Episode 22: Reality of Forever

Annie shares an update about her struggles with her son's mental health and addiction issues. She reflects on the challenges of maintaining hope and the reality of ongoing difficulties, despite efforts to support him. Annie discusses the impact of these experiences on her family dynamics and her own mental health, expressing a need to set boundaries for her well-being. 

Transcript

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Welcome to Things I Can't Say, the podcast for the things parents whisper, not post. I'm Annie, a parent who's walked through the quiet, lonely hallways of raising a child with traits that don't fit neatly into any of the parenting books, or on anyone's social media feed either. Each week we'll open the door to stories that rarely get told out loud. I'll start with mine, and then you'll hear from other parents, mental health professionals, and people who know what it means to live in the gray instead of the black and white. This is a place where shame loses its power, where complexity isn't feared but explored, and where love doesn't have to be easy in order to be real. If you've ever felt like no one else could possibly understand, you're not alone here. This is things I can't say, and I am so glad you're here. Welcome back after a long hiatus. Um, grab a cup of coffee or tea, get comfy because I need to just pretend that you and I are sitting across from each other at a coffee shop today, and I need to just talk through what I'm experiencing without editing it or fixing it or correcting myself. I need to just share. I've been avoiding this space. And for a while I couldn't come up with the reason why I was avoiding it. I think in my mind I didn't have anything to say when in reality a lot was happening. I think I hit this place where there was a reality, kind of the kind of reality that just hits you upside the head, uh, that this is going to be my forever. Um when I started recording this podcast, I was talking about the past. I was talking about what had happened, and I think in my mind, it was over. I had told you the things that had led up to today, and it was over. Like I was just going to be able to move on and be in a different space and see my family differently and heal. Uh, and I realized recently that there is not an end. This is not going to go away. Um, and and I'm stuck in a space of how do I talk about that to people? Because I know that people want a happy ending. They want things to turn out good because the good guy does all the right stuff. And I know I've done all the right stuff. Like, not to say I'm a perfect parent because I'm far from it, but I know that I've done all the things that I can do. Um, and this is not going to turn out with a happy ending from everything that I can see. And the way that that has hit my heart uh has been very difficult for me to navigate. I would say I entered a little bit of depression, um, really, really struggled with the idea that even being no contact does not mean this is over. Um, I can't even tell you where I left off on the last episode. I don't remember. I know that I stopped talking um when I had this realization um that just it broke my heart. It breaks my heart. I can't even say it broke my heart. My heart is breaking every day with where we're at and where we will always be, because I want to have so much hope. I want to have hope. I want to think the best, expect the best, assume the best, believe the best. And the reality is uh if I actually trust myself, if I actually believe what I know to be true, this this is the life we are living. And there isn't a better. Um I think I'll give like the high-level flyover of what's been happening because I don't even know how to talk about it anymore. Um, our son went to rehab. From what I heard from other people, he was there like 35-ish days. Now he had been to rehab, then he had relapsed, and then he had detoxed, and then he had gone back to so we had done this another roller coaster of getting sober. Um, but he did go to rehab after detox. He was there for about 35 days, and then um he ended up back at the hospital because he tried to end his life. And the rehabs, even though it was a dual diagnosis rehab that handles both mental health and addiction, said he could no longer be there. You know, all of my alarm bells are going off with that because I know my son, I know what I want to believe. I want to believe that all the things are true and his mental health is just bad and he needs more help. And and I also, if I trust myself, I know that there's so much more to this story. I know that as soon as he was out of the rehab, he was in a relationship with someone. Uh, that didn't last very long. He supposedly went to a sober living, not not a shelter and not a group home, but like sober living transitional housing that he got into where he is supposed to be sober to live there. Um in the midst of him being there, there was communication with his birth mom and I, in which we talked about us having some contact with him. And I said I was not opposed to contact with him as long as it was respectful, that there was nothing aggressive about it, it was, you know, all the things we don't want it to be. But I was not opposed to hearing from him if he needed to contact us. And when he heard that, he reached out and I got text after text of how great and wonderful he's doing. Best he's ever been, taking such good care of himself, getting help, like everything is wonderful. And also, I'm such a wonderful mom. Like, I'm the best mom. Um, he can look back now and see that everything I did for him was good. He's never been angry with me. He watches all of my social media and he appreciates what I've shared because there are things that he needs to hear, like all very, very positive. Um, and I can't say I replied with a whole lot of emotion because I really have not been willing to step back into that. But I replied briefly to it. Um within 24 hours, I saw social media of his that said he was in a relationship with someone that he should not have been in a relationship with due to her age, due to their past experiences together that were not positive and had already been reported. Uh, that was a big no. Um, I reported it. I made a report to CPS immediately. I texted him and let him know that I made a report. And I just said, basically, this is why the boundary's in place. Because it it is this continual pattern of crossing boundaries that you know you're not supposed to cross. You know you're not supposed to be with anybody under 18, like you know all the things. And his response was a bit flippant, um, a bit like you can do what you feel like you need to do, believe what you whatever, but like clearly you don't know the real me. No, I I do. I do know the real you. Um, and at that point, I believe he blocked me. Um he went through his social media and deleted as much stuff as he could. Um, has a story about how they're not together anymore. Whether that's true or not, who knows? Um, I told my husband that I could not be the point of contact anymore in this case, that I needed my husband to text him and say, if if our son needs anything from us, he can reach out to my husband, which he did. And our son fairly quickly asked for a phone call with him. Um, I did not hear most of the phone call. I would not repeat what my husband said was set. Like that, the conversation is between the two of them. Um I did walk through the space he was on the phone