"ADDICT"

Sometimes I feel like I am the addict as well as my son. Not because I feel the addictive urges, nor because I vicariously feel how he feels as an addict, because I can not know how he feels. I say this because I feel the stigma. I feel the frustration. I feel people's lack of faith or interest in offering help. I feel the emotional roller-coaster. I share the fear of what tomorrow holds. I feel the pointlessness of it all. I feel the intense isolation. I feel the pain of being misunderstood. I feel the need to make it all go away. I feel the insanity. 

                        

Despite years of seeking help and being involved in many services, I feel discouraged. Despite having a few friends I can count on one hand, I feel alone. Despite loving my children, I feel I have failed them all as well as myself. Despite trying, I feel like giving up. Despite feeling like giving up, I keep on trying and hoping, then I feel like giving up again. Despite loving a handful of people (which includes my three children) I feel like running away and being alone, then I am sad at feeling alone and want to be loved. I want a fix. I want euphoria. I want love. I want happiness and I want it NOW.

Is there something wrong with me that I believe in giving people a chance and being there for them 100% but I also believe that sometimes those who give also need to be given some love and support and belief? I believe in love and friendship and that we can help each other. So when I sit in a meeting regarding my son's potential eviction because society does not have any room for individuals with tortured souls who can not conform to society, I loose belief and feel like it is not only my son but myself as well who is being punished and ostracised with the throw away label of "druggie" as if that label dehumanizes the human who is suffering. "We do not like to evict young people who have no where else to go and no other housing project will take. We are concerned that you will have no where to sleep since the homeless shelter will not assist you because you are in arrears; however, sometimes we have no alternative. If you can change than we will reconsider". I want to scream while I sit calmly and try to express myself in a civilised manner that they are not "supporting" my son at all because they are judging him on past or current drug and alcohol misuse issues! I feel ostracised and judged and unsupported and betrayed. If I  feel these feelings, how on earth must my "druggie" son feel? How must any addict feel?



I am a parent of a drug addict. What we often hear as parents or loved ones is that the addict must come forward and ask for the help and "engage", and that sometimes the addict must first hit rock bottom. In the meantime everyone seems to turn their backs on the addict who is indeed an addict but is suffering and does not know how to deal with life. Maybe I am a hopeless hippy who truly believes in peace, love and happiness in a non hippy world and maybe that is the reason for my constant cognitive dissonance but I can not change who I am....though I would love to change the world!

I seek support, I seek advise, I seek understanding. To illustrate my dissatisfaction with it all, let me use a little incident that occurred during a large support group meeting. Three separate groups were brought together to listen to the manager of a local drug and alcohol support service to talk to the parents of young people with drug and alcohol misuse issues. While doing a great PR presentation of all that their service provide (mind you, the parents are being sold this wonderful dream of recovery, but we are told we can not force our children to "engage".....talk about dangling the carrot in front of the rabbit!) I made a comment on how my son differs in a certain "typical" behaviour of addicts. This "professional" looked at me and simply said in front of these other parents, "sometimes we just pull the short straw". Thank you, Mrs Drugs Recovery professional. I have pulled the short straw when it comes to one of my children. Excellent. Should we just give up now then? Is that what you are telling me in your professional opinion? What does she tell the addict who comes in frustrated and broken and rejected and desperately wanting change yet suffering relapse after relapse? "Sorry you poor pathetic excuse for a human being, we don't help the short straws here"

                                                           

Currently my son is in the psychiatric ward, once again. How many times has my son lost sense of reality? How many hospital visits has he had? Does the hospital look at his records and try to work out what has been going on the past year? No they do not. Do they seem concerned that each time it happened there were different interpretations of why it was happening? In the first incident we were written off with the dismissive, "it is alcohol withdrawal", to "it is from his kidneys not working properly due to lack of his self care in eating and drinking sufficiently" (but what led to his inability to look after himself), to "it maybe due to undiagnosed epilepsy", and of course the "its unexplained but more than likely due to his drug usage in the past and or present".

Am I expecting too much for some medical professionalism? When I brought my son into the hospital it took the ER doctor a few minutes to see that me son was not in his right mind and could not follow basic requests and could not answer questions appropriately. Waiting several more hours for a psych evaluation from a "crisis team worker/nurse" he too quickly assessed that my son had lost his grip with reality and experiencing things that we were not. That resulted in finally being admitted to the psych ward, approximately 12 hours after we first arrived to the hospital. In all that time my son's records were not produced, he received no care or medication. In the 72 hours that followed my son saw no doctor. When the appointment with the psychiatrist (and 3 other members of staff) finally took place, which I attended, he knew nothing of my son's past admissions, my son was coherent but anxious yet able to communicate sensibly. So this doctor did not see my son when he was hallucinating and not in our reality. The doctor did not take the time to assess the situation by reviewing the patients notes. The discussion started with, "Do you know why you are here?". I almost retorted with, "Do YOU know why he is here?" It quickly digressed into a discussion about generalised anxiety and also continued questions and remarks regarding drug and alcohol issues. Never was it discussed why he may have lost his sense of reality, nor was it discussed how this has happened on more than one occasion. I sat there feeling smaller and smaller and in the end I could swear I nearly just shut off while looking at the doctor looking like a caricature with a speech bubble saying "blah, blah, blah"So who is crazy? My son, the doctor or me? I think I may be the crazy one! I had a very strong urge to loudly speak out, "This is Bullshit! One does not hallucinate and is unable to identify simple objects and talk to imaginary people simply because one is anxious about things".


