone to ask them to take him to the Insta-Care because wasn’t going anywhere with me after I said he was stupid and called him a kid. 

At least, without him standing there in my room, I was able to get out of bed, grab my robe, and go find my husband.    

Of course, that was a mistake.  As soon as my son heard me talking to my husband about what he had somehow missed hearing, he charged into the office with us and the tirade started all over again.  It felt like everything was spinning out of control to the point that I didn’t know what we were even fighting about anymore. 

How does agreeing to take him to the doctor turn into a blow-up?

We weren’t even begging to take him to the doctor, but he made sure to tell us that now, he wouldn’t go with us under any circumstances.  We told him that since he wasn’t 18 yet, the doctor would need our consent for treatment.  That made him even angrier because we were calling him a "kid" again.  He said he was just going to get out of our lives because we were f-ing idiots and that he would just suffer with his broken arm since we obviously didn’t care about it anyway.

We suggested one more time that he calm down enough to think about what he was doing because he probably really needed to get his arm x-rayed.

By then, I had taken all that I could take that morning and I went up to the bathroom and turned on the fan so that I couldn’t hear anything going on downstairs. 

I could tell that the arguing had picked up again, but I made myself stay upstairs.  It went on and on and I wondered what else they were arguing about when suddenly, my husband was outside the door asking me for the insurance card.

While I was getting the card out of my wallet, my husband seemed to be putting an end to any more discussion by saying, “There are only three things that I want to ask of you.  Get a job.  Don’t use drugs.  And be nice.  Do those three things and there should be no more reason to have blow-ups like the one this morning.”

Our son replied, “Well, there are only two things I ask of you and you can’t manage to do yours, so leave me the hell alone and don’t talk to me.”

I wonder what the two things that we can't manage are?    

I guess they are to leave him alone.

And don’t talk to him.

Like it would be that easy.

He's Back!

The day after Easter, he went to the skate park, but then called to see if he could stay at home again that night.  I asked him if he really had a place to stay or not, but he just lied and said that he hadn’t been able to get in touch with Alex, so he didn’t want to walk all the way to his house if he wasn’t back yet.  I thought he had probably done something to lose the opportunity to stay there, but he wasn’t admitting anything. 

After a few days of this, I felt like we were being used and manipulated again and thought we should tell him that our house didn’t have a revolving door and that he either lived here and obeyed ALL of the rules or he didn’t.  He wasn't going to be allowed to just keep coming and going at his pleasure. 

He responded with the statement that he was “thinking about coming back home.”

I asked him why he wasn’t staying at Alex’s anymore and he answered that he could still stay there if he wanted to, but that Alex’s parents were alcoholics and that it was not a good environment for him to be in if he was going to stay clean.  I think he knew that if he put it that way we would be more likely to give him another chance.   It sounded like a very responsible thing for him to say.  Later he told me that they didn't like how he kept coming and going and told him that he couldn't stay there anymore.  I felt that they probably expected him to start paying rent or contributing to the household in some way, but he wasn't doing that, so he was asked to leave.

Letting him move back in scared me to death.  I was very worried about how we would be able to get along with each other.   I didn't want to live in a house full of daily arguing and contention.

We told him that he could stay here but that we would have to go over the house rules in detail again.  My husband took care of this because I just didn’t feel like I could handle any more battles.  He made sure to point out that our son was not allowed to stay in the house alone and that if we went to the store, or an appointment, or even out of town for the weekend, he had to find somewhere else to go because he wasn’t going to be given a key to the house.  He told him that he had to be nice to us, that he couldn’t just sit around playing computer games all day, that I wasn’t going to be his taxi service, that we weren’t going to give him money, that he had to go to AA meetings, and that he had to find a job.

All of that went over really well with him.

He kept interrupting my husband, which would cause my husband to feel that he needed to repeat himself to make sure that he had been heard.  Our son started yelling at him for saying the same thing over and over again.  My husband told him he was just trying to make sure that he was understood and it kept going back and forth like that until my husband told him that if he didn’t like listening to the rules, he didn’t have to live here. 

My son came upstairs and yelled through the bedroom door telling me what a dick his dad was and wanted me to come out and drive him somewhere because it was obvious he wasn’t going to be able to stay here.  I did not comply and eventually,  I heard him downstairs arguing with my husband again.   I felt that I should just stay out of it because sometimes when I get involved, things escalate.  My son kept coming upstairs, demanding that I come out and listen to him, but then wouldn’t get what he wanted from me, and would go back downstairs and start arguing with my husband all over again.