in and overheard a portion of the conversation where my son was saying, like, everybody thinks that I'm just a miracle. Like with everything I've been through, with how good I'm doing now and how much better I am, like it's just a miracle that I'm better. Um which my immediate thought to that was, what have you been telling people that you've gone through? Like, yes, there is the trauma of adoption and things that happen in foster care, like, yes, there is trauma in your life. A thousand percent there's trauma in your life. Um, but most of what has been experienced has been truly brought on by himself. And so again, all the red flags are going off for me, like flashing lights. Why why do people think, if this is really what's being said, why do people think that he is such a miracle now? Um, I know he told my husband that he's sober and doing so well. Within less than 24 hours, there's social media posts of him with substances, which he again deleted. Um, a lot of posts that seem very off. Um, and I got text messages from a pharmacy that he was prescribed a butt ton of medications, psychiatric meds, um, and his lifelong experience with psychiatric meds has been terrifying. Like all of the things together, I I just I look at it and think, I want to believe my son. I still, after everything, want to believe my child. I want to believe that he's sober. I want to believe that he's doing well. I want to believe that he's making the right choices, that like all of the things. And then there's the other part of me that is like every possible red flag, going like same time, wants to scream like somebody has to stop him. This is not good. Those psychiatric medications he was just prescribed, no provider should have prescribed, had they seen his history at all, should have prescribed that many new medications at the same time. Awful. Like, truly should be illegal, awful. And there's nothing I can do about it. There's nothing I can do about it. And then social media quickly shifted to how he's the victim of a past girlfriend. He's a survivor of her. He has accused pretty much every past girlfriend of somehow assaulting him, sexually assaulting him, physically assaulting him, abusing him in some way. Like every girlfriend he has had has been accused by him of something. Then he gets back together with them. In the future, it none of it makes any sense. But now he's a survivor of basically this girlfriend from two years ago, a year ago. No, two years ago. Um, her attempts to like take him out. Because we have to play this game to be the miracle, right? Like, I have to talk about how bad life has been for him in order for people to give him attention. I don't know. I may be saying way too much in this. I felt like it was time to update on here. Um, and I also feel like I talk in circles about it because where things are at right now for him are the exact same place we were at two years ago. Exact same place. Like two years ago, he was preparing to enter into a secure stabilization and crisis unit that didn't go well. But his mental health was in the exact same place. He was talking about the exact same stuff and doing the exact like it's all the same. And it's very difficult for me to sit back and watch it happen and not be able to stop. I can't stop it. I cannot stop what is happening. I can't, I don't know who is prescribing him medication. I don't know who the manager of his house is. I don't know, I don't know anything right now. Where I would be contacting, should I be? Probably not, but I would be contacting all of them and saying, What are you doing? Do you not realize what's happening right now? Because every time he gets away with something, every time somebody believes one of his lies, it just reinforces for him that he can do it more. He can continue. It doesn't have to stop. I don't know. I want to tell you some wonderful positive thing, and I can't. There was this teeny tiny piece of me when he was interested in contact that I thought, well, maybe, maybe we can have some kind of healthy relationship. Maybe there can be something there. Like my older son will be home this month from the military for a week, and maybe he'll want to see the 18-year-old, and may maybe like maybe maybe he's really doing well and and maybe we can make something work in a healthy way. And then I had the communication, and I thought, no, no. This is going to be the rest of my life. This is what we're going to do the rest of my life. As his mom, this is who I am the mom of. And just like nothing that I have done so far has changed it, nothing I continue to do is going to change it. And I think maybe there was a part of me that thought maybe when he was on his own and he was making his own decisions, he was no longer under our roof. He had less rules that somehow, somehow he'd get it together. Somehow that would be the trigger that would make him responsible. I I don't know. I don't know what I was thinking. But I do know now that I have to reach a place of understanding that this simply is. That when you have a family member who is mentally ill, that does not magically change. No matter how much you want it to, no matter what you say or do or how you direct your own thoughts or your own self, like I cannot change him. There's nothing that I can do that is going to change him. And the thought for me that this no contact place we've been is where we'll likely have to stay in order for me to be able to function. Um I don't like that. I I don't like that. I thought maybe there was like this happy, medium, middle ground place that we could be. But that's not how this works. Hope will not fix mental illness. And all of my love for my child will not fix mental illness. And the realization this week that I will likely never have another picture of all of my kids together in one spot. Um I don't even know how to talk about that one. I don't know how to talk about my own children anymore. Because I can't say all of my kids. The opportunity to talk about all of my kids as a whole uh is no longer an option. That doesn't change that he is my child. That doesn't change that I love him. I can't be no, let me take let me change that. I won't be in his presence at this point because it is not healthy for me. And and I I have to listen to that. I have to trust myself because I find myself wanting so badly to have hope that I want to believe and I I want to double check the things he said and make sure what's true and I know. I already know I need to just trust me. And also it's real depressing to know that I'm right. Because I don't want to be right. I usually like being right, but this is a place that I don't want to be right. Anyway, that is where I have been. I've been in a place of really not sure how to move forward because I feel so broken. It's been almost a year of this this particular no contact thing, and I don't like it. I want to be a mom to all of my kids. I want to be proud of all of my kids. That's just not where we're at right now. I'll try to be back sooner. But I'm also gonna trust myself to make that decision on what feels best. Thanks for being here. Thanks for being here, listening, feeling, and sitting with the hard stuff. If you've ever whispered a story like mine, I'd love to hear from you. You can leave me a message at mombehindthecenes.com because every story told gives someone else permission to share theirs. This is Things I Can't Say, the podcast for things you whisper, not post. Until next time, take care of yourself.