                                 


For me it is so difficult to watch, to understand, alone. I never have anyone to hold my hand though I hold my son's hand and care for my daughters as well. I never have anyone to give me an understanding hug when I go home after 9 hours of sitting with my child who can not string a sentence together. At home my son is a taboo subject most times. My middle child looks at me as if I were the bad one if I mention his name, as if I should not support a drug addict regardless of the fact that he is my son. I go home, barely speaking myself and carry on with life as "normal" but I want to cry and I want to be comforted.

So we are back to where I began this post, I feel like I am the addict at times but I do not have a drug to make all the suffering go away, even if only temporarily. I feel agitated, depressed, lost, alone, misunderstood, angry, hurt, labelled, used, pathetic and craving something to make it all better but there is nothing for me except hope and longing for things to change.

The Battle of Positive vs Negative Thoughts Goes On!

Life is lovely! I try and I try and I try to become positive when I am down. I have my periods of sadness and over analysing and feeling that everything is and was and always will be crap, but I do try my best to get over it. Just 2 days ago I started to feel a bit more settled and I decided that I need to live in the moment more. If I am having a good day and  another person (be it a friend or a "friend") shares some time with me, then great! I will enjoy that day and that person for what I had with them in the moment and not care so much about who will be there for me tomorrow. I decided to make my life happier by consciously  turning off some of my emotions and some of my over-active brain. I believe I can do that and that it will help me to feel happier in the moment and perhaps that will bring forward some longer term positive change in my life.
                            
So then after I have had this conclusion and realised that I need to stop expecting more from the people in my life, the moment I start to think I will just enjoy what I have and relax, negativity starts to enter my life again! WHY?

My friend who I care about deeply finally contacts me with some bad news and intimated that we should talk. I fear I will be hurt with what he has to say, but I will push those fears and negative thoughts away and focus on positive thoughts. It is amazing how much happier I became just with the knowledge that I will be seeing him soon. I do not want to lose that little glimmer of happiness. I will focus on being happy that I will see him, talk and laugh with him. I will ignore my brain in trying to read between the lines and contemplating what dreadful things he may say and I will not presume that the outcome of our visit will be heartbreak. I will only focus on the happiness of seeing him when I open the door and forget everything else because there is no way of knowing what will happen until it happens.

Later that day my 14 year old daughter comes home only to off load a lot of negative energy and feeling unto me about the start of school. She was nearly in tears a few times. It was non stop: people don't like me, my friends are not in the same classes, the head of year scared us with how hard this year will be and expectations are high, I am obsessed with my breathing and if I can not hear myself breathing then I start hyperventilating, I am nauseous all the time, my stomach always hurts, I always have headaches, I was light-headed because I could hardly eat my carrot sticks at lunch, I hate my mutilated feet, I do not know how to talk to people, I am worried about finding work experience because we know no one, I do not like my teachers.......Later itt was painful to sit with her at dinner, all hunched downwards, meekly holding her food, head down, no conversation! What did I do wrong? How can I help? What can help? Why do ALL my children have issues? I screwed them all up! It is all on my shoulders.....STOP! I tried talking to her, it did no good, I excused her from the table when she was finished and hoped for better days! I can only hope for better days, be here for her to vent and suggest things and offer outside help.

Those were yesterday's little attempts to draw me into my over analytical mind that usually causes me distress. Today also had it's pull towards my racing mind with the endless question of "why". I spoke to my son at about 10 am and instead of the usual groggy voice of someone who rarely gets out of bed before the afternoon, I was getting with a very alert and energised voice. I first thought that is because he had an early morning appointment that I may have interrupted. So I proceeded to ask my son if I was interrupting anything. No, no, he is at home , he has been up all night cleaning, thanks to a little help he had. I know what that means, so I asked him OK then, what drugs did you take,

I was correct, his help was something known as ethylphenidate https://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showwiki.php?title=Ethylphenidate This was my son's "free gift" when ordering a large amount of etizolam https://www.erowid.org/pharms/etizolam/ Oh, what a nice website offering free gifts! Apparently my son received his benefit money Wednesday and he went to a lovely little Polish shop to buy his 95% Spiritus which if you look at the link it says, " the strongest spirit on the commercial market. Alcohol at this strength can be very dangerous if consumed to excess" http://www.thewhiskyexchange.com/P-9042.aspx  as well a six pack of beer before going to the library to use the computers and stumble upon the great deal (free gift) that was on offer with his favourite website for order his drugs!

                                               

Needless to say my son spent all of his benefit money on that day and since he only gets money every two weeks, I am sure I will get the "take pity on me" attempts for money and/or shopping! 