Finally, through the door, I contributed, “If you are going to live here you have got to be willing to listen to us.  You have got to stop arguing.  If you don’t get what you want, or hear the answer that you want, or have a hard time getting something to work out the way you want it to—you can’t freak out!  You just have to accept things the way they are and leave it at that.  You can’t berate us on and on because you aren’t getting your way.  You have to accept the rules and be happy that you can stay here.”

Then, he reverted to, “Well, if you would only do this…….then I wouldn’t have to do that…….”    It always comes down to that.  I have to conform to his expectations and if I don't, it gives him permission to act like a jerk.  

His parting shot was that he was not going to ask me for anything ever again.

Famous last words.

I wanted to make him leave that night because we shouldn’t have to go through this every single day when all we were trying to do was give him a place to stay. Letting him live here didn't mean that we had to give him total control over us and our home.

We felt like we were “damned if we do and damned if we don’t.”

We let him stay at our house and then he freaks out over everything.

We don’t let him stay at our house and then he freaks out over everything.

So, why did we let him stay when it seemed like we were just in another no-win situation? 

Because that night it was raining.  No matter how awful he was acting, we couldn’t send him out into the rain with nowhere to go. 

Even though it was tempting. 

Saved by the rain.

Easter

My husband went out of town for a couple of days before Easter.  We agreed that while he was gone, we would act like we were both out of town so that I would not have to deal with any of our son's drama while he was gone.  I hoped to have some nice, peaceful alone time.  I planned to screen all my calls and just not answer if my son called me.  I felt that I deserved a break, especially since my husband was getting one. 

But, early the next afternoon, the telephone calls started.  I didn’t answer.  Later that evening, I heard from my husband.  He had been out of cell phone range all day and when he finally had a signal again, he found many missed calls from our son.  Then, he called our son back. 

He told my husband that he wanted to know if we were able to go out to dinner for Easter with him.  And then, for some unknown reason, my husband told him that HE was still out of town and wouldn’t be home for at least 4 or 5 hours and that he might be able to get me to go out to dinner with him, if he texted me. 

I had no idea what happened to the plan to let me have some peace and quiet that day and felt that I was being put in the position of having no choice but to go out to dinner with our son.  If I didn’t he would have said, “You never want to do anything with me and all I wanted to do was celebrate Easter with you.”   So, I picked him up at his park, and we went to one of the restaurants that he likes because they serve huge portions of food.  He ate like he was starving to death.  He actually seemed to be trying very hard to be pleasant.  I tried really hard, too even though I was on edge during the entire meal.  I never knew what I would say that would potentially set him off.  I gave him the Easter gifts that I had gotten for him.  He seemed happy to receive them.

But, I still wondered if he there was an alternate agenda to this little Easter dinner together.

As we left the restaurant, I asked him where he wanted me to drop him off, and he replied, “I was kind of wondering if I could spend Easter at your house.  Alex’s family is having their own Easter celebration and I don’t want to intrude on it.”  

I knew there was an agenda.

I should have been happy to have my child back at home for the holiday.  Holidays can be lonely when all of your kids are gone, right?  I was not particularly optimistic about how happy this holiday was going to be, now.  After all, we didn't have a really great track record with happiness lately.  

He was nice to my husband when he got home that night and told him that he had a good dinner with me.  Things were going fairly well.  

On Easter, as we were driving back home after visiting our grandsons so that they could show us what the Easter Bunny brought to them, our son wanted us to stop at a Carl’s Jr. to buy him lunch.  But, I didn’t want to do that.  I had just bought dinner for him the night before.  There was a big ham in the refrigerator just waiting to become our Easter dinner.  Ham was one of his favorite foods, so I thought he should have been excited about having that to eat.   However, I didn’t know that he had already made himself a midnight snack out of the ham the night before and he didn’t think he should have to eat it twice in a row, especially since we were driving right past Carl’s Jr. and how hard could it be for us to stop and buy him some food? 

