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Old July 17th 03, 05:52 PM
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Default help me keep my son from perpetuating the cycle of abuse (very long)

Betsy wrote:
In news:CurRa.80070$ye4.60298@sccrnsc01,


Unfortunately, my opinion is that foster care will be of no benefit
to your son. You say he has a counselor, what are they doing?


We go to the county mental health facility for that and they are not very
helpful. My "case worker" rarely returns my calls and loses things like
faxes and signed releases and other important paper work and fails to call
me back to schedule appointments, especially now when I need him most. My
sons counselor has not returned my calls all week. I get medication
management that is very good, however. My psychiatrist believes in me and
has been my hero more than once and treats me like a peer.

Seriously, if things are perpetuation, the counselor sounds like
he/she is not doing his/her job.


That is because she is there more to be a sounding board for my poor, victim
son who has had it so hard living with a mentally ill mother and all
mentally ill people are violent, right?

All I can say regarding some of your
son's behavior is this: What consequences have occurred?


I never learned this as a child or as an adult. I think I hate to punish my
kid because we have been already "punished" so much just for existing, from
my point of view. Society takes a punitive attitude toward mothers on
welfare and we were on welfare a lot and homeless a lot until I got the help
that I needed to think clearly and use the intelligence and creativity that
goes along with this bipolar brain.

From what
I am reading, you are very good at telling your son how angry or
upset or disappointed you are. That is not enough in many cases. He
destroyed your computer, you tell him you are hurt. What else did
you do? Did you remove HIS computer which, he pointed out, YOU paid
for; so in essence it is yours?


For the first time in his life, yes I did. I combined parts from his and
parts from mine and built a new one for myself. If he wants a computer for
himself he will have to go get a job. Thing is, he has the skills to get a
really good job too, if we lived in a better town.

Have there been priveleges removed
for misbehavior? He did not get this way overnight, nor did he
become this way just from seeing you abused. You set limits, but it
sounds like you didn't enforce them. It also sounds to me like your
son might want a little more firmness. He can walk all over you, and
he knows it.


This is part of the result of living with mood swings, dissociation, the fog
of anti-depressants and the "shock" of post-traumatic stress disorder. And
it is the result of simply not knowing how to set limits and normal
consequences when all you've ever lived in is a war zone. I've read books
about how to do it and even went to Parents Anonymous when he was little but
I've never seen it role modeled. I always fantasized about some church
family taking me in and teaching me how to parent but it never happened. I
also fantasized about marrying a wonderful, normal man who would be a good
husband to me and love me and be a good father to my son like happened for
so many of my other friends but that didn't happen either.

He may have some of his own mental illness. As you
said, many times it is inherited, and he may have it.


He doesn't have bipolar disorder. He may be exhibiting symptoms related to
his use of marijuana though, I don't know, I don't use drugs. For me, drugs
would be redundant.

It didn't stop
when you had your tubes tied, because you already had your son.


Yes, it did.

Keep
pushing with counselors, and the state, and whatever agencies are
available. Keep trying to get him evaluated. He may need anger
management. To be honest, my mother would say he needs a "swat on
his backside."


At this point they are reacting as if I am the one with the problem. I am
angry at the police for believing a lying teenager over two adult women at
that house who told them that I would never try to kill my son. Then the
police came back the next day to "warn" my son that "they" let me out and
they didn't know why and if I came back and tried to harm him to call 911 to
which my ADULT friend replied that my son was the one who hurt me but the
police ignored her. And I am angry at the child services agency for
ignoring my pleas for help all week and for then assigning me to a case
worker who is on vacation in New York until July 21!!! It's a good thing my
meds work because the system does not. I will persist, my son is worth it.

I do not have any advice to offer, other than what I
see, which doesn't really help now. Keep working on it. You have
done your best, but one thing you must do, for yourself, is really
look at things, so you can find where your responsibility lies.


I tried to do that, even if I was sarcastic.

Blaming everything, or most everything on a cycle of abuse is not the
answer. You had some (a LOT) input into your son's behavior. Even a
few years away from abusive relationships can be enough to turn
opinions around.


What part of SEVEN years of abstinence did you not hear me say? Then I
started dating again and the guy I really liked turned out to be very bad
news. So I gave up, obviously I'm not ready and I'm in therapy at the YWCA.

You may still be able to do this, but you have to
get strong in yourself. Until you do that, anyone and everyone will
be able to "make you feel down." Tell yourself you are a good
person, you deserve respect. Keep doing that every day, several
times a day if needed.


This is actually painful for me to do. I wrote a song about it. "I am ice
and your sunlight is breaking me..."

Could be worse. Johnny Cash's new song (he didn't write it) goes, "I hurt
myself today, to see if I still feel..." at least I don't do that!

Once YOU believe that, you can instill that
into others. Follow through with things as well. It sounds to me
like you gave your son a lot, but didn't expect much in return.


As he became a man I began to treat him like a man, with fear. I saw this
coming years ago and actually my aunt did try to help by taking him in to
her house at the time but her extreme religious views were a huge problem
and she treats men like they are gods. I remember saying something like
maybe I should have moved in with her and had somebody doing my laundry and
cooking me pork chops! But of course that would not have happened, I am
just a girl in her eyes and would have been put to work regardless of my
back injury or mood disorder. Needless to say he missed his freedom and it
was too crowded there and he didn't like how she kept letting her adult sons
use his personal stuff without his permission (her children didn't turn out
so good and she won't listen to me or help me. So it built up to this
point.

My
son has a computer of his own, same speed and "goodies" as mine. But
he can not access it. It is a privelege, not a right. It is MINE,
not his. He has use of it for school work, and games when chores are
completed. My mother tells me I am too hard on him. I don't believe
so.


Well, yeah, but for us the computer is a much larger part of our lives as we
are computer technicians. I wanted him to have skills he could always get
work with and you get those skills with hands on experience. Also,
computers as a hobby is something that he would have in common with middle
class kids besides pot.

Get strong in you, so you can be strong with others. That is
the hardest thing to do, but so worth it. Good luck to you and your
son.

Betsy


thank you.