Worried my bson may be suicidal...

Hey "Vegas Mom", Happy Holidays to ya! You posted some good stuff. Let's see.... ((( LasVegasMom ))) I've had these very same feelings; very same. Just wanted you to know that I empathize with the pain behind what you wrote here. And I respect you for having the courage to share what must be very difficult and frightening to say openly. Don't take anything I write next the wrong way....it's going to sound point blank....not meant like that. I know you love your son. :love: And that, as a mom, we all hold ourselves accountable for our children's struggles. But I want to try and take that out of it and speak pure Recovery here to you. I can see how your first instinct is to say that because you relinquished your son, he now has an addiction problem. I'm sure that if any of my children were addicts, I'd think the same. But after after a few days of relfection and beating myself into the mud (which I dang well know I would do) this is what I would say too myself: VegasMom - You must try - and I know this is very, very hard - but you must try and let yourself off the hook. Forgive yourself immediately for his substance abuse problems. With very few exceptions, you cannot "make" someone an addict - most especially if you have not been in their life. In fact, in that case, you're in no way responsible. Maaaann I hope what I say next doesn't sound callous. I understand that we're talking about your child here: Perhaps if I put it this way (and again I write this with compassion).....I live on a street with probably....I dunno....500 other adults on it. And if 1 in 10 people are addicts.....I believe that's the generally accepted statistic.....that means (and forgive my math - it's terrible)...but that means 50 people on this street are addicts. And I ain't never met one of them. Don't know them. I am not responsible for their drinking/drug problems. Nor am I responsible for the addiction of the other 25 million + addicts on the planet. You want to know who is responsible? The truth? Ehh...personally, I'm not sure anyone is. Addiction is a disease; one no one asks to have. We might as well say we're responsible for someone having diabetes or Rheumatoid Arthritis. And maybe that sounds like an oversimplification. Shrug. Nature vs. nuture. What came first the chicken or the egg? Addiction is alive and well and will remain so with or without any of our beliefs about it. Addiction is one powerful SOB. In the case of your son, there are things that you as a mom can do to help him with this terrible illness. Primarily and most important - educate yourself. That would be the best thing to do. Learn about addiction. There are many excellent books out there on the subject; how it works; how it wends itself into the family dynamic. It is a family disease; effecting every member. That would include you because he is your son. His disease is definately effecting you. You are doubting yourself, hating yourself, feeling like a failure. See...this is how addiction f***'s with people. It hits them where it knows it'll hurt them most and then they're paralyzed with fear, remorse, self-hatred and regret. Dont' let addiction run that game on you, VegasMom. And notice how I didn't say "dont' let your son run that game on you". It's not him talking; it's his disease. Don't let the disease of addiction keep you from loving yourself enough to help your son. There's nothing it would like better than that. Trust me. As for his pain over adoption, as I read Adoptees' stories I see the pain it causes. Sigh....I do not know the answer to that except therapy perhaps and miles of compassion and understanding. And again education, which is why I come here. On adoption itself? Regret and heartbreaking loss seem to be it's legacy. I guess there's no way around that but through it. For myself, I have begun to think that I did the wrong thing. That I should've lived in the street with my children because people in here and out there would've thought I was a decent mother then. But what would my children have thought? Would they have appreciated poverty? I dunno. I just don't know. Which sucks.....eternally. Wishing you better days and praying for your son's Recovery. People do come back from addiction, VegasMom. I've witnessed it more than once with my own eyes. Hang in there, okay? :grouphug: Much hugs!

I am trying, this is just so darn hard. My son is not speaking to me, so all my information is thru his wife, who, thank god, is keeping in touch with me. I have now found out that his aparents are telling him to just forget about me, that he has known them for 28 years and me for only a year. They are telling my daughter in law not to tell him she is speaking to me, of course she tells him anyway. They told her that he is just trying to forget about me. My daughter in law said she feels like he is just trying to make his amom happy by saying those things, she told me he talks to her about me and she knows he misses me. Of course all this crap does not help his recovery. Which by the way, his amom has completely derailed by buying him a bottle of wine for christmas-this from a woman who doesn't even drink! She said he was begging her for it (duh-of course he was-he's an alcoholic!) and she doesn't want him to be mad at her. So she would rather he kill himself (he overdosed in October and was in the hospital for 9 days with liver and kidney failure) than be mad at her. I just knew this would happen if he went back ther. Nobody in that family stands up to him and he knows he can use his anger to get whatever he wants from his afamily because they are all afraid of him. Oh another wonderful nugget that his amom keeps on saying is that I gave him up 28 years ago so I just need to realize that I can't have him back whenever I feel like it. I gave him up, she tells my daughter in law, so that does not make me his mom. Uh, hello, he looks just like me, I carried him in my belly for 9 months, I gave birth to him. She tells my son that obviously I did not love him enough to keep him-what the f does she think this is? A friggin contest or something? Well, she is winning because know I now he will not speak to me as long as he is living with his aparents. This woman has been so nice to my face and then says ridiculous things like this behind my back! And I do know that my son wants me to prove her right, that I will turn my back on him. So even though I kind of want to back off for my own sanity, I don't want to because I know I will lose him forever if I don't at least stay in touch in some manner-email/text/voice mail. I am hanging in there because I know I will get the call when he really needs me, and I need to be there for him.