What baffles me is that he has done this after a trip to the emergency room the day before and he is not worried about his health. Well F*** ME, of course he is not! He is an ADDICT! He even said that as long as he has "problems" that he can only survive through with the aid of a "crutch" then so be it, it is not a bad thing because he is able to get by. Well I wanted to ask and I did that how is he really going to deal with the underlying peoples while using these "crutches" because the crutch negates the underlying issues that stops you from moving forward!? He had no answer, he merely focused on how great it is that he is buzzing on this research chemical he is consuming because his flat was a disaster and needed cleaning up because the management was on his case about it! The chemical is similar to Ritalin and the effects have been compared to cocaine so he has managed to stay awake, be motivated and energised! "Great stuff kiddo, proud of you for getting your flat cleaned up! Oh you took drugs to do it? That is ok, the main thing is you sorted out a problem that is a priority at the moment" OH, can you believe this is what my son thinks is the appropriate response when telling me about the crutch he used to get things done!?

Then started the insistent demands of when he could come over and "sorting out" his stuff so that he can sell them.Today? Tomorrow? "No? Why, what do you have to do?". He needs to sell stuff to have more money. More money to do what, well of course, buy more drugs and alcohol! No thanks! Then this led us down the road of "well whose fault is all of this anyway?".Oh, if only there was a drug to help the addict see the truth to these types of questions as well as the questions of  "how do I make my life better?" (not by taking more drugs). 

                              

Well I hung up the phone in the end. I will not take such abusive and negativity. I will not allow him to call the shots. I will not listen to his self destructive beliefs and actions. I will not be weighed down by his negativity. I will immediately cleanse myself of these triggers into self destructive thoughts by purging them into this blog post and move on with my day with a smile on my face. I will not spend the day worrying about my son's health and the dangerous game he is playing with his body. I will not become overly sentimental and  gloomy that come Monday my friendship with this man, who I do believe to be a good a good friend, will come to an end and feeling rejected as always. I will also not spend my day wondering what I have contributed to my daughter's unhealthy self beliefs and fears and irrational anxieties. I have acknowledge all these events to be true, but also beyond my power at the moment to change them, so I will be positive that life is essentially good and I can have a good future and so can my children and I will hope that these positive feelings and thoughts will lead me to more positive solutions and ideas....or maybe that is Bullshit, but hey, it is better than being down, right?

                                          

Reality Check: Done!

Today I am feeling: realistic, positive, accepting, comfortably numb. I have had a week to regroup after being back from our trip to Budapest. I have digested the reality that is my life that I have come back to. I have started to regain some positivity that I will and can change some of my life and I will continue to think how the hell I am actually going to do that! I had put off seeing my son but finally saw him and though I can not say that I see too much progress, I am starting to regain my confidence that he will be OK, one day he will be living a much better life and he will have some of the "things" in life that he wants and also the "things" that I want for him.

                                                  
                                     
I feel accepting that though there is a lot about the relationships in my life with family and friends that are letting me down and discouraging to my soul, I also accept that is how it is at the moment, and though it has seemed to have been a recurring issue in my life, one day that too will change. My family will recovery and I will have a healthier family. I will one day find someone, and that someone will find me, that I can love freely and more important that person will also love me and be confidant enough in their feelings to love me freely and opening without games/complications/fears.

Though life is difficult and no where near how I would like it to be, I am positive that it will not be this way forever. I am too good of a person to have to suffer my entire existence, my heaven is not waiting for me after death, it is waiting for me here in this mortal world...and damn it, I will find it!

My children may all have their various issues and struggles of their own to achieve happiness, and they may indeed take out all their frustrations on me...but you know what? Thank God, that they have me to unload on! Thank God, they know that there is someone here that loves them profoundly and will allow them to vent! Imagine if they did not have that?

               

I may have fallen into a relationship years ago devoid of true love. I may have stayed in that bad relationship too long and helped create dysfunctional relationships and a dysfunctional family, but it is done now. I may have opted to be a full time mother loving and caring for my children and now find the need to be financial independent extremely difficult, oh well, at least my children and I have incredibly strong bonds! OK, so my eldest son is hurting and has turned to drugs to find comfort in the void that is there in his life because of the dysfunctional relationship with his father, but that can not be changed either, but he can learn from it. Yes, my middle child also suffered from the dysfunctions she witnessed and was a part of, turning to self harming and contemplating suicide, but she STOPPED cutting herself from her own desire to do so, her strong will helped her through that difficult period. My youngest may have grown up in a household devoid of "normal" family life, without a father, with a mother full of worry, with a big brother who was abusing drugs quite opening in the family home, with an older sister who was angry and reclusive....this has had it's impact, that I am sure off in which creates confusion within her. However, she also has seen that her mother loves ALL her children, despite everything and she is strong enough not to stop believing in them and though sometimes depressed and negative, she has seen her mommy always loving and never really giving up!

                                               

Life may not be great, my son is still an addict, my daughter is still unhappy, I am struggling, I am still battling; however, it will not be like this forever and I will try to overcome what I can. I may not be a bundle of positive energy yet, thankfully I am not a bundle of negative energy either! This week has been emotional, but I am moving on! My family will as well and one day we will connect with the positive and loving and giving people in the world who we can build some happy memories with and say good bye to the bad memories!

Life goes on and I am not going to let it beat me!

                                     

I Love You Too,

Well this post will not be my usual style. It will be shorter first of all, and it wont really be contemplative.

I wanted to share with you all the lovely txt messages from my son today.

