The Birthday Bash

Yesterday was the stepson's birthday - 25 going on 12 - and my wife and I met up with him and his middle brother at a "local" adult arcade for supper. Everyone carefully stayed away from the obvious taboo subjects and dinner went fine. Then the middle brother brought in the gift(s) that he and the oldest brother had purchased for the stepson. When the stepson opened the gifts, we could just SEE it in his face where his thoughts were going. One of the gifts was a watch. Another was a new wallet.
The watch will probably disappear the next time he has an episode because it is something new in his life and obviously contains a bug that is spying on him or trying to control his mind somehow.
The wallet is just going to remind him that we took his license and atm card away.
Anyway, the stepson has to return home today because he has the second of three doctor's appointments tomorrow morning. There goes another $250, cash.
*sigh*

The Holiday Weekend

So far, the stepson is still doing well. He is acting completely normal, although he will still spit out exactly what you give him. In other words, when his mom yells at him, he yells right back. So, hopefully, she'll learn to chose her tone a little more judiciously in the future.

The next step for him is that he has to agree to therapy with his mother. If he does not, his world will remain small. He has the second of three doctor's visits on Thursday for his Staph infection. Hopefully, there will not be any more problems.

I need to get the doctor's email address so that I can let her know that she needs to make it very clear to him that he has to continue to take the medicine all the way until the end or the Staph will just come back. Otherwise, I think once the physical symptoms of the rash go away, so will his attitude about taking the medicine correctly.

*sigh*

Wife home - Catch-up

The weekend was quiet with just my stepson and I at the house. On Saturday, his brother was supposed to come pick him up and play golf with him. He canceled at the last minute - of COURSE! So, the stepson moped around all afternoon.

On Sunday, his brother actually showed up and took him to his house! *whew!* The stepson stayed there until yesterday.

My wife came back from her sister's house on Monday. We went to a local fodder and during our meal, she started going off about how I was getting so forked by the company that I work for because I now have to be on call for a product that I don't have anything to do with - and that produces a LOT of emergency calls in the wee hours. She was REALLY pissed off about it. In the end, she started acting like it was MY fault. So, I said, "You know, I don't really see how this (meaning her going off on me) was solving anything." She immediately took some other way than the way I meant it. She hasn't talked to me since.

Yesterday, I got home from work and found the stepson back from his brother's house. I went back to the bedroom and found my wife all curled up in a ball in the bed. So, I tried to talk to her YET AGAIN! nadda. Screw this shit!

Eventually, she got up and went into the living room where she accosted the stepson about his antibiotics. He immediately mirrored her attitude which quickly escalated everything to yelling. (We're talking microseconds here!) I calmed the situation down - YET AGAIN! - and we finally got an answer out of him.

Guess we're back to the same ol' same ol'

*sigh*

The Haircut

Last night I got home from work and saw empty beer bottle and a tumbler that had whiskey in it.

So, I took the bottle of whiskey with me to poker night and just left it there. *sigh*

This morning, my stepson asked me for money for a haircut. it's Friday. I ain't giving him cash. End of story

Staffing Staph Stuff

Took the stepson to doctor for a follow-up appointment for his staph infection. Found out that he has the bad kind of staph... that is resistant to antibiotics.

$120 for office visit
$180 for first 2 weeks of the 6 week treatment
$$ Half-day lost from work
Mastercard - the choice of millions of ex-felons to treat their staph infections.

*sigh*

Talked with my wife and we decided that it would probably be better to hide the alcohol until after his treatment is over. If this round of antibiotics do not clear him up, he has to be hospitalized!!

She Leaves

Yesterday around noon, my wife - the stepson's mom - left for her sisters for a few days. I guess that we'll find out if I can get him to crash!

I called home in the afternoon to find out if the cable guy had showed and to get the stepson to grab the mail. He sounded fine.

Last night, I got home about 5:30 or so. He seemed fine. In fact, he was just getting back from walking to Taco Bell for some supper. I stuck around until about 8:30 and then told him I had to go to work.

I was trying to leave him alone by himself, especially with the alcohol.

Anyway, I got home this morning about 0430 and he was asleep in his room. When I woke up around 11, he was laying on the couch in the living room watching TV.

I asked him about his Staph infection and told him that I was going to get him an appointment for a follow-up. After talking with my wife, I think that we are going to take him to this lady doctor.

a'ight.

WIly Coyote Mode

Well, yesterday was a failure. My stepson refused to keep his appointment with mental health - which I knew that he would.

I have shipped my wife off to her sister's house so that I can implement plan "Wily Coyote Mode". It's simple. I am going to use all of the knowledge that we have gained so far to get my stepson to crash. Once that has happened, I will start calling into the hotline and have the little mobile crisis team out to the house as often as it takes for him to be committed.

