Grieving a live person

[geneparmesan99]

I am venting to this community. Some of your posts resonated deeply with me. A major caveat is I don't have an official diagnosis for my family member, but he won't really participate in counseling/discussions with providers or even acknowledge there may be a problem.

We raised my stepson for 16 years. Leading up to highschool he displayed a theme of defiance. Potty training, eating, getting him to do hygiene (brush teeth, etc.), do homework etc seemed like a futile effort. Unlike our other 3 boys, he consistently received emails home from school (elementary, middle, and high school) that were beyond normal teacher communications. We gave him the benefit of the doubt up until about 8th grade when literally every teacher in the parent teacher conferences more or less said he's a menace in class.

In this same timeframe he got suspended for brandishing a knife at another student, and also for throwing a rock through a teacher's car window in the parking lot. He swore up and down it was an accident, but I'm not sure how you accidentally chuck a rock into a parking lot full of cars. We received a text from his ex girlfriend's mom that he flipped her off at school, he swore up an down she was crazy. He aggressively started down a male adult neighbor when he was asked to leave their home. Later, we would find him texting very degrading and aggressive content to the daughter of that same household when she wouldn't go along with his "disobey your dad!" plan.

The entire time, his bio dad would make comments to my wife such as "he would NEVER do that here" and "you just need to be more strict!" The same bio dad racked up a ton of child support arrears and did not contribute to the massive medical bills this child required such as a 5k dental bill (he needs anesthesia because he literally will not tolerate normal treatment, he will flail around and scream and the providers give up). We became particularly sensitive to this hypocrisy over time from both their household and from the rest of our family who would be quite dismissive of us when we discussed our concerns that this child isn't developmentally where he should be. Therapy was a non-starter, he treats it like a game and even explicitly told his mom he would be happy to waste all her money on it.

Eventually things hit peak tension in our home. We eliminated any ways for him to get around our basic rules of "no smart phone apps if you're failing class." That included changing wifi password, finding his burner phone he brought from his dad's, adding a pin to the game console during the school week. He blew up, wrote some of the nastiest content either my wife and I have ever received, and moved in with is dad. He has refused to discuss any of the incidents with us going on over a year now. The updates we receive from the other house are generally descriptive of wild mood swings and the same difficulties we tried to articulate for years. They recently switched him from a normal therapist to a psychiatrist (because "it's not working!") and are trying Prozac. Surprise, he 'lost' his first bottle of Prozac and they had to get my wife to call the pharmacy for an exception refill. I'm validated on one hand that their house is finally seeing what we saw, but I also feel like the entire situation is completely unfair and ridiculous after we were the only ones for years to be pointing out the obvious. The harder we tried, the worse things blew up in our faces.

His only outreach now is to ask for rides. We have invited him to rebuild and heal in a safe talking environment and he had rejected these invitations. After all, everything is our fault so why should he have to do anything? We've tried to explain our viewpoint that proceeding as if nothing happened isn't healthy and it isn't healing, it's just avoidant and kicking the can down the road, and ultimately counterproductive.

The other three boys gel like we expect normal kids to gel in a communal environment. Sure there's bickering, but there are no blood feuds.

I hold out hope he will return and want to be a part of our family. I hope more that he gets his brain settled. I am profoundly sad and regretful that things have turned out this way.

Our objective is to better understand the struggles our child faces and to learn the skills to improve our relationship and provide a supportive environment and also improve on our own emotional responses, attitudes and effectiveness as a family leaders

[JsMom]

Hi, I'm so glad you found this place to share, vent ... I am so deeply sorry for your struggles with your son and for the pain you feel. You are a very caring Dad. I hope your son does get the help he desperately needs. I'm new here as well. There is so much support here. I'd suggest you seek out a therapist who is experienced with mental illness for yourself. I've done that and it's been so supportive and validating. And I agree that there is much to grieve.