pangs for cannabis today but resisted

(((((( tecomsin ))))))

My cannabis quit seems to have gone out the window. I am very stressed living with my son. He still has his suitcases in the entry way with the clothes half pulled out. Every day I ask him to take them up to his room but then he says he is too busy but all he does is play video games almost the whole day and then maybe works on job applications or something else for another hour. I am so stressed that I've got constant neck and shoulder pain from tension. Am going to get a massage but unfortunately my usual massage therapist isn't available for awhile and I don't want to switch to another one. I feel trapped. I want him to get out and get a job. He was turned down for the job he interviewed for. They said his deliverable project was very good but they hired someone with a different skill set. My son doesn't realize that maybe his skill set that is lacking is having a pleasant personality. I came home and said I was hungry and asked him when he wanted to go out and eat. He said an hour or two so I thought I would wait and not snack. It has been 4 hours and now he is yelling at me that it is too early to eat dinner. I've lost my appetite.

Good grief. Eat when you get hungry! Maybe confiscate the game box until he gets a job. Your house your rules.

How old is your son?

It sounds like he needs the boot.

If he's 21 or older, he'll figure it out....and you should not feel bad about it.

Kids are resilient, far more than parents and kids think.

It sounds unintentional, but you are allowing him to dictate your feelings and emotions.

I'm way over-simplifying it, I'm sorry.

On the cannabis, I say toke up, and often, if it helps keep you sane during this.

I am sorry it's still so difficult.


WC

I honestly do not know how you are coping. I am in awe of your patience and strength because I am sure I would have snapped by now. I'm a big fan of tackling one problem at a time. Deal with your son and then return to the pot situation. Hugs.

I am having a hard time with enforcing my house my rules. I get your point. A lot of my disappointment is wrapped up with how could I have ended up in this position to begin with. But a lot is just an accident of fate, like my son losing his father at age 8, and our struggles throughout his life, including my recent lung cancer treatment. I will try to coordinate meal times with him at coffee in the morning. At least he willing gets up now instead of sleeping till 2 pm.

OK, I just did. Sometimes it helps me think through things.

WC, life sometimes feels like a constant, relentless struggle. I've developed a shoulder and neck pain that also goes toward the front with pain at the collar bone. After a week of not getting better I went to my gp clinic and got a thorough exam which includes xray studies, that i also got done yesterday. If there is anything bad causing this pain it would hopefully turn up on an xray. It's only because of my lung cancer history that a doctor would think of a chest xray for shoulder pain... I don't like dealing with the medical system at all but I do take care of myself. I worry that without some structure in his life, my son would not take care of getting to necessary medical appointments. Once he has a job, I am . not going to need to kick him out, he will go on his own gladly.

Your note cheered me up, TheSadGirl. It is nice to read somethign positive about oneself when one is feeling down. One problem at a time is also good advise. I only worry about paranoia developing but am on 2mg of Rexulti so hopefulloy that will prevent symptoms. My goal is to help my son happily get a job as soon as possible and to feel less pain each day using a foam roller, a muscle relaxant, and a heating pad. So far so good.

I hope your XRays are fine.
I am tired of the medical system, too.
I am glad you take care of yourself.

Just continue doing your best with your son and with life. This will all change, in time. A year from now, things may be very different.

I think of you often and send good vibes your way!


WC

I'm feeling better this morning. The xray report said 'no obvious recurrent or metastatic disease' so whatever is causing this shoulder/chest/neck/clavicle/arm pain is probably not too serious. I'll be getting my regular ct scans in early July to catch early return of cancer. It's a sinking feeling, though, whenever I feel the pain and think about my cancer history and prospects for the future. Lung cancer is a sneaky disease and can come back even after years of NED (no evidence of disease).

Yesterday started off poorly in the morning as my son wouldn't get out of bed. He had spent all of Monday sleeping late and playing video games instead of working on job applications, his github project portfolio, or leetcode interview problems. Tuesday morning we got into a fight but at least he got out of bed and eventually started working on his opensource contribution to a video game. He had to brush up on C++ to really get to work on it. He had been stuck on this problem with a mental block on how to do it for months but finally made some headway yesterday. We went out to dinner at one of his favourites, a bbq place. So on our scale of things it was a good day. I let him drive in but he had trouble merging onto the highway and ran into the breakdown lane before the driver behind him literally stopped to let him in. I've never been in that situation before in all my years of driving. We made a deal he drives about half of the time so my nerves also get a break.