Oh yes, I WILL win this battle!

*sigh*

Appointment Day

Well. Today is the day when my stepson has a supposed appointment with Mental Health. There are three possible direct outcomes here. 1) At the last moment, he refuses to go. or 2) We get there and find out that he lied and there is no appointment. or 3) We get there and really does have an appointment and he keeps the appointment.

If option three happens, that has two possible outcomes 1) He tells the truth about what is in his head and they admit him/put him on drugs/whatever OR 2) He lies about the lies and acts completely normal and they do nothing.

If they do nothing, then we have two options; 1) We get him 1013'd 2) We kick him to the curb.

I seriously doubt that we will successfully get him 1013'd and even if we did, I think that he will be able to lie his way out of it.

However, I truly don't wanna kick him out because he will not make it very long on the street by himself. First, it's now getting very cold at night - too cold for someone in the elements. Second, his mind is so confused, he truly doesn't have the capacity right now to save himself.

I believe we are heading into a Catch-22.

*sigh*

Back to the norms

Well, his brother came over last night and hung out with him for awhile. Of course, he is VERY normal now. Hopefully, he will be in the down mode for his appointment this coming Monday.

All I got!

Win # 1

This morning, I got out of the shower and got dressed for the day. My stepson was already up and eating breakfast. HA! He is ready to go to the doctor for the rash that he has all over him. (It's even on his FEET!)

My wife just paged me and said that they took him immediately back to the ER section.

He is also VERY normal acting today.

Round 423

Well, his mom picked him up and convinced the cop to drop the trespassing charge. As soon as he got into the car, he said that he did not have a mental problem and refused to go to the mental part of hospital. He did say that he would go and get rash checked out.

*sigh* He his leaving us no choice here. Backing us into a corner. In fact, this is how bad it is. Anything in the house that we want to make sure he doesn't just pick up and take apart or throw away or burn in the fire pit, we have to put into the car or store in our room while we are doing what normal people would call huddling under the covers with a flashlight. My wife tremoring in terror that the next bad thing is going to happen. So, I ask you, dear blog, what the hell!?

I have had it up to the top of my bald head of living with this shit on a daily basis in my own damn house - a place that I shoudl be able to forkin relax. Screw that crap. It's either he does this or finds some place else to live.

End of story.

Found HIM!

Wife just called and said that a police station for a community about 15 miles from our house picked up the stepson and will hold him until she gets there. He also agreed in front of the cops to allow his mom to take him directly to the hospital.

*sigh*

Missing link

Well, stepson is still gone. Saturday night, we wound up filing a missing person report with local county police. Of course, they advised us that since the stepson is of age, he has the right to not wanna come back.

I just hope that he gets help one way or another.

*sigh*

The Case of the Dissappearing Stepson

Three days after the last mysterious dissappearence, the stepson stepped out again. Last night at around 6 pm, he went out and started a fire in the pit... then suddenly he just wasn't back there anymore.

Now is Saturday morning and he's still not back.

Attitude Boy Strikes Again

I got home from work last night and found the laundry going full force. Then my stepson walked through the kitchen and I asked him if the inprocessing guy from the county had called back. He said no. So, I asked him to call the guy one more time and leave another message - hoping that I would get him to do it in front of me because I think that he is lying. He got all pissy and said that he wasn't going to call him again. I calmly told him to call one more time just to make sure that the guy understood the urgency. He said he would.

Then I asked if he had called and got an appointment for the rash on his leg and groin. He said that he would "do it tomorrow." I told him that if the rash turned out to be a staph infection it could easily move to his blood stream if he didn't get it treated asap. Then I mentioned that if he got Staph in his blood stream he was going to be so forked!

Both of his brothers called yesterday and talked with him on the phone. Now suddenly they are saying that he is completely normal and don't understand what our problem is! MUwwhwhhwhahahhahahahh! Morons! If they would rather bury their head in the sand and pretend that nothing is going on, then I say, "Fine! If your brother's future is not important to you, go for it."

Here's what I think is going to happen. He is going to continue to lie about calling and making appointments and then I'm going to kick his ass out of the house. He's 25 years old and I'm pretty sure that he'll just get into prison-kind-a trouble again. Everybody's gotta crash sometime and if he refuses to voluntarily turn himself in, then my options are limited.

There is another possible future. This future will involve him crashing again. This time I will not hesitate to call the hotline and get a pro on the scene. He will be 1013'd if he won't do it voluntarily.


