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The Teenage Runaway
Posted: 17 Jun 2006 Posted: 02 May 2006 Posted: 30 Apr 2006 Posted: 27 Apr 2006 Posted: 27 Apr 2006 All Entries |
The Teenage RunawayFriday, June 16 2006 8:15 am and it is time to wake Shaine up for a new day. One that includes a full day of rehab and school. I get to the steps to head down to his room and before I even take 2 steps down, I know something is wrong. My heart drops, my brain reels, but I continue down the steps. I call his name once with no response. On a typical day, that would be no surprise, but today is not your typical day; at least, it does not feel like a typical day. Probably because, it falls on the heals of a very difficult day yesterday, preceeded by a very difficult week and further proceeded by a nightmare of a month. OK, deep breath. Turn on the light. There you have it, the tears I was holding back begin to flow. The sobs are shared with the panic of a body trying to breathe. The bed is EMPTY. Fine, get ahold of yourself. Look, think, process, but most of all - BREATHE. Oh God, those are both tethers sitting on the speaker by his bed! He took them off, after a year fighting his own demons while wearing those things, he removed them. Oh Lord, please keep him safe. A note, on his bed and addressed to his girlfriend. "I am sorry for being such an *******, you deserve better than me..." I find myself running up the steps, out the door and falling to the lawn. Sobs strong enough to lead to vomiting. No, you have to get ahold of yourself. I have to keep thinking this over and over until I can focus on getting the phone and making the appropriate phone calls. Two hours and many phone calls later I stop to open my desk drawer. There it is, the proof of his choice. "Mom, you have to stop caring, but never stop loving me, only caring..." At that moment, I realized that caring and love go hand in hand. I also realized that it was finally my time. Today was the day. Today was the day that I was going to let out not only the frustrations of the last 4 years, but the pent up dispair of the last 15 years. Today is the day that everyone, past and present, hears the story of why my son turned to drugs at the age of 12. Why he choose drugs over a loving family. Why he allowed drugs to rule his life. But most importantly, why I choose to never stop fighting for his recovery. Why I learned the difference between enabling him and how to avoid that as best a possible, yet still protect him from the demons that haunt him, even though those with the most power in his life could not see it. Today, after more phone calls than I can count, my son is still gone, but so is the demon. Now we just have to pray to God Shaine comes home. That he chooses recovery over misery. That he sees it finally happened, the promise I made to him 4 years ago... to take the wind out of the demons wings... has happened. Today, I am strong. The beginning: 15 years ago or so was the first time I caught my ex cheating with (edited). I divorced him in 2001. Enough is enough since I could not fight the doting father, wonderful husband, awesome friend and court employee that was the life he lead when others were present. 2002 was an awful period. My then 12 year old and 7 year old boys had normal parenting time with their father. But I started to see anger in Shaine. Not the type of anger that comes with drug use, but a deep hurting anger. The kind that builds up inside of you until you either explode or extinguish it. I did not understand until the day Shaine came to me and told me his Dad was (edited). I took all of the necessary steps to protect my boys. Unfortuantely, the laws were not quite strong enough to help the boys. Dad got a slap on the wrist and and lecture. He turned around and said to Shaine, "How could you have done that to me? If you loved me, you never would have turned me in." I kept the boys from their Dad for 6 months. But to make matters worse, Shaine would not open up to any of the professionals that we sent him to. He refused to talk about it in any way. He did not explode from the anger, he turned to drugs to extinguish them. I finally was able to get him into a wonderful rehab program, but still could not get anyone to see past his father's perfectly wonderful manipulations of two different lifestyles. It did not seem to matter because Shaine slowly started making progress. He was clean for 5 months. This past Mother's Day was the best ever. Then May 15, 2006 things fell apart. I called my ex at work to talk to him about something to do with the kids. I found out that my ex had lost his long time job the week before, even though he had told me he was on vacation. I said, "What, did he get fired for (edited)?" "There is no way you chould know that" was their response. Yeah, right, sure, ok... "ahhh, I have lived with the knowledge for years and it is about time his lifestyle and the law came face to face." I spent the rest of the day on the phone. May 16th brought us face to face with him. Andy and I, along