I think my shoulder pain is getting better. I can manage in the morning without reaching for my muscle relaxant/pain reliever immediately. Pot helps a lot with the pain. For now my quit is out the window and I don't feel good about that. On the other hand, I don't really feel good about anything in my life atm except that I still have a relationship with my son. I mean our relationship could be a lot worse than it is.

The xrays were fine. That's a relief. I'm a lot happier with my new gp than I've ever been with gp's in Canada. Sometimes I get in a really bad mood with my son, but usually I am reasonably positive and try to be encouraging.

You are right, a year from now, things could be very different.

Thanks for your thoughts WC. i am thinking of you too.

None of us is perfect all the time. We can only do the best that we can do. Please be kind to yourself. You are a great mom and your son is lucky to have you.

I'm also relieved to hear your xrays went well. Keep staying strong.

Well my cannabis quit is pretty much out the window for now, but unlike previous times I take a good dose of an antipsychotic every day (Rexulti 2 mg). Hopefully this is enough to keep me out of a paranoid psychosis. I am in constant daily pain with my shoulder and the cannabis helps. I got a massage on Tuesday and that also helped. Am scheduled for another one next week.

I am very unhappy with my son these days. Every day is the same and I hate our morning interactions. He doesn't set his alarm and will sleep till the afternoon unless I wake him up. I go upstairs several times, he says come back in half an hour, then goes back to sleep after I am upstairs for the third time. Finally around 10 am he comes down for coffee and breakfast. I oshow him some wonderful job ads I found on linkedin. Instead of applying he goes to take a bath with his phone for hours. It is almost noon and he is still in the bathroom. Maybe by 1 pm or 2 pm he will come down stairs. Then we will go out for lunch. Then we will come home and instead of applying for jobs he will play video games. Maybe by 3 or 4 pm he will apply for a handful of jobs. Altogether he works maybe a o everyday and he thinks this is ok. If I tell him I am unhappy and this is an unhealthy way to live he just gets angry with me and says I am guilt tripping him.

I talked with my psychiatrist at length about kicking him out. he seems to do just the absolute minimum each day to prevent that so each morning I wake up with hope that today will be a better day but it is only that everday is absolutely the same. Things are not getting worse but they are not getting better. I get no positive feedback from him for all my efforts to help.

Now he is downstairs starting to eat lunch, just some reheated chilli. He's yelling at me saying "you are blaming me for your actions" "you know that it makes things worse when you say things like this". "why are you saying these things to me?"

I told him I feel trapped and nothing I do or don't do will make any difference.
He says the reason he doesn't apply for jobs is that he has an anxiety disorder and the reason he has this disorder is that I "f**ked" him up with guilt based parenting style and that 'everything you say just makes things worse'. He implies that I want to make things worse on purpose.

I don't know what to say. I'm so unhappy with this situation. Every time I find a job that looks interesting and he seems qualified for I get excited and hope he will apply. But then he just doesn't do it. Maybe at the end of the day after yelling for hours he will or maybe he won't. There is nothing I can do. I feel trapped.

If anyone has any insight into this situation, I look forward to your comments. I am just so unhappy right now. Sorry for the wall of text.

I have the thought that I will spend the rest of my days living with my son in this regressive, disappointing space. I am in constant daily pain with my shoulder. It wraps around the front now, unlike previous times I've had this recurrent shoulder blade and neck pain. That pain in the front reminds me that I have been diagnosed with lung cancer and live with the ever present circumstance that it could come back at any time.

Then I spend too long on lung cancer forums... is it better to spend more time on a bipolar forum? I hope at least the change of scenery will do me good. I can stop thinking that I will spend the rest of my life in this circular pattern of re-enacting behavior that my son is locked in to. i might just have to tell him to leave. He may well call the police and say I am crazy and . need to be locked up. Then he might try to get control of all my finances by declaring me incompetent... I wouldn't put anything like that past him if he were desperate enough and running out of money. I don't think his inclination is to be so aggressive but if he gets angry he can actually believe he is doing the ethical thing. I've had enough of the police coming to my house and literally . breaking down my front door. So three pillars of safety have been stripped from my life "freedom from disease, freedom from mental disorder, and freedom from police intimidation and persecution?

