Hello GreenGirl - I'm so sorry for your troubles. I can't imagine the depth of unhappiness this situation brings with it to all of you. I don't know you or the situation beyond what you have shared, so I don't know what I can say to be helpful. You have my sympathies and my only thought is that after some time has passed and you have been able to deal with your own grief over what happened, perhaps you can try to bring this situation to a better place in some way. Maybe by contacting the people who he was living with to try to talk it out and express where you feel what they have said is incorrect and apologize for what you feel you have done or not done that had an impact on how you all got to this place.

Your son obviously needs help. Anger management is a very necessary thing for anyone who can be destructive and violent. It would seem the only goal you can aim for, would be forgiveness and acceptance on both your parts and more accountability. I wish you the best of luck..

very alarming, not only that a violent, irrational person vandalized your home & threatened you & your beloved pet, but that replies to your post suggest that you try to think of what you have done to deserve it & how you might make amends.

???

Just as you can't afford to hand your car keys to a drunk who demands them, you can't afford to empower a person on drugs with the ability to kill you.

& just as you can't let a drunk off the hook because he gets sober & apologizes, you can't let your drug-addicted son off the hook because he isn't always in a drug-fueled violent rage, & you definitely can't afford to apologize to him.

(Would you apologize to anyone else who attacked your home & threatened you? )

At this point, your son is too far from rational for you to have a normal relationship with him;

to attempt to do so would be to risk your own health/life, but to hinder his escape from his addiction; it would *enable* him to keep to the path he's on.

Although I think good-hearted people are often accused of "enabling" prematurely & unfairly, apologizing to an assailant/vandal/drug-crazed invader who destroyed your home & terrified you & your tiny dog really is enabling, to a jaw-dropping degree.

Let yourself off the hook; the person you're dealing with isn't the beloved son you raised, he's a violent, irrational, dangerous person.

If you don't want your neighbors to be on tv saying "We knew he was dangerous but she just couldn't stop forgiving him", file the police report, & protect yourself.

I wish you the best.

Hi Sylvia - Just checking my email box and see you just posted this. I feel you’ve misinterpreted my comment. I never suggested that the OP did something to deserve it. I also didn’t suggest she ‘make amends’.

I actually suggested she confront the relatives her son was living with, about some dishonest information they were telling her son. And she herself said, that the relatives speak negatively about her, and some of what they said was true - so my suggestion was to apologize for anything she felt responsible for.

There was very little mention of drugs in her post and not possible to determine that he actually was on drugs at the time. It sounds like she was ‘guessing’ that he might have been. She did not say he had a history of drug use. So it appears to me that you are jumping to conclusions.

There is obviously something missing from her description of the situation. I’m sure she can’t sum up everything pertinent in a few paragraphs. There seems to be no explanation why her son who was apparently always wonderful, suddenly became troubled in his senior year and he has been living with relatives for three years and not his Mom. She doesn’t see him often. Some reason for the estrangement?

A history of suicide attempts and an involuntary commitment does not suggest addiction. If he had an addiction problem, wouldn’t he have been in rehab a few times?

My response to GreenGirl - was to her own grief over the loss of her relationship with her child and a traumatic event. And my suggestion that at some point, hopefully there could be some restoration of the relationship of a child she loved so much. No parent wants to give up on a child, regardless of how wrong the behavior is. I did not suggest she put herself in the position of being abused again.

I responded out of sympathy for a woman who had posted a heartbreaking post, a week earlier and no one had responded to her. Was it possible to give her specific advice about her situation? No. I don’t know her, her son or her situation. I offered what I felt comfortable to offer. Sympathy, and hope that at some point, her son and their relationship could be restored.

Sylvia, your words struck a chord with me. I certainly don't want to blame atlgreengirl for her son's violent outburst. But her post made some oblique references to preexisting problems that she glossed over:

"For the past 3 years he has not lived in my home. He stays with relatives. There are countless variables that have led to this..." and:

"The family members that he lives with do not care for me. They speak very negatively about me to him, he has told me this himself. Some of what they say is true..." and:

"the truly scary part is that he did not yell, he did not scream, he systematically told me what a piece of garbage I was..."

So yes, we know he behaved inappropriately in the extreme. But it sounds like he was rational enough to level specific allegations against his mother, while simultaneously punishing her for perceived wrongs. Could you understand the rage he demonstrated if he had been repeatedly abused by his mother's lover(s) while she sat by and did nothing? What if his excellent behavior in childhood became his mother's excuse to neglect him, trusting that he'd do the right thing with or without her guidance? I'm not saying these are what atlgreengirl did. We don't know what she did wrong, we only know what her son did. Maybe some of those "countless variables," or "some of what they say is true," are why her "perfect" son abruptly turned suicidal and despondent at age 18.

I don't think anybody would suggest she go beg his forgiveness for smashing up her belongings and threatening her. But, I take her at face value when she says she loves him and is grieving the prospect of losing him via estrangement. So, whatever his grievances against her may be, it would behoove her to reflect on his pain, where she had a hand in it, and how to repair the damage...assuming she doesn't wish to lose him for the rest of her life.

*Whatever* the son's problems are, the OP's problem is that she could get killed.

Once someone's behavior escalates to violence, one's first priority is survival & self-protection.

Apologizing for someone else's behavior is enabling, & it's not only dangerous for the OP, it's counter-productive for the violent person: "If my mother is responsible for my problems, she *deserves* my rage."

OP, please take care of yourself, & consult experts, not those of us on a forum, to know how to interact with your son, if at all.

Sylvia - where is this hostility coming from? It sounds as if you are taking some personal experience and projecting it onto others. This is a public forum. You've taken issue with both our comments to the OP, to the point of rudeness. I don't see your posts as an improvement over ours. You clearly don't know any more than we did about the situation before posting but you were willing to assume a heck of a lot.

And nowhere did anyone suggest she apologize for something her son did. Or that she not protect herself.

You seem to present yourself as if you are the expert here and not a very good one at that.

Sylvia has excellent observations and advice IMHO.

My advice pretty much boils down to "protect yourself", "don't accept guilt for something that isn't of your own doing", & "be careful".

Thanks, sushi.