When we said that we had plenty of food at home and that he was more than welcome to eat anything that he wanted when we got there, he got angry and complained that because we were so cheap, he was going to have to walk all the way to the skate park to bum a couple of dollars off someone, then walk all the way back to Carl’s Jr. to buy himself some lunch, and then walk all the way back to the skate park again.   He wouldn’t let it drop and kept trying to make a big issue out of it.  He probably thought that the more he argued, the more likely he would be to get what he wanted since it would have been easier to just buy him the food than have this become a big deal.  But, we didn't make that decision and the demands didn't stop.  

The Easter blow-up came to a head when I finally yelled at him to just shut up about it.  I said, “You can either eat our food or not, but I don’t want to hear anything else about Carl’s Jr.!  We are not going to buy you lunch today!” 

Then, he told me what I was just in case I had forgotten (calling me one of his favorite names for me).  

When we got home, I went upstairs to my room and thought that it would be better to sit up there all day than to be around my son. 

I listened to the sounds downstairs and heard him cooking food in the kitchen and heard him go into the family room to watch TV with my husband.  I guess he decided that ham twice in a row was better than nothing and better than a 10 mile walk. 

I didn’t understand why he couldn’t be courteous and pleasant and even try to show his appreciation for us letting him stay at our house instead of being demanding, rude, and disrespectful. 

The tension in the house was high every time I ventured downstairs.

So, I spent most of the day in my room, out of the line of fire. 

Having a happy Easter.

Next

Every time we encountered him in the next few weeks, we wondered why we kept trying to help him him.  He was never appreciative of it.   I guess it is just that no matter what has happened in the past, when your child acts like they need your help, you hope that you are doing the right thing and you hope that this time it will all work out. 

One day I picked him up at the park and took him to the orthodontist.  I was afraid to take him alone, so my sister came along.  She was astonished at the way he spoke to me, at his attitude, and at his manipulative tactics.  Even with her there, he was rude and abusive.  But, to me, it was so mild compared to his usual behavior that I was a little bit amused by the whole thing. Apparently, I just need a chaperone every time he is around me.  

My husband and I took him to meet with his Probation Officer concerning the “possession of drug paraphernalia in a park" charges.   The Probation Officer was very upset to see him again.  He told him that he was lucky he was still a juvenile and hoped that he got this all cleared up before he turned 18, or his parents might be visiting him in a few months between glass partitions. 

Our son didn't feel that he should be in this trouble again and informed the P/O that it was stupid that pot was illegal and the only reason he wasn’t still using it every day was because he thought he was going to be drug tested.   The P/O stated that marijuana was still illegal in the United States, period—no matter what some of the other states were doing and that just because you think something shouldn’t be illegal, doesn’t give you the right to break the law anyway.

After we left the courthouse, he ranted for 10 minutes and we couldn't say anything right.  So, when we dropped him off, he left all of the information about getting his GED and going to counseling in my truck.  Apparently, he wasn’t going to take the P/O’s advice about getting started on that so that he would look like he was trying get his life on track when he appeared before the judge a few weeks later.

Two weeks went by without any interactions and then suddenly, there he was on our doorstep with his two backpacks, begging to be able to spend the night at our house. 

I immediately wanted to say, "No, absolutely not.  The last time you stayed here we had a big blow-up and I am sick and tired of that happening every single time we are around you."   

I felt like I was between a rock and hard place.   A huge feeling of dread came over me because if he was actually here asking to stay then he really must need a place.  

But, I didn't want him to be there that night.  I told him that it wasn’t a good time for him to stay because it was my last night babysitting my grandson before his parents picked him up on their way back from their vacation in Hawaii.  He would be going home to Kansas City with them and I wanted to make every minute that I had with him as special as I could.  

Of course, I was promised that everything would be just fine and that it would really help him out to be able to use our computer to apply for some jobs and to check out the online GED program.  He also said he would like to spend time with his nephew and see his sister the next day.   I knew he was just feeding me a line, but how could I turn him away? 

Then, the next morning, he broke his promise.  Right in front of my little grandson, he lost control because his I-Pod was not working.  He was swearing and speaking in a way that was very inappropriate and he wouldn’t stop.  He kept insisting that I tell him how to fix the I-Pod even though I didn’t know anything about what was wrong it.  I said, “This is exactly why I was reluctant to let you be around me and your nephew.  I can’t have you talking like this around him.  You have to stop this now.” 

