The material presented
here is not Al-Anon Conference Approved Literature. It is a method
to exchange
information, ideas, feelings, problems and solutions on a personal
level.
I just need to vent and I know....I know, get to more face to face meetings. My A is my 17 year old son and he is making me crazy. He is an alcoholic/addict and is non-compliant with his meds for his bi-polar which just makes it so much more unmanageable. He has been in outpatient treatment and in residential twice....since he was 14/15. In residential, miraculously he earned almost enough credits to graduate. Something he never thought he would do...but he is back where he was. I had to take him to court to force him to finish school...he was two weeks away from graduating....if he was in a bad credit place, I never would have pushed it but he was too darn close and I hope he will thank me some day for at least having a diploma.
I feel like I am living with a terrorist...if I was married to him, I could protect myself by leaving or having him leave. He pounds on the walls all night, turns the music up, calls me names...vulgar, vulgar names, I have reported him missing more times than I can count when he sneaks out in the middle of the night. I am ashamed and guilty to say I can't wait until he is 18....like something magical will happen, right? I try to stay on my own side of the street but I can't let him bring drugs and his drug dealer friends into my home .... so instead, he makes life miserable...I know, he is not in control....but I can't make him take his meds, I can't make him stop drinking and smoking weed and taking pills....and I can't get away from the crazy making. He should be in counseling, meetings, treatment...he won't go. I go. I go to to all and even facilitate parent support groups...one for parents with substance using/abuse kids and one for parents with emotionally/mentally disturbed kids. I call the police but sometimes it makes it worse...and it disrupts the household even more depending on the attitude of the responding cop.
I try to take care of my self but have no respite from the night time terrors that he puts me through. And I know, I know, that it is his addiction that I hate, not him but I am finding it soooo hard to separate that from that good kid that shines through every now and again. I know all about detaching with love...but I don't know how to do this with my minor child. I know the things I need to do to stop enabling him and have made many hard decisions that have forced him to be accountable but we both pay the price in the long run. I just need to vent in a safe place before I explode. I am just soooo tired. Thanks for listening....
It is especially hard with a minor child. I had a very problematic son also from about the time he was 11 until about 19 when he went into the military. He was not bi polar but was diagnosed with ADHD and depression. He would punch walls and sneak out in the middle of the night and take my car to drive around the neighborhood. He was in therapy and on the days of his appointments, we never knew if he would go or not. Sometimes we had to call the therapists an hour before the session because he would run out of the house and not come back because he decided he did not want to go that day.
Those years were really hard on me and my husband. He failed the 12th grade and could not graduate with his class. We found that out about a month before graduation. Thankfully, he went back the following year to make up the credits that he failed and got his diploma.
If you feel unsafe with your child and cannot control him I would suggest that maybe you could find someplace else for him to go until he turns 18. There are people out there that practice tough love and even take kids into their home to get them out of their own home because of the issues there.
I pray that you will soon find peace. Hang in there and do whatever it takes to take care of yourself.