To set up the scenario, I am broke! I gave my son some money which I did out of guilt and excessive annoyance from him. I knew the money would go on drink. He promised me that on Wednesday he would give me £10.

Her we are, it is Wednesday. I txted him, no response. I called him and he began to explain that he may be able to meet me and give me the £10 after he does what he needs to do and if there is enough money left. I told him I gave him that money out of duress even though I knew I was not in a position to and now my youngest daughter, his little sister, is hungry and I have nothing.

I eventually had to hang up on him, because I can not take his disrespect! He was saying things like, "If you keep talking in that tone than I wont want to give you the money", "I need to do some business first then I will be able to see you and I don't want to give you money but I will". This is what followed:

                      

TXT 1:

"I was going to say that if I can't get on the computer at the library to order my benzos, then I wont be able to start saving money. I'll go into town later, do my business, then give the £10 to you."

I told him not to bother.

TXT 2:

"I didn't say I didn't want to give you money, I said I don't like giving money to someone who is being derogatory towards me; I am perfectly happy giving, if I can, and the person is polite. Because you're my mum and helped me a couple of days ago, and in the past, I have to, and I will, today, pay you back; I just don't like doing it when you're being like you're being. May I remind you how you ruined my life and killed everything I loved? Most people would disown you."

I did not respond.

TXT 3:

"It is your fault I got arrested. Your fault I am on probation. Your fault I'm living somewhere where I don't want to live. Your fault I have to pay the court. Your fault all my things were destroyed. Your fault I can never do chemistry again without arrest and prison almost a certainty. Your fault I have to drink to get by even though I hate the stuff. Your fault I can't even be in my own home. You ruined everything because you did not listen to me. I should hate you, I suppose I do in a way, for what you did; everyone I've told the lot to, say they'd never talk to you again. You're the lucky one, and should be grateful that I haven't washed my hands of you and never talked to you again. In my opinion you have far more obligation now, because of what happened; it will tarnish my reputation etc for the rest of my life, all because you couldn't wait 2 months (my son always said he would get rid of the chemicals etc but I got tired of the empty promises)! I may have been nasty, but I never did anything like that."

I did not respond.

TXT 4:

"I don't have to give you a penny if I don't want to! What you did to me is worth far more than the few thousand I stole and 'borrowed'.  What you did is forever!"

Again I did not bother to answer.

TXT 5:

"Oh, and what do I get? £35 a week. How much do you get again...?! You have enough. I struggle buying the cheapest things, picking coins from the street and pulling food and drink out of the bins so I don't go hungry/thirsty. I'd like to see you do the same; then sleeping on a park bench in the rain, still not having a penny in your pocket! It's a wonderful life you've made for me! And you wouldn't be able to handle one night of it!
Thanks-Love you too!"

I have not responded to that one either.

So this leaves me with of course the initial reactions of anger and of intense emotional pain and hurt. However, now I see how much he is transferring onto me, because the reality and all the guilt he can not deal with. I also see some learned behaviour, especially in the last txt, it sounds so much like his father. Most of all though, I can now see beyond my broken heart and say to you, this is what addiction can do to a person. This is not the real son I know and love. This is what my son has become as a result of  his addiction and desire to be in the state of mind he wants to be in while on drugs, that is his one and only guiding force at the moment. The addiction as well as to some extent his current behaviour, stems from deep seated issues of resentment, rejection and possibly guilt. His issues are ones that started as a young boy and he has not been able to grow into a man because of these issues and the detrimental affects the drugs have had on his emotional development.

It is sad, very, very sad. It is also sad that there are so many people who are hurt and misunderstood who suffer. Worst off are the people who helped create these individuals, who fed their insecurities, low self worth and added to their need to self medicate and also made those individuals feel unloved and refuse to help them because of their addictions....these people go unnoticed. The addicts are seen, but made to feel as "bad people". It is all screwed up and I wish I could start a revolution to help change society's way to treat addiction, but more importantly I wish I could teach people that they must ALL accept responsibility for themselves and what they have done, I am trying to, but I am also trying to keep focused and not get caught up in guilty trips that make me feel EVERYTHING is my responsibility and I am to blame for EVERYTHING.

I AM NOT TO BLAME FOR EVERYTHING, EVERYTHING IS NOT MY FAULT. I DID MY BEST AND I DID A LOT OF GOOD.

I must repeat that to myself many, many times today!
     
                                                  
                           

Happy & Homeless

Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from my son that he needs a lift to the emergency room, because he cut his hand badly last night and today noticed that there are big chunks of glass wedged deep within the wound which he can not remove.



Of course, as mothers do, I said I would pick him up and take him to the hospital in 20 minutes. I had to know though, how did it happen? He slipped, while walking,  on the wet pavement and he was holding a bottle.

My youngest was not impressed as it was her last day at home from her winter break, her sister had gone back to her school the day before, so today should have been just about her. Not a fun way for an 8 year old to spend her last afternoon of her holidays!

As I pulled up on the street corner, I saw my son a few yards away, smiling and chatting to another young man. He looked good. My son looked to be enjoying himself, fully engaging in conversation, smiling, laughing. He looked like a good looking young man enjoying himself. He looked happy.
My first glance at my son made me happy. Then reality sunk in and I was no longer happy. I was not looking at my nearly 19 year old son hanging out with his class mate after uni, waiting for me to help him do his grocery shopping before I dropped him at his flat where he shares with other classmates....just a nice hypothetical example, one of many "nicer" alternatives to the truth.