with several support personnel sat in a room with the ex and he spilled his guts. Next came the boys, one at a time, for him to tell straight up, in front of us all. It is finally time for the truth and it is a truth no parent would want their children to hear. But yet I feel nothing but relief. He deserves the prison time and my boys deserve to heal. But Shaine decided that he could not deal with the anger, topped with shame and hurt and disappointment. He choose drugs instead. And so the cycle begins again. June 16, 2006 rehab and I call him out on lies, relapse behaviors and positive drug tests. I tell him I don't know how much more I can take. I then drove to the Detention Center parking lot and we sat there for 45 minutes with me trying to get him to tell the truth and acknowledge his pain. Some things come out, but most just get buried deeper within him. I tell him that he either gets a handle on things and uses the support that is in place for him or he goes to Detention. I explain to him that it is not the use, but the lies and all that goes with it. He chooses recovery. I know, with all we have been through, that in his heart he wants recovery but I am not sure that his brain sees it that way right now. I drive him home and Andy and I lay down the ground rules. He then asked to be driven to the local AA meeting which he attends 2-4 times per week. Odd, but looking back on it now, I should have seen it coming. The hugs were extra long, the love you words were extra meaningful. At 11:15 pm I told him that "tomorrow will bring a fresh start so remember that we love you and go get some sleep". He left sometime after that. Never the end, but one more day of trying to get through to the boy: I called the Detective and found out exactly what I could tell people and what I could not. I explained to him that it was finally time to let the world know what this man has done to his boys. I am armed with knowledge, mad as a wet hen and as protective as a mamma bear. But I need help getting the word out to Shaine and I can only do that if people know the full story. I need help because he is scared and alone. Because he needs to know that his PO officers and everyone else has agreed that my home is his safe-house. They will not remove him from here to take him to Detention or send him back to Muncie IN as punishment for relapse. Rehab and the PO's will come here and sit down with all of us, including Shaine to come up with a plan of action that best suits his recovery process and healing needs. But I need everyone in our lives, past and present to help keep an eye out for him, to pass the word along through the streets in hopes that Shaine will get them. I cannot sleep and so I sit here writing instead. I am afraid to go to sleep because I may not hear his cries. To Shaine: Shaine, I know you are out there and can hear with your heart. Everyone knows, everyone loves you and everyone is worried about you. You have NOTHING to be ashamed of. The shame is not yours to bear. It is your father's shame and he must bear this alone. I love you my dearest and will never stop loving you. But neither can I stop caring. Shame on you for asking. Now come home so we can get back on the road of recovery. Home is where you belong. Last edited: Sat Jun 17, 2006 1:42 pm This blog entry has been viewed 648 times
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I don't know what to say to you MC, I am speechless. All I can convey is my deepest hopes that your son is ok and will return home soon. I really don't know what to say...
This brought me to tears but not because of what it going on. Its because it reminds me of my own childhood. I ran away alot because no one would listen to me about my father. He lived that "double life " too. I turned to drugs to ease the pain and confusion. I can tell you, it was along time before I was healed enough to talk about my anger and its causes. I had to stay far away from anyone who was trying to "heal" me. They didnt understand.......this was my pain. This was my emotion, my cross to bear, not thiers. Nothing would push me further away than someone trying to love me enough to heal and "talk" about it.I couldnt talk about it, they wouldnt understand. And when they did tell me they understood, it made me angerier and caused me to push them further away. Remeber, it was my cross to bear. I couldnt tell you what had me angry until my early 20s. So I couldnt deal with the root of all that pain, anger, confusion and betrayal.
I am so sorry to hear that your son has chose to run .
I'm sorry it has taken awhile for my to post a comment! I know all of the things that are going on in your heart and mind!!I hope he is back home now!! There is no way on this earth you can ever stop caring about your child!! I totally understand and if you need someone else to lend a shoulder please private message me if you want to! I'm always here to lend you some support!! God Bless you and Shaine!! Login or register to leave a comment. |
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