I can't keep my son off drugs/alcohol--he is very immature and makes crazy decisions

Hi--
My son has epilepsy and a heart condition and a problem with his blood where he shouldn't smoke and I have autoimmune and liver disease. My son has deterioriated since jut before his last big grand mal. I'm so afraid about the people he is running with because they are so wasted all the time they would not call 911 if he had a seizure and had trouble like a heart attack and they keep buying him alcohol etc... urging him and pressuring him.



The main problem is a fifty year old woman who is mentally ill (supposedly has a military background but I don't believe it since she is prone to delusions). She is a hardcore alcoholice. She and the store near her house have sold my son alcohol though he is twenty and she is driving him around drunk, comig to get him whenI'm not home to take him to her house and not bringing him home to get his medicine, so he goes without and is psychotic and screaming at me like schizophrenic. I don't know if he'd had seizures at his house, but I don't like her driving him around.



She is pretty nuts and has gotten herself prescriptions for pain meds and adderal and admitted smokes and my son gets crazy on that stuff, gets really stupid and just does anything anyone tells him. She succeeded in getting him thrown out of school and acts as though there sexual attachment to my son, despite the age difference and she looks like sheis very very sick she is very skinny, not to mention nuts and clingy. When I met her I realized that she had called my house once pretending to be amental health worker calling at my son's request and she managed to get alot of info from me about my son. The police refused to tell me if this was illegal.



I have tried to deal with the police, who obviosly know who she is since she had a recent domestic incident where she was beaten and every window, appliance and even plumbing in her house was beaten in with a sledge hammmer. I'm so glad my son wasn't there. My son is dumb enough to try to protect this woman and get hit or killed, or the stress could put him into seizure.



He has lost his license due to a DUI riding withthis woman. I am thoroughly disgusted and frightened it will be a wreck next time.



I was told she was an ex-military single mom whose son my son met in college. She refused to give me the address where my son was, claiming she didn't know the "number" and I wouldn't find it, and she had to "take" me. She sprayed herself with a gallon of cologne to cover the booze smell and I had to follow her.



The local police--happy to arrest my son for underage drinking--will not prosecute this woman who bought it for him. I'm at my wits end. I found out a few weeks ago that she got my son hooked on methadone and he ended up in jail in withdrawals. Stupidly, I bonded him out, now she is trespassing in my opinion by coming to pick my son up.



My son says I'm a control freak whojust doesn't want him to go anywhere, that I want to keep him in prison, but how can I let him be used and abused by these people whoget him to do stupid things, go to jail for them for their DUIS, drive him drunk, give him booze and drugs, get him addicted to hard drugs, probably smoke crack or something like it, and wont even make sure he gets home to get his medicine, let alone keep him straight.



I had him all straightened out and ready to work. NOw he can't pas a drug test--again. I'm beginning to want to revoke his bond and put him back in jail. At least I won't worry.



The judge says becuse he obviously can't make rational decisions and support himself and is progressing to chronic homelessness and addiction and is non-compliant, that I should get his rights taken away and make him a ward of the state or something. I hate doingthat to him.



He used to be such a bright kid, taking college algebra and getting great grades, until he met this kid and started on drugs. Now his brain is gone. We are alll worried the damage is permanant from seizures while using drugs. Or maybe its the natural progression of his epilepsy and he is losing intellect and the drugs are his way of dealing with it. I don't know. But he has so many charges he will never beemployed. Mental heath wont see him because hes non-compliant, won't do or take what they prescrbe, misses appointments. I can't handle it anymore and he just screams at me that I'm a piece o**** and just don't want him to have any fun or freedom.



This woman is really really bad. Am I wrong. I just can't let go like this. I also think this woman deserves to pay the piper for what she is doing and has done to my son. Only through her arrest ad incarceration will my son believe that what she has done is wrong. My son isn't real bright now. I'm the bad guy. If he had good friends, I wouldn't care. Butevery good person that has tried to help him, from AA and other places, he has burned numerous times and they just wont' deal with him anymore.



The consensus is that my son either needs to be institutionalized longterm in prison or a mental facility until he reaches a level of maturity where he understands that he must be ale to support himself and notbreak the law.



I don't know what to do. Any advice would be appreciated. My son is fast becoming mentally challenged and losing intellect. What do I do? Talking to my son does no good because he claims that these people are the only peoplethat will ever take him in and they have done a number on him convincing him they love him andthey are his "real" family, and I'm the enemy.

Reason for Edit:

I have had to take a few pieces out of your post as we have to be careful about content since we have minors who use the site.

Post Edited By Moderator (djdaz_1985) : 11/21/2008 5:45:46 AM (GMT-7)

Thanks Darren--

I live in a tiny town about a half hour from the city where he gets in trouble. He used to go to college in the city, but had trouble and dropped out. He maintains "friends" there, some okay, some I don't know. I try to keep him around here and involved here with friends from church and AA but I cant force things.  When he's normal, he likes it here. we do alot outdoors.