I was watching my homeless son, chatting to his fellow homeless mate who was enjoying a can of cider, standing outside the drug and alcohol clinic, waiting for me to take him to the hospital to get his hand stitched up. This was not right. This was causing me a great sense of cognitive dissonance. This was making me feel edgy. AND he was making me wait, because he was enjoying himself!

Upon arriving at the hospital, he tells the true story behind his injury. The day it happened he had gone to the corner shop and stole a can of extra strong cider and a bottle of wine. He then proceeded to the park where he consumed all of the wine and cider. He was, according to him, enjoying himself and got a bit drunk. This led him to want more, so foolishly he went back to the SAME shop and attempted to steal another bottle of wine. He thought he got away with it, but once outside a man from the shop and a guard dog chased my son down the street. This is when and how my son fell and fell with the bottle of wine which smashed in his hand as he fell. The man caught him, and according to my son, dragged him back to the shop by the scruff of the neck. When my son tried to escape his hold, he threatened to sick the dog on him. Once back at the shop, the manager decided there was no point calling the police since there was no longer evidence that he took anything, it was broken and all over the pavement somewhere. They let him go with the warning that he is not allowed to ever enter the shop again.
           
                                        
                 

Having finished his story, he also told me that his hand was bleeding quite a lot after it happened and he wondered around and eventually went into a church that was holding an evening service. When some of the parishioners noticed the state of his hand they were concerned and offered him tissues. After the service the clergyman helped my son with his first aid kit, and everyone was very nice and helpful, though he didn't think the cuts in his hand were a big concern. All the while when he was telling me this, he was calm, relaxed even smiling and chuckling at times.

As he stood by the car door, very comfortable with the fact that he was going into the emergency room to get stitched up, he did not seem too bothered. I told him that I hope this is not the beginning of things to come. He said that it probably is and that he will probably get into fights and such and receive much worse injuries. I drove away sad, worried, and disappointed.

I reflected on our car journey home, how he was telling me, with his young sister in the back seat, how it is actually good being homeless. He gets a room and taxi. He gets fed decent food every night. There are churches that they go and hang out in to get warm and get light lunches during the day. He has free time and he is out doing a lot of stuff, not just sleeping and sitting indoors all the time like he was at home. He has no one hassling him, and the people don't judge and they are nice.

                                           

Right now being homeless, having a shelter with a special night provision, doing your own thing is an adventure my son is enjoying. I hope he gets housed in the supported housing project (that excepted him in early/mid December) has an opening soon, before this adventure turns into a chosen way of life that my son chooses over an improved living accommodation where he would get support with the intention of moving forward toward independent and healthy living. Something tells me once in a house with rules and boundaries to adhere to, he will look at homelessness as the better option for him. I hope my feeling is wrong.

Trying to Repair Relationships

One of the aims of the BRICK project meetings I attend (http://www.eypdas.org.uk/about-eypdas/our-services-for-children,-young-people-and-families/the-brick-project.aspx) is to try to give tips in communicating with our teen who is suffering from drug addiction and tips on regaining the lost relationship. Sometimes we need to try to repair these relationships while in the process of recovery, or even before, but of course this is very hard to do.

                                      

My worker at Open Road (http://openroad.org.uk/) asked me if I ever thought about getting a pet as it would do so much for my daughters emotional well being. Pets are indeed a wonderful source of comfort and affection, as well as newness and excitement.I have indeed thought about getting a pet since my ex husband left, but the timing was never right.

                                           


Both of these factors have played a part in trying to mend relationships in our family this week.

A very simple suggestion from the ladies in BRICK, was to play a game that are just questions that they lamented and gave to us. Questions such as:  "If I had one wish it would be..."; "If I could change one thing about myself it would be...; "One of the worst things that ever happened to me was..."

An interesting thing happens when I go to these meetings. The first couple of times I went, I came home to the usual scene of my son shut away in his room and my daughters in the living room. The last few times now, I have come home to all three of my children sitting calmly together in the living room watching tv together. They have started asking questions about how it was and what I did in the meeting. So last Wednesday when I came home, I told them we played a game, which we did. I said that we could play the game too because I was given a copy of the cards.  So surprisingly, they all agreed, even my son. I thought we would all get only 2 cards each and be done, but we went on and in the end we all ended up asking about 8-10 questions. My son and older daughter, who usually have a great deal of friction between them, actually asked each other questions in a very civil manner. All seemed to enjoy it and no one said anything that could have been hurtful though since some of the questions could have provoked quite intense answers.

                                            


The following evening after dinner, my older daughter asked if we could play again, and we all did. Though it wasn't quite the same energy as the evening before, everyone, including my son, participated and no one took it as an opportunity to push buttons. So quite a positive exchange twice in the week! Promising in some respects.

Recently I have tried to find us a pet, a puppy. Two very firm opportunities both fell through so we were so upset. My support worker was so kind,  as well as fate being kind, found us a kitten. A wonderful little cat, free of charge! And much to my surprise it was ready to leave her mother this week.

So this weekend was focused on our newest member of our family, Shadow! Our 8 week old black and white kitten!

