My Son is Self Destructing and taking my heart with him.

[clittlelady]

I'm probably not in the appropriate place here.  But tonight, I crash land here, at Beyond Indigo where I crashed three years ago when I lost my Mother.  It began then much as now, just needing soft place to fall, needing to vent.  My Heart is in turmoil.  I've never lost a child.  I've lost a brother, grandparents.  I buried one aunt three months before my Mother's death.  My uncle died two days before my Mother.  So much loss in such a short time.  However, what I'm doing here, is mourning someone who has not died.   Someone so dear to me who is so desperately lost.  Someone who I would walk through Hell and back for, and have.   There is truly no love as that of a mother and her child, no matter what their ages.  I saw my Mother's grief, the many, many forms it took and the toll it had on her life.  My 28 year old son, whom is married and has become a parent himself, twenty months ago, is who I am here grieving.   There has been no formal diagnosis, as he will not seek medical attention, but from all I have ever heard about bipolar disorders or manic depressive people,  he fits the precise definitions.   Adding to this problem, he has become an alcoholic over the past four years.   He has drank so much, that he has damaged his body.   He has begun to have seizures.    His first one occurred  two months ago, when he was working an hour from the city we live in.   One night around 9:30 p.m. we received a phone call from his wife who was hysterical and crying and trying to tell me that she received a call from a stranger who had picked up my sons cell phone to call her, when he had collapsed into a violent seizure, in a convenience store.    That's all she knew that paramedics were there working on him and transporting him to their local hospital.    I told her that my husband and I were on our way to pick she and our grandson up and hung up with her.   I then desperately called our 911 here, because all I knew was the name of the convenience store in this small remote community.    As I tried not to hyperventilate myself, I pleaded with the operator to please help me find my son and where he was being taken.   Through our 911 here, we were transferred to the 911 operator in the state where he was (just across our state line), they in turn put me on hold and called the law enforcement agency who told me where he was being taken. We then proceeded to where he was.  We dropped off our grandson with his maternal grandparents on the way.   It took us 55 minutes to get to where he was.   I knew not whether we would find him dead or alive.  It was the longest 55 minutes of my life.  I prayed and cried, that God would not allow him to go that night, not before I saw him.   We have always been close, but the last few weeks, we had not spoken, had been at odds with each other over his alcohol intake.    It makes him a monster, someone I hate to see.    When we finally reach the hospital, he was alive.  My prayers had been answered.   He was stable, but had suffered a violent seizure and his blood pressure was out the roof.   They were performing CAT scans and other tests, trying to stabilize him.   He looked awful.   We were informed he came very close to death.    We later learned, that he had not eaten anything in approximately 48 hours, and had not drank his poison, Vodka since the day before.  Not sure if that was all of his medical issues, but certainly a main factor.   He didn't remember all that happened.  This horrific experience brought me to a realization that IF he doesn't receive treatment for ALL of his problems, I will be planning his funeral and he will leave our precious grandson without his father.   He was released the next day, to return to our hometown, suppose to have reported to a local hospital for readmission and further studies, but once we were home, he refused.   He has since had a second epside, not as severe, but nevertheless, another seizure.   My Heart is broken.  I can't feel anything but helpless.  His wife is an enabler and my husband and I are at a complete loss.  How am I suppose to live?   Each day I know, this could be the one.   I know that he will not live long at this rate of his continued alcohol intake.  Their pregnancy was an unexpected one and we thought then that perhaps this would be the reason he would seek help and overcome his addiction.   We have a precious grandson and when looking in his precious face, I can only think that if that isn't enough to motivate him, there is nothing that will.  This is such an emotional rollercoaster, such a weary, weary existence.  I can find no happiness, other than that of my precious grandson.  Everything else seems meaningless.   My husband and I are so tired of talking about and thinking about and trying to think of something we haven't.    I apologize if I shouldn't be here.  I just know that grief is grief is grief.   It's the ripping out of the heart, the shortening of your breath, not being able to get your breath for all the tears you've shed.  I use to believe that as long as there is life, there is hope, but now, My son has altered my way of thinking in that regards.    He's so untouchable.   So mean and vial.  He's so hateful and hurtful to everyone.   This isn't my son, where did he go?   I'm really trying to cope with losing him now.   Have I completely lost my mind now?   

[neveragain]

Clittelady,    Ive never had a chance to save my son. I always believed that if there is life there is hope. Im not so sure either anymore. I hope the best possible future for you and your family. I understand your grief.  Neveragain

[butterfly13]

clittlelady,I'm so sorry you are going through such hard times with your son.I have had too many relatives and friends lose their battle with alcohol addiction.I have been involved with interventions(when family members and a counceler meet,then bring in the addicted person asking them to please go for treatment).Some made the right choice and went for the treatment,only to return home and start drinking again,which is totally selfish because we learned that after completing the rehab program-your body is no longer addicted to the alcohol,so if they start drinking again,it's because they want to not because their body is craving it-totally selfish!I know how hard it is to stand by and watch someone you love destroy their life and everyone who loves them.My uncle,who was an alcoholic for so many years,woke up one day and decided to never have another drink-so that is possible.I will keep you and your family in my prayers-take care of yourself!!

[Kelly]

Dear Members,

We are excited to mention that we are moving to a more new and improved message boards on MONDAY MORNING AUGUST 9th! The boards will be done for a few hours while we are making the conversation. Remember we posted information about this move a month ago. For some of you this might seem a bit sudden,  but when we were reviewing the site we determined the current message board you are using is out of date and the company that designed it is no longer in existence. The good news is this new message board will have new features that have been requested in the past like more fields we can add to your profiles and a chat room up to 20 people at one time. If we find the chat room is bursting at the seams we will add additional room for extra people. All your old posts, private messages and such will be migrated to the new message board. You might have to put up your profile picture again but not sure. The new company will be doing the migration for us. Here is a short list of some of the new features on the board:

- Custom Profile Fields

- Users can customize their profile pages by selecting a background color or background image, with tiling options.

- Facebook and Twitter Integration

- users can respond to multiple posts at once with "mini-quote"

- Pinned discussion threads - like welcome to our board etc.

- Announcements made across some boards or the entire message board

- Search: Users can easily find all content generated by a particular member, by clicking the 'Find Content' button that appears on the main profile page, or in the Mini Profile Popup which can be accessed throughout the board. The results page allows content to be filtered by application, as well whether the member created it or merely participated in it.

- Privacy: allows users to sign in anonymously, hiding them from the online users list. Users also have the option to disable personal conversations and user-to-user emails, as well as ignore other users if necessary.

The next exciting piece of news about the new message board is it will have a new domain name of www.grieving.com for search engine optimization purposes. It will still be apart of Beyond Indigo and can be found through www.beyondindigo.com. We will be redirecting your current URL's to this new domain name but we might miss a few. If that is the case simply go back to www.grieving.com or www.beyondindigo.com to find your message board thread. We will try to make the transition as seamless as possible.

The bottom line is the new board will give us room to grow our community and more options to interact better with each other.

If you have any questions please direct them to feedback@beyondindigo.com.

Kelly Baltzell, MA

CEO/President

Beyond Indigo Family