He replied, “If you weren’t acting like such a b****, I would stop.  All I want from you is to tell me what I am supposed to do if my I-Pod doesn’t start working because I need my I-Pod and I need to get it fixed right now!  If you hadn’t gotten me such a piece of sh** I-Pod, it probably would be working right now.  You should have to get me one that actually works!” 

This irrational line of thinking didn’t seem to have an ending point and since we were driving to the airport at the time, I pulled over and told him to either get out or be quiet for the rest of the drive and that he had 30 seconds to decide what he was going to do.  He refused to get out, but said, “Fine, I won’t talk to you anymore.  You never help me or, do anything for me anyway.”  

My poor grandson was so quiet in the back seat that I knew he must have been bewildered by the scene that he had been witnessing.  I am sure he had never seen anything like that in his 2 years of life.  I was so upset about my son choosing to play this game in front of this sweet little boy, that by the time we got to the airport I wanted to scream.   For the remainder of the drive, I began to sing songs to my grandson to distract him from thinking about what had just happened.  He seemed amused by it and my son, who could not listen to his I-Pod to drown me out, was pretty annoyed by it.    

Needless to say, he took off when we got back to the house without using the computer or spending time with his sister.  He also neglected to take most of his things with him.    

We didn’t see or hear from him again for a few more days.  Then, he called my husband and was very angry that I supposedly hadn’t answered my phone all day and he really needed me to bring him the backpack that he had left at our house because he needed his deodorant, clothes, and food.  I hadn’t heard a word from him for days and suddenly he was mad at me for denying him access to his deodorant.   Sometimes I just had to laugh at the things he chose to complain about.     

It is just incredible that he feels that he has the right to appear and disappear at his leisure and expected me to meet his needs at a moment’s notice, even when I had no idea that he wanted anything. 

My husband drove him to our home so that he could get his backpack.   As soon as he walked in the door he just made himself at home, took a shower, and even made some macaroni and cheese as if he were staying for awhile.  But, right after he ate, he repacked his two backpacks and walked out the door without even saying a word. 

No matter how many times I have had this experience, it is heartbreaking for me to watch him walk up the street with backpacks stuffed full of possessions on his back, not knowing where he was going. 

Not knowing when I would see him again.

Or if he was going to be all right.

Incidents of Insanity

 Day number three (after the suicide threat incident) did not get any better. 

The first thing he did when he got up late that morning was demand to use the computer.  We were holding fast to the rule that he couldn’t use the computer unless he was not smoking pot or using anything else. 

     “I want to play Starcraft.” 

“You can’t play StarCraft until you can produce a clean drug test.”

     “Drug test me, then.”

The drug test showed an error.  I usually don’t flush the urine until after I do the test (just in case I need it), but this time I did.  He refused to give me another urine sample and insisted that he was going to play StarCraft no matter what I said.

     “This is B.S.  I did my part.  It is not my fault that you screwed up the test.”

So I locked the door to the office and he yelled at me and swore at me as if that would make me change my mind. 

Since he couldn’t use the computer, he decided to play his acoustic guitar. 

     “Where are the guitar pics that I left on the table?”

“I don’t know.” 

     “Well, I didn’t move them.  You need to remember where you put them and find them for me.”

“There are two people in the house that don’t know where your guitar pics are and only one of us going to look for them.  And it isn’t me.”

Of course that didn’t go over very well with him.

While being subjected to another one of his rants, I just wanted to go to my room, lock the door, climb into bed, and hide from this insanity.

But, of course I couldn’t do that.  He would have just yelled at me through the door, or punched holes in the walls or door, or threatened to damage something just to get me to give in and do whatever he wanted me to do. 

The next thing I knew, I was being informed that his friend called and told him that the pawn shop payment of $14.00 for his pawned electric guitar was due that day and if he didn’t pay it, the guitar would be put up for sale. 

He wanted me to give him $14.00 right then and there to give to his friend.

As if anything that had gone on that day so far would have made me gladly or willingly give him money.    I said, “I won’t give you $14.00.  But, I will go with you to the pawn shop.  I'll pay to get the guitar back.  Then, I will bring it home, lock it in my room, and keep it until YOU PAY ME BACK the amount of money that I give to the pawn shop.  That way, you won’t lose your guitar if you miss a payment.” 

Instead of being glad that I was willing to do that for him, he freaked out because I wouldn’t give him $14.00.  He went right back to his position that I don’t trust him enough to give him money.  Once again, I was yelled at, berated, and f-bombed. 