                                           

Upon our arrival home from collecting our kitty the jealousies and competition for kitty's attention began, There was a lot of hurt feelings and a bit of selfishness if I am honest. Everyone wanted Shadow to have their undivided attention. I was wondering if this would prove to be a mistake.

Then a few hours later the amazing happened. We decided that our new kitty would do best in the upstairs bathroom overnight, with it's cardboard box bed, pillow, toys, food, drink and litter box. So there we were, ALL of us, sitting around the bathroom floor watching intently if the kitten, "will relieve himself in the litter box?".  As we watched the cat became lively and wanted to play. So here is where it got interesting. All of my children were playing with the kitten, openly laughing and taking turns and thoroughly enjoying themselves without any thought of who said what before or who has had more turns playing.

                                 

I am not saying the weekend turned out perfect, or that we have come to a milestone, but we have made a few little steps in trying to repair our broken relationships. After trying to remember the past week and posting my last post earlier today, I realised that there have been some very nice moments shared this week. I wanted to share these little sweet moments with you,

Harsh Words in Harsh Times

Roller coaster rides can be thrilling and exciting as well as terrifying and alarming. An emotional roller coaster is just the same feelings except times 100! After a while you are no longer screaming from the downs you are experiencing, all you desperately want is to get the hell off and be on a straight, even flowing emotional state for a while.
                           
Last night my emotional roller coaster dipped below my normal threshold which it occasionally does, but has not done in quite a while. Last night was one of those nights in which I lost control and started shouting  the things I usually control myself not to say!


                                             
                                 
"I hate this life".
"Why am I trying so hard to save this family?"
"I hate all of this and I do not know why I bother, you should be out there living on the street instead of  making your sisters and I suffer like this".
"Most parents would not tolerate this disrespectful insolence for as long as I have".
Then the worst thing a parent can say, "I hate you!".

This was in response to a fall out over the fact that my son has not cleaned up all his mess from his poppy preparation, only some of it, for weeks now. Instead of accepting that he needs to clean up more, he challenges me and turns it into a role reversal in which he is telling me off as if I am in the wrong.

Statements form my son hit me hard and disgusted me and that is why I started to react in such an irrational emotional way. My reaction was much more than anger and disappointment, it was also a deep sense of frustration that I have no control over his behaviour toward me or his sisters. I would almost be able to accept that I have no control over his personal decisions that affect his own body and his life, but when I have no control over how he treats me or his sisters and how I have no influence over what he deems as acceptable behaviour, that frustration is overwhelming at times. That is when I snap.

This is some of the onslaught I experienced from my son:

"I am doing it for you, I really really really don't want to do it."
"I told you, I told you, I told you".................(so many statements started with him shouting those three words aggressively at me that I do not even remember what followed all the "I TOLD YOU"s).
"I am clean, because I have had no opiates for two days, but smoking legal highs, drinking and popping pills, that is normal."
"You need to stop being such a cunt. You are insulting me because you don't see my achievements, You never appreciate when I am clean".
"Having no opiates is not nice, having the the runs, feeling like shit and you don't even care".
"You are selfish."
"You are in no way supporting me, it's all a lie".
"You should not criticize me for my drugs when I am doing it for you, sacrificing everything for you".
"You have no authority to be a cunt, you have a responsibility to make me wedges or chips or whatever I want when I want, midnight or any time, because it is your duty".
"You have given me no motivation, nothing in exchange for drugs, except being a selfish, cowardly, cunt of a mother who doesn't give a damn that he is doing this all for her".

                                   

Some of these statements were before I snapped and some were after and there was many ugly words being thrown about last night. It started because he did not finish the job I set out for him ages ago. The job that has been waiting weeks to be done and a few days ago it was halfway done. Because of a simple chore set by a parent, he retaliated and tried to put me in the wrong. Boundaries are always being crossed and I pointed that out! Because of this completely disrespectful behaviour I refused to make him dinner (the girls and I had pizza a few hours before, but he does not like pizza so I said I would make him something later).

When I started to walk away from the situation the remote control was flung at me with such force that I could hear the air swishing by me as it missed me. The last time, years ago, I got in the line of fire of a remote being thrown I had a split lip! Don't get me wrong, these more physical aspects of my son's anger are not every day behaviours and in fact do not happen very often. He has never laid a hand on me or his sisters, but as I said in another recent post, it is all relative, and it is not the number of times he has been aggressive or in what manner, the fact that he has been aggressive towards me and his sisters is enough to make it wrong.

Tomorrow he sees his key worker with a possible visit to the GP as well. Wednesday we are being visited by the Social Worker along with  a member form the Family Solutions team to "see" whether or not we are the right "candidates" for their service! I am tempted, oh I am SO tempted to say on both occasions that I HAVE HAD ENOUGH!

                                          
                                             
Or do I keep on persevering and being beat down in hopes that soon someone will get through to him? Do I wait and see if he gets into the community rehab in Dec/Jan? I really honestly do not know how much more I can take, how much more I can allow. I have been at this point of inner conflict before, many times before! Each time I feel I am closer to my breaking point. No matter how strong we are, we all have a breaking point, yet I am consistently trying not to reach that point. Then I ask myself, am I really doing that? Am I fighting so that I don't reach my breaking point, or am I ignoring the writing on the wall and simply allowing things to continue as they are?

