I've come to the conclusion that I can't parent him anymore. As long as he's in our house we will not be able to help him move forward and become an independent person. He is in the mindset that we will provide and support his life and pay for everything for him forever so that he doesn't have to grow up and be an adult.
He jumped out of my truck last week.
Yeah..... He was yelling at me throwing curses and screaming how horrible I was.......and then ......all of a sudden, he was rolling on the road. And I am at the end of what I can do for him. I have no more resources ......no more ideas........ no more programs ......no more forms .......no more strength.... no more .......mental...... health.
I'm done. I have no more strength to keep going or doing the same thing like I have been for years......
For .......
Years.
I have tremors.
They won't go away now. They're constant and unending. I think they might be permanent this time. God! I hope not! I try to stop them. I try to mentally hold myself still, but I just can't. My mind is hyper focused on this whole ordeal. I'm in a point of my life where I have a child that's scared of life and scared of being on his own and scared of being alone and scared of.......of.......of..... Everything. And that is not exaggerating..... he is scared of everything.
And I've tried everything and nothing has worked to get him..... I don't know .....normal?
And I'm planning tomorrow to go back with him with this counselor, the psychiatrist, and see if I can.... I don't know be free from this nightmare I'm in. Is it a nightmare? I mean, I don't have dreams really. I don't remember them. But the shaking that I have... the stress that I'm constantly under.... this worry about what's he going to say next. How is he going to insult us .....what is he going to blame us for ..... how he is going to tell us that it's all our fault when all he does is sit and do nothing and wait for us to do everything.
He gets done with his counselors and he comes home, and he tells us that we are the problem. We are narcissistic. We're abusive. We're manipulative. We're horrible to him. But how can that be so?
He has a house to live in and he has a car to use and he has a phone to use and he goes with us places and we get things that he wants and we get things that he needs and we encourage him and we try and tell him that he can do things when he doesn't think he can and we try and make suggestions and we try and show him the best way to get places because we know he can't .........he can't...... We try. We try to be good parents. We try to be loving and encouraging, and we try to motivate him. But it wasn't enough. It is never enough. And he tells us all the time .... Screams..... That we are not doing enough.
I can go on and on I suppose. But he's 22 years old and he lives in our house like he's a five-year-old and needs everything provided to him. He needs all this constant attention and... and he needs us to care for him and and take care of him. The only problem is that he has an adult mouth, and he has adult words, and he hurts us with them. He uses words like weapons. He accuses us of abusing him. He accuses us of being horrible parents. He accuses us of being the problem. He accuses us of treating him like he doesn't have a disability.
And......
And.... I don't know...... my shaking....... My tremors....... The stress and anxiety. My blood pressure. And I went to the hospital with a blood pressure that was dangerous..... Like cause a stroke dangerous.
We are not the problem. We can't be......
We are the solution for him. But he doesn't trust us. He doesn't want to learn from us. He doesn't believe that we're wise and have his best interest in mind. He doesn't believe that we truly care about his success. So, what do you say to that? I guess there's nothing else I can do for him. I'm done with parenting him because he doesn't want me to parent him if he doesn't believe what I'm saying, and he doesn't trust me and he doesn't think that I have his best interest in mind. And so that's it. He's basically living in our house, but he doesn't want to be our son anymore and he doesn't want us to be his parents.
But, Of course, he wants us to pay for everything still...
We wouldn't want that part of us being parents to stop, now would we?
Honestly, all he sees is that we want him to be scared of life when that is untrue. We want him to face his fears, and we want him to deal with them so that they're not so scary anymore in that he can be happy and not let those fears control his life like they are right now.
And when we push him to face those fears he bites back, and he fights back with words. He yells and he screams, and he calls names, and he accuses and he threatens and he . . . he hits us in our emotions and our fears and our insecurities. And he's so masterful at pulling them out and put them in front of us and making us doubt. He finds that it's hard to make us change what we're going to do because we're strong-willed people and we're very intelligent and he can't make us believe that all this stuff is horrible when it's not. It's the proverbial " for your own good" or "tough love." He wants us to just change what we believe to be true and best for him to his view, but we can't when we just don't agree with him.