I did try to get his bond on a minor charge revoked so he could dry out, but the police station illegally refused, claiming bond was only applicable until first appearance, which is very illegal. They told me there was nothing I could do. I told my son that he better tell his friends mother to take good care of him because if anything happened to him in her house I was holding her responsible because I had explained to her myson had some problems.

I dropped him at this house where his friend who is still attnding college went. Apparently, he went to another "friend"'s house and did some rap music using his laptop. After he left the house, someone from there followed him back and he was assaulted by them, hit in the head with a hammer and his backpack stolen with his laptop, all his music and all his ppa epilepsy medicine.

After several ER visits he admitted to hearing converstations that were not there. He is now in a treatment center for mental illness and rehab. I hope he is okay.

I've done some research and from what he describes and what I know of him, it sounds like a schizophenia-like psychosis of epilepsy, a rare condition his uncle had as well. It may have been a worsening from being hiton the head with te hammer but he said he heard them before, just thinking me and my bf were talking about him in the other room and we aren't there or hearing loud music.

I hope he is alright. I want to get him on some kind of medicaid or medicare (both deny him repeatedly) so I can get him up to an epilepsy/neuroscience center. Right now, he doesn't even have a neurologist, and most around here are not aware of the disorder,though there is much online.

My son is so frightened for his future and unsure if it is epilepsy and if they are giving him the right meds. I guess we all feel that way sometimes. I wish I could be with him but he is allowed no communication for a while and he hasn'tcalled. Any help on this subject would be appreciated.

 

Thanks, Darren. He is under treatment now, and I'm told he's okay. We thought at first it might be a combination of getting hit on the head with a hammer and the epilepsy. We pray its temporary. He just really needs to get health insurance and another EEG done while ON medication to see if the medication is even really helping the left P3 spikes that are present all the time, even when he does not seem to be having a seizure. It's just so hard to split it out and know which way to go, but hopefully ths time they will get us pointed in the right direction. I will try the other forum. I think some of his depression is either related to meds or just hating having epilepsy, and I just can't blame him for that. It stinks. Hopefully he will get involved somewhere.

Thanks Aurora so so very much. I am pushing to try to get him medicaid or medicare on a medically necessary medicaid. He has to refile for social security and go through it all again. I need to talk to a good social security lawyer. Hearing about your son is uplifting. My son was in college and getting good grades, taking trigonometry and other advanced courses. Then he got really agoraphobic and messed up on drugs and alcohol and it took two semesters of zeros to flunk him out. Now he feels hisbrain is permanently damaged from it and I tried to warn him but he didn't believe me. His "friends" told him my fearswere just paranoia, but they fail to recognize that my son has epilepsy and that changes things!

I saw my son today and he has a tentative dx of PTSD, based on his recent assault. He was doped up alot on zyprexa butthen they lowered it because he couldn't stay awake.I was so worried I hadn't heard from him. Unfortunately, even though the voices my son heard were not really like the full schizophrenia voices, they are legally treatng him as if heis a big public threat. It's sad, especially since it may be PSTD--since people do hear and even see things when they have it. Zyprexa can cause seizures diskinesia (permanent odd facial tics) and even fatal neurological problems. My son says he doesn't feel anything when he takes it and doesn't know if it improves things yet, He seems the same nervous, bored, lucid, and sweet child to me.

I plan to try to get some insurance to get him a post medication EEG since this has never been done. We have noticed in his case while the grand mal seizures are controlled, he is seeming to lose memory and intellect and havie more problems and we suspect the focal area may still be active and perhaps better seizure control will help a great deal.

I hope this is an episodic treatment. WE also have a hereditary liver disease in our family and we try to not burden the liver unnecessarily. He definitely needs something or more thanone thing. I just hope they can find the right combination.

I worry about the seizures too. We have to get the drug seeking and addiction problem under control. I hope things finally work out this time.

Thank you so much for your care and kind reply. It meansalot. I've been so stressed. It was good to see him alert and lucid and I'm glad the doctor will see him that way and realize that he is fairly normal when sober and that this episode of hearing voices leads him a sound and not too too severe conclusion, since my son is really normal alot, and his problem is mild compared to the usual presentation and not quite exactly right. The PTSD surprisedme but makes sense now, I hadn't thought of it. Given his dad's family's history, we both got really scared.

Thanks, Aurora. They said there was some small improvement today, and that is good. He is not able to focus enough to read yet, though he's often like that, nervous and bored, and we are not sure if he really has ADHD too or whether the meds will clear it up.

Right now I'm waiting on PPA to process the order and get his meds shipped. He's only got a few days left and some liquid. We have the holidays coming and shipping and doc office delays may really screw things up. I'm just tapped out emotionally, physically, and financially from all this and its not his fault, its just the way it is. I need to clear my plate today, get everything done, and zone out for a while.

thanks for the hugs. I don't get so many since my son's not here.