This was just pure insanity. 

I sent my husband a text message and asked him to call our son to see if he could reason with him about this because I honestly felt that I just couldn’t take it anymore.  But my husband couldn’t break through the crazy wall that our son had set up for himself on this issue either.   I heard my son say, "There is no way that I will let you pay off my loan.  You'll have my guitar and then you will be sure to find some reason not to give it back to me, even if earn enough money to pay you back and there is no way in hell that I am going to take that chance.  I would rather have the chance of never getting it back from the pawn shop than trust you to give it back to me."  Then, he hung up on his dad and threw his phone at me.

His Dad kept trying to call him back, but of course he couldn’t answer because I had his phone.  I sent a text message to my husband to tell him what had happened and he started trying to call me, but I couldn’t answer because my son was in my face demanding to have an adult conversation with me.

My son had the nerve to say that I needed calm down and change my tone while we talked. 

Seriously?  

He just threw his cell phone at me and I was the one who was being told to calm down?  

I said, “Sorry, but that ship has sailed.  The agitated tone of my voice is the tone you are going to hear based on the last three arguments of the day.  I am so upset and so sick of you treating me the way that you do that there is no way I am not going to sound irritated.”

His response to that was to call me a f-ing c*** again.  

At that point, the only thing that I wanted was to have him out of the house and as far away from me as possible.  I said, “You need to get out of here right now and I don’t want you to come back until your dad gets home.”

He decided that meant that I was kicking him out and resumed yelling and f-bombing me.  He told me that I was a hypocrite for kicking him out because he knew that I would call the cops on him as soon as he left telling them that he ran away even though I was the one who kicked him out.  He wouldn’t listen when I told him that I wasn’t kicking him out, he just absolutely had to leave the house for the rest of the day.

He started packing his backpack and said he was leaving forever and I would never see him again.  But, he wouldn’t shut his mouth the whole time that he was packing, so I locked myself in the office to try to get away from the abuse.  When I heard the front door slam, I looked out the window and saw him walking up the street with his backpack stuffed as full as he could get it. 

I felt as if I had just been beaten down.  

I was so tired and hurt by all of it.    

You would think that after being homeless, he would have been as happy as could be to be able to have a place to stay again and would have tried a lot harder to get along with me. 

But instead he seemed to feel exactly the opposite and just wanted to fight me about everything. 

For the next few days every time my phone rang, or I heard a text alert, left the house, or came back home, I experienced a feeling of terror that it was going to be my son on the phone or that he would be waiting outside the house for me. 

It’s not fair to be afraid of your own child.

Not fair at all.

Suicide

About one week after we had last seen or heard from our son, while at a birthday party for my husband’s 90+ year old grandmother, my cell phone rang.   When I saw who it was, I immediately took the phone to my husband because I was in the middle of organizing the party food and didn’t know what I would be getting into if I answered it.

My husband took the call outside and was gone for a long time.   I had no idea what was going on and didn't find out until later that our son was in one of his end-of-the-world states of mind.  He complained that his life was terrible, that he was tired of living in a park, tired of being hungry, tired of not having anyone who cared about him, and tired of everything going wrong for him because of us.  My husband told him that we loved and cared about him and wished things could be different so that he could live at home, but, he didn’t know what else he could do or say to help.  

Then our son dropped the bomb that he was just calling because he wanted us to know that he was going to buy a bag of dope and kill himself. 

My husband tried to reason with him, talk sense into him, give him some hope, and did everything he could think of to reassure him that we would always love him.  He re-affirmed that we would gladly welcome him home as long as he would promise to be nice, stop smoking pot, and take responsibility for himself.

Apparently, he wasn't hearing what he wanted to hear, so he hung up.

My husband didn’t know what else to do or say.  Could this have been a real suicide threat, or was it just another form of manipulation?  And, if it was manipulation, what did our son really expect to gain from it?  

The party was winding down when my phone rang again.  I answered it this time and my son said, “This might be the last time you talk to me and I just thought you should know that in case you wanted to change your mind.”

I asked, “Change my mind about what?”

He said, “I guess you need to speak with your husband and he will tell you why you are never going to hear from me again.”

I asked my husband what that meant and he whispered to me that our son was threatening to kill himself because he was tired of having nowhere to live but a park.  I asked what I was supposed to change my mind about and my husband said that he had no idea what our son wanted from us because everything he had put out there so far had been rejected.