Back to "Normal"

What happens when an addict is running out of drugs? They panic of course. What that panic turns into is abusive behaviour towards others who will not "help"him get more drugs. Obsessing about how they will get what they need, trying to convince others that that is what is best for them, that they will suffer without it and if they go without it is ultimately your fault because you refused to help, you let them down.



Pleading and shouting, wanting money. It is just like the the old slogan goes, "beg, steal or borrow", because the focus of every minute of their day or night revolves around how they will get their drug. They can not stand the thought that they will not get any more. They become very irritable and unpredictable.

Last night my positive attitude was put to rest because my son awoke and was very moody all evening because he wanted to "borrow" £50 to buy some benzodiazepine powders. The answer of course was no and that eventually opened the floodgates of abusive and vulgar language onto me. Words that begin with letters like "f", "b", "c", "p" and so on, I will let your imagines go with it.



My son once again burst into my room after I had gone to bed to demand that I give him money and when I said no, he wanted me to explain why! I wanted to keep things short and just said I do not need to explain, the answer is "NO". He demanded to know how giving up drugs would benefit him. When I said that it will ultimately result in a better life for him, he was furious, insisting that I am the only benefiting from "all of this".

My son has no internet at the moment, no money and very little drugs left. He does not know that my bank card has been cancelled and if he does access the internet (by taking my phone, for example) he will be very unpleasantly surprised that the order will not go through! So I think some very difficult days are coming.



Give me strength! Give us strength!

It's All Relative

Like with so many things we experience in life, especially with the difficulties we have, it is all relative. What may seem like a very stressful situation to some, may seem commonplace to others. I appreciate and understand this, yet sometimes feel I should not be feeling like I do about my son and his addiction.

I have heard stories now, through this blog and the various communities around addiction and mental illness on Google+, where parents have lost their children to suicide or overdoses. I have heard stories in which families are permanently torn apart and those broken relationships are never repaired. People who have lived on the streets for years and living horrendous lives because of their addiction, sometimes suffering from mental health issues as well. Also as I am attending more and more training sessions for my mentoring, and I hear stories of people who lived the life of an addict for 10 or even 20 years before getting and staying in recovery. And I am feeling helpless, drained, guilty, worried, frustrated, ashamed, devastated, parentally unfit, disgusted, distrusting, depressed, scared....because my son has been using drugs since he was 13 and has been an addict for about 3-4 years!? He is still alive, he is still at home, I still have my daughters, I still have our house, we still have options and possibilities...it seems wrong to be so deep into my feelings of despair when all around I know so much worse has happened to others and is going on all around us.

Now as I said, it is all relative. I have no experience of addiction before. I have had many issues in my own life around poor health and times of depression and anxiety. I have watched both my parents die. I have uprooted myself from my country and started a very different life and a life very different to what I imagined. I lived in a very bad marriage for many years,  in a home environment that was very tense and controlling and at times emotionally abusive for the children. But before all that, when I look back into my childhood, though I battled with my illness from the age of 7, I was HAPPY. We lived in a nice home, in a nice area with nice people. It was all very nice.  I loved my parents and they loved me. I had an exceptionally good and kind and loving and supportive mother. My father always provided for us and was there when we needed him. Even after my parents divorced, they remained friends and he would spend the majority of his weekends with all of us in our family home. There was never an issue if my mother needed help whether financially or otherwise, he would help his family, because we were still a family even after the divorce.

I was educated and enthusiastic and open, hoping for a wonderful life ahead of my and with all my dreams, my biggest dream was always to be a mother! That is another time I can remember being HAPPY, when I learned that I was pregnant with my first child. I remember repeating the pregnancy test, and again, and then looking in the bathroom mirror, and with tears in my eyes saying aloud to myself, "You are going to be a mommy". It brings tears to my eyes now as I remember.

I am so very sensitive and feel things so profoundly and my son is the same. Are relationship could not have been more perfect and more loving. Despite everything else that was wrong, having him was right! Having him all to myself for his first 5 years was wonderful and I was so confidant that we successfully created a firm foundation for our son and that he will have that foundation to build himself on. So child psychology would like us to believe, but that proved to be anything but the case for us!

Each time I fell pregnant, if everything else was wrong, being pregnant was always right and in a perfect world I would have had more children because to me nothing surpasses that joy.

With that joy comes responsibility and sometimes anguish as well, as I now know.

My pain to me is very real, even when I know it could be worse, as it has been for others. My son's life is difficult for me to observe helplessly. The pain and sadness I see in my daughters faces are not illusions, they are real as well. The years of their precious childhood lost. So this is my reality and my experience and to me it is dreadful.

Today as I wake up to my son more or less passed out on the sofa, with all his messes around him and the mess he has left for me everywhere, I feel empty. I feel life is wrong and I want to make it right. I feel we are approaching the end of the line soon. The drugs will have to end, the stealing will have to end, the abuse will have to end and ultimately for my son, his denial will have to end and he will need to face up to his demons.

I hope he will and I know that the road ahead, if he chooses a path to recovery, will be even harder than this life with drugs, and I hope he will come out of it a survivor. I do not want us to be saying these same things 10 or 20 years down the line. I do not want to loose my son to homelessness or suicide or an overdose.