*sigh*

Letter of Advice

Two nights ago, my stepson got all mad about his $10 being unattainable. So, he took off walking - at 12:30 am. He finally came back around 8 or 9 pm last night. In the meantime, I had responded to his statement about focusing on fires and being by himself so much because he was bored. Here is the letter:

Last night you said you were bored. I believe it! It seems like all you do is wake up, walk to fire pit and figure out ways to make fire burn... then finally crash at midnight or so. That would make anyone bored after a while! So, while you were being pissed off last night and stomping around the house I thought of some things that could help you fight boredom in a constructive way while you wait for an appointment with Northside.

Find a schedule and stick with it. It could look something like this;

0800 - Get up.
0815 - Walk around the neighborhood - a few times. (While you are walking, think about something good that has happened to you in the past.)
0900 - Shower.
0930 - Eat a good breakfast.
1000 - Write down the thing that you were thinking about during your walk. (In a blog, in a file on the computer, on paper, somewhere!)
1030 - Read a newspaper. (There are many newspapers online: NY Times, Atlanta Journal Constitution, etc) Don't just read the sports section, read the whole thing. Learn something new. Learn a new word. Research a person that you read about in the news. Find out who they are, what makes them tick, why they are in the news. In what ways are you like them? In what ways are you different from them?
1130 - Write down what you learned. Use the new word you learned in your writing. Write about your opinion about a news item that you read.
1230 - Take a break and eat a light lunch.
1330 - Search job postings for different kinds of jobs - these can also be found on the internet. If you find a job that you know nothing about, research it. Find out what it takes to become that person. What does that person actually do on the job?
1400 - write down what you learned about the job.
1500 - Take a break and contemplate. What would be the steps you would need to take to go from where you are now to having the job you researched? (Don't worry about whether you think it is something you could or would do. Just do the exercise.)
1530 - Write down what you think the steps should be.
1600 - Read what you wrote yesterday. Revise if you want.
1700 - Take a break and contemplate. Think of something that you have done in the past that you wish you had not done or that you wish you had done differnetly. Think about what the situation was, what you would do if you could go back and change it, what you would do if the same situation came up again.
1730 - Write about it.
Evening - Watch a little TV. Hold a conversation with us about what you found that day in the news. Interact with us on some level.
2300 - sleep.

When I say write, I don't mean write like someone is going to come along behind you and read what you are writing. Write for yourself. Do it in a place that you don't have to worry about us finding it. What you write is yours, not ours. There are many places on the Internet which would give you a safe and anonymous place to write. No one has to know that it is you writing. What you write doesn't have to be perfect or even interesting to the world. It is
only a place for you to say what's on your mind. http://www.blogger.com is a pretty good place to create an anonymous blog. There are others.

Stop selling yourself short. Don't aim for a menial job that just gets you by each day and will bore you to tears. Think big! Don't be afraid to fail. Failure gives you a chance to see what you did wrong and fix it. Write about it.

Understand that you are a person worthy of respect. Respect yourself and learn to respect others. Find a positive thing about yourself every day. Write about it.

Think about how the world appears from other people's perspectives. Why do they act the way they do? Try to understand your mom. Try to understand your brothers. Try to understand me. By learning through the actions of others you can get a better understanding of yourself. Write about it.

Learn patience. Learn love. Learn forgiveness. Learn respect. Learn happiness. Learn to be inspired by others. Learn greatness. Learn humility. Learn to ask for forgiveness. Write about it.

Visit wikipedia.org, visit dictionary.com, find a joke every day. Read someone else's blog. Read a book. There are even places on the Internet where you can read a book... for free! gutenberg.org is one such place.

Learn to whittle. Learn to paint. Learn how a gyroscope works. Learn how to navigate using the stars. Learn the difference between port side and starboard side.

There are many, many, many things to do with your time other than sitting around worrying about a fire in the back yard wondering what you are going to do in the future. Or who's doing what to you. Basically sitting around dwelling on negative things. Turn this around and think about positive things!

And last but not least, know that I love your mom more than anything in the world. More than computers even! And she loves you even though you may not think that is true sometimes. Because you are part of her, I love you too. Because I love you, I want to see you succeed. Succeed in finding happiness with yourself, with your life. And finding that path to happiness starts with getting help for those thoughts that keep you awake for days at a time. Getting help getting rid of the people in your head, taking back control of your mind. And this appointment that you will get today or tomorrow is the start of that help. I suspect that keeping that appointment and going through with it is not going to be easy. You are going to doubt. You are going to be paranoid. You are going to think that you don't need the appointment. But, if you will just be brave and trust just a little bit, enough to go to the appointment and any appointments afterwards, you will beat these demons.