I just can't parent him anymore. He will not trust what I say or do what I suggest. All he does is refuse but still wants me to provide everything for him and I just can't do that. I have a family. I have another son and a wife, and he wants me to throw all that aside and just do what he wants and focus on him and make him the biggest priority in my life and he's not. And isn't that horrible to say? I mean who should be a priority in my life? I have two sons and a wife. None of them can be a priority. I have to be a father and a husband to more than one person. But he doesn't see it that way ......won't see it that way ......can't see it that way.. . . unable to see it that way. And then what he says to me, that I am a horrible parent because he thinks that way ..... it's like knives and actually hurts some days.
And I can't stop shaking.......
And it's tomorrow. I'm going to lay it all out on the table. I'm going to try and see if I can do one more thing. I'm going to say some very hurtful things to him that are that are logical to a reasonable person. I'm going to say things that is going to hurt him and I'm going to say things that's going to make him angry because he'll think I'm lying and he'll think that I'm trying to make him look like a horrible person. All he will hear is that I don't want to be his dad...... That I want to abandon him. And all I'm trying to do is save my sanity really. I'm trying to get my family back to peace ......with no yelling . . no accusations .....no threats .....no hell on Earth.
I going to tell the psychiatrist that I can no longer parent him and that I need him out of my house. I'm going to say that I need him out of my house while he is there and listening. I going to say that I am not going to stop being his dad but that I have reached the absolute end of what I can do for him as a parent. He is rejecting all my efforts in favor for what he feels will help him when he has no idea what works or how to take care of himself. I'm going to ask to be given names or numbers of any resource that I have not thought of to accomplished this. I going to tell her that my life and mental health and physical health is in jeopardy. . . . . that he is killing me with stress. That I will die of a stroke or heart attack or my health will decline if he continues and stays in our home. I'm going to say that I can't afford both money and physically and my family to have him stay. I'm going to basically say that after years of dumping all my strength and resources into getting him to be independent and not petrified of living in the world on his own, I have come the end of the road of what is within my ability to parent him any longer and that I have to hand him off to someone else. I still want to be a dad, but I just don't have what it takes to be a dad for him. My love and Care and efforts are just not enough. I need more and different outside help than what I have found and paid for the last several years. Because I am no longer able to do it myself any more. I am beyond my ability.
I guess it was always beyond my ability if I look back at all of what I tried to do.
He will hear this and he won't hear that he is doing is hurting the well being of the members of his family. He will only hear that I don't want him. He will only hear that money is more important than him. He will only hear that I don't love him any more. He will only hear that he is the sole blame of our problems and that he is a target. He will hear that I am trying to betray him.
And he will attack us out of anger and pain and betrayal.
And I'm expecting it not to work. And then I'm going to have to have that drive home with him. And who knows what it'll be like but I'm sure it will be out of control and horrible and that may be the final end. And after we get home, I expect him to turn everything I said into knives that he will try to bury in my heart. He will strip the meaning of what I was trying to say and throw the reinterpreted pieces of what I said at me like bombs. If we walk out of that office with no other resource for me to access, that will be it. I have multiplied everything tenfold and not taken even a half step forward.
And you know what? I don't know how much I can do anymore. I don't know how much I can withstand of this yelling and the accusations and abuse from him. It's going to end up killing me. It's going to shorten my life. I mean I went to the hospital after he jumped out of the car because I was under so much stress that my blood pressure was high enough to give me a stroke. And what would have happened after that? I would have been brain dead? Partially paralyzed? Unable to provide anything for my wife and my other son? And where would I have been then?
God, this is such a shit show.
But it's time to draw a line...... And then hold it.