Hey VegasMom! I was glad to hear back from you as I always worry that in sharing about addiction I may alienate people. I'm a longtime AlAnon member and we're usually pretty quiet about it but sometimes the suffering of others just makes me want to reach out. Then of course being codependent I worry I shouldn't have reached out to start with. Sigh....an endless struggle this codependency crapolio!! :banana: :banana: I am somewhat afraid that even death might not cure it! :evilgrin: On the stuff with your son's adoptiveparents. Hmmmm....that's a toughie. So many emotions from so many angles; so many people hurt and afraid. It is a minefield for sure. And it sounds like his amom is especially frightened or threatened perhaps is a better term. Then too, your son's illness has probably taken its toll on the sanity of those around him (not his fault - just his illness doing what it does). Also, there is this underlying fear - a jealousy of sorts - among people who are on the front lines of the addicts life. They worry that someone else will be able to do what they couldn't; save a loved one from their drinking or drugging. It's an odd quirk of the ego that takes years to overcome. Addiction wears the soul down after a while, until it is just a small husk inside the heart, buried under years of disappointment and sorrow. :( :( It is very difficult to side-step the name-calling stuff. I know; I've battled that one myself. Then again...maybe it's not name calling really. But that term "gave up"...it connotes some bad things to birthmothers sometimes. To some, it's as if we just simply threw up our hands and said "I give up! Take him!! I don't want him!! Give him to the Salvation Army!!" I think that there are people out there who because they are extremely ignorant actually believe that that's how we arrived at our decision to surrender our children. (Not saying your son's amom is one of them....just talking in general). And you know a person can't find that kind of stupidity. In the end, it is it's own curse; causing someone to remain painfully blind to themselves and others. The cotton stuffed so far into the ears, a person couldn't hear traffic if they stood in the middle of the LA Freeway in rush hour. :arrow: I am hoping that some of the more senior members who are in reunion will see this thread and respond to it. I am not sure what to advise in this situation. It probably should fall to someone with far more experience than me. Reunion, from what I've learned, is a thorny thing that pricks everyone's skin and causes them to bleed. I will be praying though that there is some breakthrough somewhere so that the lines of communication can be opened in order to help all involved. This sounds like a very wise course of action. (((( LasVegasMom )))) Hoping things can get better for you, your son and his adoptiveparents.

I doubt that the overdose was accidental, especially if your son took enough Tylenol PM to go into cardiac arrest. I'm surprised that the hospital didn't force him into the psych ward after being in ICU. Your son most likely sustained permanent liver damage from the OD, and it is more important now than ever that he not abuse any drugs or alcohol...he's risking his life if he does. Has your son ever been evaluated for bipolar disorder? Many bipolars self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. The hard part to figure out is how much is due to substance abuse versus how much is due to mental illness. Regardless of whether his primary disease is addiction/alcoholism or mental illness, he'll need to be completely substance-free before he'll start feeling any better. It's almost impossible to treat a mental illness effectively if someone is still using drugs and/or alcohol. Does adoption, itself, cause people to suffer from unipolar depression or bipolar disorder? I tend to think that it's a predisposition with a genetic basis. But I also think that this "predisposition" to depression can be triggered by environmental stressors. And from what I've read many adoptees struggle with low self-esteem and self-worth issues during childhood and adolescence. I think that adoption issues can contribute to a clinical depression, but I don't think the issues are the sole cause. Addicts and alcoholics blame other people in their lives...it's just a fact of the disease. The blame game is an easy one to play, but at the end of the day, we all have to take responsibility for our own lives. He's not a child or even a teenager...he's a full-grown man, a husband and a father. He needs to take the first step and seek help for himself. Spending time wondering if his adoption caused all this pain and grief isn't going to do anything positive or good for you. None of us can turn back the clock...none of us can "unsign" those relinquishment papers, and we can't bring our babies home. Their babiehoods and childhoods are gone forever. Blaming ourselves can't help our children. We can help them now, though. We can become integral parts of their lives. There is no need to "compete" with their aparents. Eventually most people in long-term reunions come to realize that love is infinite...there's enough love to go around. The issue of titles becomes irrelevant, too. We all have something of value that we can contribute to one anothers' lives. If an adoptee comes to love his birthmother, the love he has for his adoptive mother does not become less. But it takes a while before the people involved in a reunion come to realize this. Your son needs professional help. He also could benefit a lot from joining a 12-Step program, such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Millions of people worldwide have been in your son's shoes, and they have found sobriety through fellowship with one another...through sharing their experience, strength, and hope. Recovery is possible for everybody. It's a lot of hard work, but it only has to be done one day at a time. And he doesn't have to do it alone. This is a hard road right now for you. But please know that others have walked that road before you...you aren't alone. I went through all this hard stuff, and more, with my own son when we reunited almost 19 years ago. It was a hard journey, but one that has brought me much love, much joy. And it was all worth it, every single bit of it. :loveyou:

LVM and Janeytwo, Sorry, I am not posting at the moment as I am not in a "positive" place and don't want to influence anyone but felt the need to reply to the thread. I am so sorry for your son's issues but you must not become involved in a power struggle with his parents - no matter their actions. I believe that the best course of action is to simply tell him that you are here for him but recognize that he, and his parents, need to concentrate on making him well and that you will help, if asked. Although your intentions are in the right place, it seems to me that his amom is threatened and she may not be focused on what is most important - his health. As an objective third party, all involved need to get him the help he needs but if you suggest it, there will be resistance. It is imperative that you stay in touch but ease off a little - let his parents figure it out - unless he truly is in danger of taking his own life. It is hard, horrible, hurts like hell but they need to concentrate on him, not losing him. As for you not loving him by "giving" him up - I'm tired of hearing this about those of us that put others before us - nobody will ever win that argument with me. It surprises me that an adoptive parent would say such a thing as my experience is the opposite. Take care, spend time speaking to friends and family and,most importantly, concentrate on what is important to your son - it may not be what you want but his health and happiness should always come first - to everyone. One day at a time. (((HUGS))) Kate

Raven, Thanks, not in the best place right now but I do appreciate your thoughts and comments. I hope all is well with you and I'll try and get my act together for the new year. Kate

Kate, sounds to me like the two of us may be in the same place right now. The holiday season has been a rough one for me this year. Hang in there, my friend. :loveyou:

((((Kate)))) (((Raven))))(((LVmom))) Not much but what I've got. Your friend and comrade, -T

Thank you to all of you who have responded to my posts. A new twist on all of this is that my daughter in law has been diagnosed with breast cancer. She is in touch with me daily. It is very very hard for me to be talking to her and not my son but I feel I must do this for her, his aparents are far from supportive of her and her parents are in Poland. She has noone else, and has really began clinging to me. I am trying to be strong for her, and for my grandchildren. I pretty much just listen to her, and let her do all the talking. My son is not well, his amom has been buying him alcohol "because it's the holidays"-whatever. My daughter in law says my family was the only ones that stood up to him, everyone else lets him do whatever he wants. And yes, they have dealt with him for 28 years and his abuse for about the last 12 years or so and I know they love him they just are kind of at their wit's end. I have decided to try and limit the talks with my daughter in law to every other day, to try and live my life here with my husband and 2 other children, and try to focus on other things other than my son. I know it sounds stupid but I'm trying to not mention his name every day, it just hurts me way to much. I love him so much that I can stay in the background if I need to. I feel like I'm going crazy, yes i'm in therapy, but this is so very very hard. I don't want to be one more "thing" or "issue" in his life, I want to be a positive influence, a good role model, and not a nuisance. If it were not for his wife's illness, I would back off alot more. I have decided I will send him an email maybe once a month-'hi, i'm here, i've been thinking of you. call me if you need to talk' kind of thing just so he knows i'm still around, not going anywhere, and leave it at that. It kills me but I am beginning to not function properly because of this, crying all the time. REally, I probably need medication but I'm trying to hang in there. It is so nice to know I'm not alone, that I have other sisters out there who understand my issues. thank you all.