Now i have the fourth, freedom from harassment in my daily life. I don't like to listen to myself being referred to as a *****. Now wonder i feel upset.

Edited to add: I was just upstairs trying to do the obvious thing just before 10 am and ask him to set his own alarm for tomorrow morning so I won't be upstairs trying to wake him up again. It gets off each morning to a bad start. He is not wanting to wake up and I am angry and disappointed he just is wasting his life doing practically nothing useful all day. He is much more productive if he will simply get up in the morning.

I am very sorry this is all so stressful. I am concerned about the potential effects of ongoing stress upon you in the long run.

Is it possible to set a target date with your son, one which determines when he needs to be ready to move out?

I am very concerned that you feel he might call the police on you and might try to take control of your life, as you have shared in your above post. Maybe be proactive and set a date for him to leave before there more chance of you potentially decompensating from ongoing stress?

I definitely do not have the answers. I want to be gentle in my suggestions and want to show the true concern I have for you in my heart.


WC

I appreciate your concern WC. I am also concerned about decompensating with my son at home and if that happens I would want him to leave since the situation is not good for my long term health. I can't discuss these thoughts with anyone since I would be labelled paranoid for doing so. I do need to protect myself from destabilization so maybe the thing to do is just to withdraw and certainly not let my son know that I am even concerned about that. I really do feel trapped.

I'm going to be blunt because I don't know how to be anything else. Kick his *** to the curb. Just from your posts I have seen a steady decline in your mental health and well being. You have given him a great opportunity and he is taking advantage of it. He is not a young child and you are not required to coddle him. Perhaps a swift kick in the arse will motivate him to get his life on track. I really think you would be doing him good as well as yourself.

I think with both the bipolar and lung cancer forums, moderation is key. Don't make it a main focus because it will just drag you down. My rule is that the worse I feel, the less time I spend here because I focus on how low I feel and I feel worse.

I am sorry for everything you deal with in regards to lung cancer. I can't begin to imagine what you have gone through, but I'm always here to lend an ear.

you need to cut him loose. That’s my opinion. He has no incentive to make a life for himself. He has cushy situation where he gets everything for free and doesn’t have to work. The only thing he needs to do is verbally abuse and guilt trip his parent and he gets a free ride.

We're having to deal with that issue with two young adults. Our daughter said they were moving out this summer, postponed to this winter. Now don't know what's happening.

We're meeting with boyfriend's parents and their friends next week to make a drop-dead date.

They are the reason we are still in this hellhole of a house, and we gave them about three years to launch so far. Daughter used to have a job, and still needs one. I told her if she doesn't get one soon she may not go to the anime convention in August. She knows that but hasn't shown any action on her part. Her boyfriend is the opposite: works lots of hours at a supermarket but is not doing well in school.

Thank you Fharraige, WC, TheSadGirl and Sazerac for taking the time to respond with your thoughts. I tend to write when i am feeling really frustrated. So I might be overexaggerating how bad things are.

My son has an anxiety disorder on top of ADHD so that is also a factor. Each day he seems to do a minimum. He just applied for a job at amazon and now is working on microsoft but he really needs to be sending out 20 applications a day rather than just a handful. I need to find a better way to cope and not let it get to me. He's supposed to set his alarm and get up tomorrow morning. I see my pdoc once a week for 45 minute appointments and we spend most of our time talking about my son and how I feel about it and what to do or not to do. I will ask him next week if he also thinks I should kick out my son. I am also worried that doing that might destabilize me.

(((((( tecomsin ))))))

Big hugs!

WC

WC, thank you for your caring and suggestions. Even though I write a lot about my feelings regarding my son's behavior and attitude, this thread is really about me and how I cope or fail to cope, and getting support to help me cope better. I have been traumatized by the police and my psychiatrist thinks I have PTSD. Every time I see a police car I end up locking it away in my brain for days if not weeks. It might be hard to empathize with my situation since it is so out of the ordinary. Setting a target date, an optimistic and a pessimistic one (I mean a range) might be a good idea to discuss with my son. I'll discuss with my psychiatrist next week.

