What the hell?

 So, after two year of him being in the custody of the mental health court, they just closed his case. After trying to get him jobs and enlisting Park center, and all the programs he took for anger management, the stay in the half way house, the jobs gotten and then was released from . . . God, this is not good for me. 

It is just another failure of the system. Every place that says they can help me or be able to get him to turn around and make better choices or be able to not have melt down episodes or verbally abuse me or stop threatening to kill himself or making my household less chaotic or stop causing rifts between me and my wife . . . they just give up. They get to a point where they just stop and send him back home. And then we have to deal with him. 

So, here I am the morning after he comes home, and I am shaking again with my mind racing with all kinds of bad endings to this whole ordeal. I mean, what has changed? Nothing. He has not been rehabilitated. He has not learned or have any skills to take care of himself. He is just back home and we are at the same place we were when he left. It is like there was just a two year pause. 

All I can think of is what will happen. Since nothing has changed, arguments and fighting will happen. He will put a strain on our resources and that will cause more problems where he will feel entitled to things I am unwilling to give. He will scream at me and all me all kinds of names. He will verbally abuse me with gaslighting and telling me how I am a horrible father. 

And it is just a matter of time . . . .

We already argued this morning, the morning after he came home. He wanted to do something and I said no. Well, he tried to tell me why I should say yes but I told him that I said no and I was not changing my mind. He kept at me and I was getting more and more riled because he was just not accepting the answer. And this is the issue. He WILL NOT accept my choices about my house and the way I want to do things . . . like money and what he can and can't do in my house. And then he gets mad and pitches a fit that can ultimately get out of control.

And that is it. This can all go so bad so fast that I could loose everything. My house, my marriage, my mental health, my physical health . . . if he ends up attacking my wife and hurting her, I would honest to God go to jail with what I would do to him. Because, if he hurt her .. . I would loose my mind with anger and hurt him . . . . bad.

I am not doing well. In my mind, this will not end well. And I can't even begin to feel or expect that there is anything I can do about it. Not a damn thing.,

Is there anything I can say today that will change your mind?

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/18HqRt5GcV/

Is there anything I can say today that will change your mind?

That was the question that content creator Dr. Mike posed to an individual. 

If you asked a scientist or a science minded person, they would say something to the effect of evidence. And if that evidence is counter to the current discoveries and research, they will be skeptical until they get the same results or the science community finds it is reasonable to change the going theory through repeated results similar to the claim being made. 

But, as with the person in the video link, those that do not have a grasp on science or clinical studies or peer review or experimental design, they will most often say, "no, you will not change my mind."

And that is the difference between someone who follows science and one who follows the heart. 

Some one who follows the science will change their mind if the evidence is presented and it is followed by others who have reviewed or done the same research and got the same or similar results. Because if you make a claim then anyone can do the experiment and get the same results.

Someone who follows their heart will seek or just agree with what aligns with their heart. They don't really need solid evidence or multiple sources that coincide with findings. Just one person validating their feeling is enough to make a judgement. 

Someone who is science minded will asked for sources or if they are asked for sources, they readily will provide them. They don't expect you to just take their claims at face value. They will truly want you to read it for yourself and will respectfully take questions or counter claims with patience and thoughtful response. Scientists are eager to show their results and have pride in being able to make discovery that other scientists can do for themselves too. 

Someone who follows their heart will defer to statements like "do your own research" or something about "big pharma" or they will insult you or make wild judgements or accusations about things like your health or vaccine status. They are more likely to curse and be confrontational. They really have no interest in changing their mind. They just want to scorn and attack the other person. They have been described as the "trust me bro" people. They will try to rage bait you into an argument that steers you away from the original claim into heated emotional debates. 

And I am running into this a lot lately. People look for what feeds their bias and then attack those who don't just agree with their bias. It is pretty sad and it created hostility and sometimes violence that slows progress where open respectful debate would move progress forward. 

We are in a FAFO (F*ck around and find out) period of our country's timeline. It is sad because in a decade or two, we will seriously have a lot of people paying up to the piper for the rash choices and blind following they are making and doing today. 

Hell, people ARE paying for it with measles and vaccine hesitancy. But.... Try to convince the anti vaxx people that. 

So next time you have someone you are thinking of maybe seeking more info from based on their claim... Just ask, "Is there anything I can say that will change your mind?"

family therapy VII - Prodigal Son.

You know what? I need a prodigal son story in my life. I need my son to see that where he is at right now in his life is because of all the choices that he made. I need him to come to the realization that it's not everybody else's fault that he's in the situation that he's in. I need him to have the grit and balls to own up to the fact that he screwed his life up and to own it. Then I need a son with a changed heart to come back home. That's what I need. 

I've gone years with him, trying to put opportunities in front of him, and he's made choices that were confrontational or in opposition choosing to fight back for what would have been good for him. He fought me tooth and nail for every step forward I was trying to make him take. And it just got worse and worse with the way he treated me and how he fought back. 

Now he's in jail again. He fought back and he said things that were mean and cruel out of selfishness and self-centeredness. He makes these choices and he. . . .  he . . . . doesn't see the blessings that he's had with the people that have been trying to help him. He treats everybody as if they have some ulterior motive or they want the worst for him when that's completely untrue. 

So, he yells and he cusses and he attacks people verbally because he's scared or he doesn't want to do what we're trying to get him to do or he feels like we're being too demanding. And that's untrue. We're trying to get him to turn his damn life around and get on a course where he can make a living for himself and be able to support himself and be able to feel good about himself and to be successful and not struggle with hardship. 

And here we are years later, we circle around to the same spot. It always circles back around. The same thing over and over. . . . When it gets tough, he attacks the people that are trying to help him. And then he bitches about the consequences that come right afterwards. 

Well, I don't even know if we can go back after this last episode. He had a job, and he had a place to live, and he had a car, and he had.. he had.. 

*Sigh*

And he fucked it all up. 

Yelled at the people that were trying to help him any attacked the intentions and the motivations of the people that was providing him a home. And they just got to a point that this was the last time. They gave him a lot of leeway and this was the final straw. It's always in jail now because of what he did but he's blaming everybody just like he always does. He won't take accountability for his actions he won't say "Yeah, I did that. I fucked up. I put myself in this spot......It's all my fault."

So, what I need . . . what I pray. . .   is that this boy opens his damn eyes and he starts looking at the choices he's made and the people that he has hurt and he turns his head the other way and he starts figuring out that he's the one that put himself in this. He's the one that made all this happen. He's the one with his own choices and his own words and his own actions that has fucked up his own life. And I hope that epiphany is soon so that he stops spiraling down. 

But I just don't think it's in him. I don't think his spirit and his integrity and his grit is there. He just doesn't have it. And so he'll never get better. 

And the father in me breaks because I feel that way. And I believe that. 

God, I need a prodigal son story in my life......