LasVegasMom, I am so sorry to hear about your daughter-in-law's breast cancer. I imagine she must be scared out of her wits. Treatment is so advanced nowadays, though, and success rates are better than ever before. I was thinking that maybe you'd like to look at the following two websites. Both women are leaders in the field of adoption-related issues, and both are psychotherapists. They both offer telephone counseling, as well as mediation between adoptees and their birthmoms (for those having problems in reunion.) The first one is Betty Jean Lifton, who was one of the pioneers in the field. I started reading her books in the late 1970's, and she literally lifted the veil away from my eyes. Her website is [url=http://www.bjlifton.com]BJ Lifton - Author, Adoption Counselor, Lecturer[/url]. If you ever have the chance to read her books, go for it. She's an adoptee who was one of the very first people to write about reunions. The second one is Nancy Newton Verrier, author of The Primal Wound and Coming Home to Self. She does psychotherapy for members of all sides of the triad. Her website is [url=http://www.nancyverrier.com/]Nancy Verrier[/url]. It might help if you take a look at their books and websites. Another thing you could do is join a local triad support group. If you PM me with the name of your town or city, I can run a search for available groups for you. Another support group that I highly recommend is Concerned United Birthparents, more commonly known as CUB. You can find their website at [url=http://www.cubirthparents.org/]Concerned United Birthparents, Inc.[/url]. Hope this helps you a bit. Hang in there, and keep posting here. We're all listening. :loveyou:

RAVENSONG, thanks for the great information. I'll be looking at those websites and trying to get more information. Knowledge is power as they say. I am in the Vegas area, and if you can find some sort of triad support group, I would be all for it. Believe it or not, I have never knowingly met a birthmother face to face yet. I jumped into these online groups full force once my reunion started to unravel and now I do find power and help here, but face to face is always best. I appreciate your sound advice, always. Thanks!

Dear "Vegas", I'm just catching up on this thread. It had somehow gotten away from me. Anyway, I am so sorry to heart that your daughter-in-law is ill. :-( THAT is not good news at all. :-( You have a lot on your plate right now. It's no wonder you are having a hard time coping. Raven has given you excellent advice. I won't try to top it. Just wanted to say that I'm pulling for you - and for your daughter-in-law - and your son - that things can get better. :-( Man! This is some tough year for you, kiddo!!

LVM - no words come to mind but I'm sorry to hear of your DIL's illness - life hits hard and you and her are in my prayers. Stay away from the meds - never a good thing and you should be proud of yourself for "dealing" with everything on your own - good example for your son. Take cafe of yourself first and, hopefully, things will be better this year. Stay in touch, it helps to vent, especially, if you're like me and on your own. (((hugs))) Kate

Dear Kate, Just wondering how you are doing? I know you'd been down.

Thank you all for your encouraging advice. I'll be honest, this year is starting off so differently from last year when my son and I were in reunion, still in our first face-to-face time and actually on 1/2/08 was the day he returned to Jersey. I still remember hugging him so tightly at the airport and him just laughing and telling me he would be back, we would see each other again. I was so sad to see him go, but he was so happy because he was sure this was the beginning of our time together not the end. Now I feel like it's the end and it makes me so sad that i'm starting to cry as I write this. Anyhow my daughter in law is difficult to understand sometimes (she is from poland) but i believe that her cancer has not spread, the dr's want to operate on her but they are letting her make arrangements for reconstructive surgery at same time (breast cancer) so they told her they wanted to operate in 4 weeks. I believe this is good news, but we will really only know everything for sure when they open her up. It would be so much easier if my son just took the phone and told me what was going on, but he won't-even though she was talking to me in the car-he was driving-all he had to do was take the phone from her and talk to me but of course he didn't. It is absolutely heartbreaking to me that he won't talk to me and i try to think of his reasons-is it to please his amom-is it because he really hates me-is it because he has backed himself into a corner and now is too stubborn to say-oh, she isn't that bad-is it because he doesn't care? I don't know his reasons but now is wife is sick and I would like to talk to him about that as well. Anyhow, I'm going to try really really hard to take care of myself in 2009. I'm going to try and back off this relationship just a bit-try to give myself some breathing room and only speak to my daughter in law every other day or maybe even once or twice a week. My husband told me not to email or text him anymore, just let him come to me. He will realize that he needs me, he will miss me, whatever, and he will come back. My DIL thinks he is trying to please his amom and is afraid she will cut him off if he contacts me again. They are living in his aparents house now and were going to move out but my DIL's illness has them staying there at least another couple of months. MY DIL says that once they are out of that house, she knows he will contact me and that he is not in contact with me mainly to please his amom. I'm worried that he may never contact me ever again and I just don't know how I would live my life without him in it. Right now, i'm living on the hopes he will contact me but I don't know how I could face that reality if it became my reality.