Living with a lung cancer diagnosis, even if you are "no evidence of disease" status is tough. I spend too much time thinking of my eventual demise. That's not my son's fault but it does colour how I interact with him.

My son did live away from home for 5 years whilst he went to college, and graduated and he did work several terms in co-op so I know he can get a job and manage on his own again. I don't agree that the right thing to do is to kick him out today. Yesterday he did get about 15 or 20 applications in and figured out how to find more jobs to apply for. He gets a lot of anxiety whenever he sits down to do that work.

I told my psychiatrist last week that if he didn't start seriously applying for jobs we would be discussing kicking him out in our next session... If I see progress then I will be much happier and so will he.

I don't agree he has no incentive to make a life for himself, although I do see your point. Our situation here is not a simple one.

I am sorry you are facing a similar issue. It is a very tough position to be in as a parent. My son's problem is anxiety about making job applications. I think it helps if you can get to the bottom of why your daughter is not working. If she is not applying for jobs, does she know why?

I want to thank everyone who has responded on this thread. It helps me keep my sanity. I tend to write more when I am really frustrated and that would colour the impression of what is or is not going on here.

Yes, the whole PTSD thing is tough to live with.

I am going through a period of re-activated PTSD and it has me feeling very fragile and more. I cannot even describe all of the feelings. It has a negative impact upon day-to-day life, for sure.

I think you are doing a great job with all you have on your plate. Nothing about any part of it seems simple. It's easy to start to feel "protective" of you when you appear to be struggling... and the protective feelings are born of simply caring.

The goal is to try to support you through your trials. I hope my responses demonstrate support.

I hope you are having some fun this weekend!?


WC

Hi WC,

I appreciate your support and know what you mean about feeling fragile and not quite able to cope. I was reluctant to put the label PTSD on my fears of the police. If I were to describe what happened probably no one would believe me or I would be judged as being 'crazy' because what I am describing fits the bill of being 'crazy'...

It was only because my pdoc described my symptoms as PTSD that I would use the word. For the last 2 weeks I have seen a police car on just about every short trip I've taken in my car. Then I start to get the idea that I am being followed or monitored and I don't want to go out. So I sit on my sofa and type into my computer instead of living a life.

Well I am still taking a few tokes every morning, but not later in the day. The past couple days I've been able to get by without taking a pain killer for my shoulder. Can't wait for the next massage.

WC, I don't even know how to have fun anymore. Yesterday after my son settled down post his disappointing result (to him) in the leetcode competition we sat down for ice cream in the evening and he seemed enthused about finding an advertized job just perfect for him. Once he gets into the swing of applying I am sure he will get to 20 applications or so a day. On the other hand he wasnt up before 11 am yesterday so he's slipping each day closer to the point where he wakes up in the afternoon and our schedules are so out of sync that we are not even hungry around the same times to eat together. We've always had our meals together, despite all of the ruptures in our relationship.

About my lung cancer diagnosis and treatment, I experience it as a constant threat that I might die very prematurely and in a painful way leaving my son an orphan before he is in a position to build his own family and have other people to rely on.

I can relate to the fear of dying prematurely. My parents died at 40 and 43. I'm fast approaching those ages and it's always there. I've shifted my focus on to making memories with my kids because the truth is none of us knows when our time will be up. You can't control when your time comes, but you can make what you have count.

That's what I am trying to do TheSadGirl... make my life count in what is really important to me and one part of it is to help my son get through this transition in life from school to full time work. It is not an easy one. I've looked at the market he's in an dnot having 2 years of work experience cuts down a lot on what he could apply for...

anyway yesterday my son got a prescription from his gp of 20 mg Vyvanse for ADHD. He's intending to wake up at 9 am and take it. I am hoping for a miracle. I know he is tired of not being able to get work done too. It was his idea, not mine, to ask for medication and if he and his doctor agree then it is fine with me. He got 2 weeks of a prescription and is asked to monitor his symptoms or anything else like mood changes that might come up.

I'd be interested to hear about experience with stimulants. Probably shoudl post something on the ADHD forum too...