We spent the rest of the time we were at the party wondering what we were supposed to do now.  He hadn’t really threatened suicide like this before, but we also knew that most of the time people who are going to commit suicide don’t keep calling their parents threatening to do it.  However, if anyone was not going to follow the rules of statistics, it would be our son.  

Neither one of us felt that we should give in and change OUR rules and expectations.  If we were to let him come home to lessen the chances of suicide, we had the feeling that it wouldn't take long for him to get angry and freak out when everything didn’t go his way, especially when we didn’t do exactly what HE wanted US to do.  It was a cycle we were quite familiar with and didn't really want to jump back into. 

As I cleaned up after the party, I found that there was an entire pepperoni pizza left over and thought I would see if he wanted us to bring it to him.  At least it could help to alleviate the hunger factor for the night.  We hoped that it might help his attitude in some way. 

We weren’t sure if that was the right thing to do or not.  This was a new situation for us and we got the feeling that our son was expecting us to say, “Oh, please don’t kill yourself.  Come home and eat and sleep and have your way and do whatever you want to do.”

Instead, we took him a pizza.

We are awesome parents.

He grabbed the pizza from us and told us that it was stupid that we would bring him something to eat but didn’t care enough about him to even let him sleep in our backyard and couldn’t accept him for who he was.  He walked away with the parting shot that he was not going to sleep in the park for one more f-ing night and was going to f-ing end it all and we wouldn’t ever see him again. 

We were pretty worried, but drove home and wondered what was going to happen next.

Of course, within about ten minutes, the phone rang again.

He informed us that he was coming to our house with someone so that he could get his TV and anything else that he could trade for the bag of dope that he needed to kill himself that night.  He said that we HAD to let him come in and get his things and that if we didn’t, we would be sorry. He stated that he would break into our house if he had to because he was going to do whatever it took, including beating the crap out of my husband, to get the money he needed to buy some dope.

He did not come to our house and we didn’t hear anything else from him.   

The silence was just as worrisome as the constant calling.

It might seem like we didn’t handle this situation correctly.  But, honestly, no one can understand what it felt like that night.  We didn’t know what to do.  We didn’t know what to say.  We plead, we expressed our love, we attempted to reach an understanding, and we tried to reason with him.  Nothing made a difference.

This could have been a bi-polar episode, or it could just have been a grander scale of his usual disconnected thinking.  But, what if he was serious and what would we do if he carried out his suicide threat and all we did to stop him was take him a pizza?

It seemed like there was only one thing left to try.  We hoped that we were doing something that would help our son get the the help that he obviously needed.  We called the police dispatcher’s number and told them that our son was threatening suicide and explained that he hadn’t been living at home because he didn’t like living under our rules.  We didn’t know what this phone call would accomplish, but hoped something would come out of it that would save our son that night.

After the officer found him, we received a call back from the dispatcher telling us that we needed to go to the park.   When we got there, the officer said that WE had to take our son the emergency room for a psych evaluation based on the suicide threats.  We had anticipated a trip to the hospital, but we didn’t think we would have to drive him there ourselves.  We were positive that was not a good idea, but the officer said that he didn’t have permission to leave his jurisdiction.

However, upon being informed that he was being taken to the hospital, my son became very agitated and started yelling at and f-bombing everyone-- including the police officer.   His outburst quickly landed him in handcuffs and earned him a ride to the hospital in the officer’s K-9 truck.

The officer found a marijuana pipe in our son's pocket when he searched him.  That gave him one more thing to blame us for—being given a ticket for possessing drug paraphernalia in a park.

In my opinion, the positive aspect about being cited for drug paraphernalia again was that he would soon have to appear before a judge and would be ordered to stop using marijuana.  The bad thing was that he might get a stronger sentence since it was his second drug paraphernalia offense.

I thought it would be a relief to have him at the hospital in the care of professionals.  I hoped that someone would realize that our son needed mental health help. 

But, once he arrived at the hospital, our son began to “play the game.”  He b.s.’d his way through all of the questioning, evaluating, and examining.  He claimed that he wasn’t suicidal and that he had just been joking.  

The nurse, doctor, and social worker talked to us, heard our version of what had taken place all afternoon and evening and then concluded that our son was not a danger to himself or anyone else and informed us that they intended to release him. 