My heart goes out to all those people out there whose reality is darker than mine, I admire your strength, courage and resiliency. I do not know if I could survive what you have endured. I hope other people out there will not have to either. I hope we all have brighter and happier days ahead of us!

Trying to "Get through"

Today I am not pondering love or the genetic factors in addiction. Today I am thinking about yesterday. Yesterday I was just trying to have a civil, adult conversation with my son before he started consuming various substances which makes rational conversation more difficult.

I was trying to ask him what it will take to make him finally have that moment of clarity that things need to change. He insists nothing will make that happen. Surely there must be something that scares him enough to think if that would ever happen than he would know enough is enough. I am asking too much I guess because he is of the mindset still that if he stays in the comfort of his home, hiding from reality, taking his drugs, eventually it will all go away.



So much seems to be happening, from my point of view, yet nothing has seemed to cause a reaction that results in a change in behaviour from my son.

Random recall now makes me remember yesterday as the clearest. The psychiatric nurse from the early intervention in psychosis team came by yesterday and talked to my son for about 2 hours. While discussing my son's "issues" with drugs and behaviour and the ramifications of his actions and the implications it has on the family all my son could say in a casual way was that "all this is an over reaction to someone who just wants to take drugs". My son expressed his resentment that he feels he is being forced into doing things that he does not want to do. The nurse then asked my son if that means he feels "manipulated" by others and that he feels powerless about it. My son agreed that that is how he feels. When the nurse then pointed out how the substances that my son is taking is in fact also manipulating him and making him react in ways that are untrue to him and that those chemical reactions are out of his control, my son did not have an answer. What he did say though was that drugs give him a sense of well being and a sense of self and without them that well being would be taking away. Most people work toward a sense of well being through work, relationships, security etc and with drugs that is like "cheating", he is getting the reward without the work or effort but that reward is getting smaller because the drugs do not give him as much as he would like as well as the added pressures now on him from outside factors to give up that reward system.

The outcome from the visit was that EIP (Early Intervention in Psychosis) is not a service that can offer my son any support because he is not displaying any psychotic symptoms and the key issue is his drug taking. Of course he can experience some disjointed thinking and his brain patterns have been altered which affects his thoughts and behaviours, but it is not psychosis. He will write the necessary professionals but he will be discharged from that service.

Yet reading the information on this link, http://www.nepft.nhs.uk/for-families-and-friends/ it states that:

 Mental illness can cover a range of conditions including depression, anxiety, stress, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, phobia, addiction, eating disorder, self-harm and personality disorder to name a few.

Yet, if you are not presenting with psychotic symptoms they apparently are not the correct service for you. How about the addiction, depression, anxiety, stress and possible personality disorder?

Of course the psych nurse tried to put the emphasis on how life will not improve while he takes the drugs, and that he is too intelligent to believe that the drugs are improving his life. He also tried to reiterate that his sisters are a concern and that agencies are involved. My son did not seem convinced, he seemed indifferent.

Speaking of agencies involved, we have had our third Social Services " Child in Need" meeting. I have expressed my opinion more than once regarding the so called "help" that Social Services has offered us. I feel that our new Social Worker is not much of an improvement from the last, however, he seems to be taking matters more seriously, which may at first seem like a good thing, but in fact may prove to make all this a very serious matter indeed.



In our meeting it was understood that things need to change drastically. We will be discharged from Social Services when the agency, Family Solutions, begins work with us. However, my son is expected to start attending sessions with his key worker and get on board. If Family Solutions is unhappy or dissatisfied with the way things are going or if any new information is disclosed and another referral to Social Services needs to be made, then we will be looking at a much more serious intervention from Social Services in the form of A Child Protection case, that is when removing children from the family home becomes the object of the case if serious changes are not made.

http://www.frg.org.uk/2-4-whether-your-child-can-be-removed-from-your-care

Not even this realization that the matter will be no longer in my hands but in the hands of Child Protection, doest it seem to hold a big enough reality check for my son. My son is still adamant that things are not so bad,  or correction, things were not so bad until I started making an issue of it all. He admits he hates Social Services' involvement, however he does not see that he must start playing ball or the outcome may be devastating. When I was trying to get him to answer my questions about how things can start getting better, asking him what he thinks needs to be done, his answer was, "I am being forced into all this and I have to keep doing what I am being forced to do until they go away". I pointed out to my son that he has been saying this for weeks and yet in fact he has done very little in regard to what others want him to do, so in fact he is not really being "forced" because he is not doing them. As even the psychiatric nurse observed, my son might actually be doing things on his own accord (such as keeping a log of what he takes, when he took it, and how much) but as soon as someone tells him to do that thing he has already been doing, he stops. He likes to be in control and he likes to challenge people.



The problem is that while we wait for Family Solutions or Social Services, or the Key Workers, any professionals or me for that matter to try to "get through" to my son, we live the same way despite all my efforts. I am worried that in the process of all this waiting, the message being sent to my son, and my daughters, is that he can get away with it, he is in control, nothing is "working" and mom is unable or incapable or too weak to make the changes needed to make everything OK again.

As I have said so many times before and I keep saying, I still cling on to hope that one day things will be different and better for us all.