We weren’t even at the hospital for very long.  It seemed that no one was interested in doing anything for us or our son.  We even begged them to hold him for 24 hours (which in some states is mandatory when someone threatens suicide) and re-evaluate him after that to determine whether he would benefit from psychiatric intervention. But we were told that there was no basis for it. 

Not only that, but the social worker actually came out to the waiting room and told us that because our son was still 17 years old, according to DCFS, we were required to take him home and if we didn’t, we could be charged with child endangerment.   We explained the situation and what led up to our son losing the privilege of staying in our home and he said, “I suggest that you ride it out for four months until he turns 18, but I guess it is your choice.” 

And that was it.  Once again, it seemed as if mental health help was completely unavailable and we were on our own.  

We didn’t want to take him home, but it sure felt as if we weren’t being given a choice in the matter.  We were quite upset and a little afraid.     

Our son and daughter-in-law met us at our house to provide some support.   They talked to their brother, tried to instill in him some feelings of love and hope and asked him to try to become the person that they knew he could be:  for himself and for his family—especially the nephews who loved and admired him without reservation.  They all cried and hugged and it was comforting to see.

I wished they could have stayed longer because as soon as they left he turned off the humble, broken-hearted act and immediately informed us that he didn’t want to be in our home and was only there because we had called the cops on him AGAIN.  He told us that he was going to do whatever he wanted to do and that we couldn’t do anything about it because he knew that we had been told that we were required to let him stay until he turned 18. 

We reiterated the house rules, specifically that he couldn’t smoke pot, couldn’t have pot on our property, and couldn’t come home smelling like pot or cigarettes and that if he didn’t want to live by those rules, we would kick him out and take our chances with DCFS and the police.

He said, “Don’t worry about it.  All I am going to do is eat and sleep here and YOU don’t ever have to talk to me again.”

We gave up even trying to make a point and just said, “You can sleep on the couch and get yourself something to eat, if you want.”  We locked all of the doors that prevent him from going into the office, the basement, and the garage, then went upstairs and locked ourselves in our bedroom.

The next morning, I must have looked at him in the wrong way because he started right in on me and told me that I was a lying sack of sh**, that he hated me for calling the police on him, and that he wished he could have killed himself last night because he would rather be dead than live here. 

I wanted to say, “Good morning to you, too,” but I didn’t.   

Luckily, after his morning rant, he walked out the door without saying anything else.  He didn’t take any of his belongings with him and I had no idea where he went or if he was coming back.

Later in the afternoon, he sent me a picture of himself with his hair in a pony tail and said, “Look what I can do now!” (which I guessed meant that he was able to put his hair in a pony tail by himself).  Then he texted me and asked me what time his curfew was!

I thought, "If this isn’t a good example of one of his rapid-cycling bi-polar episodes, then I don’t know what is."  All of a sudden he was super happy and acting like life and everything between us was just peachy.  

I did not respond to his message since just a few hours prior to that, I had been told to never talk to him again and called several not-so-nice things.

When he got home that night, he was exuberant and jabbered on and on about how he had gone to Sonic to talk to the manager about getting a job there, and asked if I liked the picture that he sent to me, and wanted to know how my day was, etc.   My husband had never really witnessed one of his manic moods and he was amazed at the 180 degree change from the previous day.

The problem with this manic frame of mind, where our son acts like nothing is wrong, acts like nothing ever happened, and acts like life is just happy, happy, happy, is that it doesn’t last long and is usually followed by a crash.

Then the whole “life sucks, you suck, I hate you and everything about you” cycle begins again.

It began on day number two of “riding it out for four more months.”

He wanted me to give him $5.00 to buy a pizza.

I did not give it to him.

I was yelled at, sworn at, and berated because I didn’t “trust” him enough to give him money.  He claimed that it was my fault that he didn’t get to eat his pizza on Sunday night because I called the f-ing cops on him.  Now, all he wanted was five bucks for an f-ing pizza and I was being a b**** for not giving it to him. 

He said that as soon as he had his court date, he was going to move out again because it sure wasn’t worth it to live here, trying to do what he was supposed to do when his own mother wouldn’t f-ing trust him not to buy drugs with five stupid dollars.

I knew the happy act wouldn't last.  

It had been two days and life was already starting to feel like a living hell. 

Again.