Backfired x10

So things have been rough....
I really wish that things were different. 
I really love my son. I just don't know what's going on in his head. 
What is frustrating is that I'm telling what I know
and my son is denying everything, 
making me seem like I'm just crazy. 

Maybe it feels like an attack and he's defending himself. 
Of course nobody wants to think their kid
would do anything to hurt anyone. 

I told him that I didn't think he would. 
He told me he thinks he would. 

It's been pretty shocking. Everything. 
Again, talk is talk. I get it. 

I got put in this place. 
Because he told me what he told me.
But also how I reacted to everything. 
Like a f*cking crazy person. 

And I never wanted to even consider him in that light. Ever. 
No parent wants to look at their kid like that.
And I don't know why he would want me to think about that. 

His dad was saying that he said it for attention.
So if this is true, then he got more than he bargained for. 
From his 'crazy' mother. 
And he never had to say any of those things for attention. 

And if his dad's so out of touch with him, 
how would he know why he's saying what he said?

It caused a strain on our relationship. Big time. 
It was already strained as it was. 

And if I am overreacting, then I am. 
But like I said, I can't condone it. 

If my son didn't want me to see him in that light, 
he wouldn't have painted himself in that light. 
Why would he want me to see him in that light?
And I still didn't want to. He's my son. 
I refused to for a long time. 
Most parents would probably refuse to. 

Been really f*cking sad.... 
I miss him. You have no idea. 
I don't want to just drop out of his life
like he's done to me many times. 
So I kept waiting, hoping. 

Things would get better for a while, 
but things would get kinda crazy. 
Probably due to me reacting to things, 
but I wouldn't have reacted to it
if there wasn't anything to react to. 
If that makes sense. 

I sucks. It really does. 
I don't see us being able to repair this. 
I still want to see the good in him. 
I still want him to see the good in himself.

We could have been working on that.
I get that he's been in his negative, angry mindset. 
I don't know where his head is at. 

I get that he didn't want to go to the hospital
and he was kind of thrusted into that.
I was thrusted into these concerns
from the things he told me. 

And I look like the 'crazy' mother. 
For actually caring. About what happens. 
How did he think I was going to handle this?

Like I don't want to put these expectations on him. 
Of course I don't. 
I'd rather he takes this as a warning
to turn his life around and get help.

And he is rejecting me, yet again, 
because I had to speak up about it.

"You threw me under the bus, mom."
It wasn't that it was my intention to do that.
I do have certain responsibilities.
To him, to others, and to myself. 

Maybe he was testing my loyalty, my love.
I don't know for sure.

But how he was talking, wasn't like
"Do you still love me, mom?"
And I do still love him. I always have loved him. 
He said he doesn't love me anymore. 
So he did love me at one point. 

But when I exposed his obsession. He got mad. 
I didn't even know it was an obsession. 
I thought it was a morbid curiousity. 
Like I had when I was a kid. 
That I grew out of. 
And his father thought that, too, 
when I told him about it. 
So he didn't do anything about it. 
And he wouldn't know what to do about it, anyway.
It scared me. A lot.

There are a lot of layers to this. 
I only have what I have. 
My son has the answers to the questions I didn't get to ask him. 
And he hid things for years and years. 
Especially from his father. 
I was easier to talk to than his father. 
Which is why I wish I had kept the lines of communication open, 
but I did get scared and I did have to tell someone. 

For a while I was pushing my fears away
because he's my son and I didn't want to be afraid. 

It was hard to speak these things. 
Probably hard for him to tell me. 
Which was why I knew he trusted me. 

And it's not like I want to villainize him. At all. 
I know the other side of him. 
The side that does still care. 
That he might choose to shut off completely. 

I really didn't know what I was dealing with. 
There were clues along the way, 
things I thought were odd, but I never pieced it all together. 
A lot of it I just dismissed as curiousity. 

Anyway, I know he's not all bad. 
And he was a good kid for most of his life.
He wasn't getting into trouble, 
like stealing cars or anything, that I know of. 
I don't know what he and his friends from school
were doing after school. 

I had heard that a lot of the kids he went to school with were into drugs. 
I know my son was into pot. 
I was when I was his age. 
I still smoke it from time to time, 
but I don't feel the need to every day. Anymore. 
And looking back, I wish I hadn't spent so much time getting high. 
And I wish I hadn't spent so much time getting drunk, either. 
Wishing it doesn't make it so. It doesn't. 

But I don't have to spend any more time on that. Anymore. 

I didn't and couldn't foresee this stuff. 
My son hid things, very well, for a long time. 
I keep blaming myself, but I didn't know what I didn't know.
My son wasn't talking about it for a long time
and the bits and pieces I had, I had to put together myself. 
I needed help and needed to talk to the right people
and I needed to know what to do. 
I wasn't thinking things through, either. 
I didn't know how to approach it when I realized
what I was dealing with. 

And I ran out of time to do what I needed to do. 
This is when you don't realize what you're dealing with. 
This is when you don't know what to do. 
This is when you need help. 
Most parents do not know what to do. 
Can you blame yourself for not knowing?
How can you blame yourself for not knowing
what you didn't know?

People don't know what resources are out there. 
I didn't know and maybe some of them could have helped. 
Before I did the wellness check. 
Before I filed the report. 
And I was too quick to file the report. 

And the police talking to him about what I wrote in the report
was not the best way to go about it. 

I should have been the one to talk to him, 
but he didn't want to talk about 'mental health stuff' with me. 
Not in the last conversation that we had. 

"I don't want to talk about my feelings. 
I'm not a girl."

I told him that talking about feelings
isn't just for girls. 

It shouldn't be seen as 'manly' or strength
NOT to talk about how we feel. 
Keeping it to ourselves, not talking about it, 
bottling it up.... It isn't healthy. 
It doesn't help us. 

We interpret how we feel and what we think
and most people don't know that thoughts and feelings are connected. 
We can react emotionally to our thoughts. 

My son's struggling so much with what he has going on. 
And this other stuff he's been hiding. 
And I was one of the only people he had to talk to. 
But he only told me some things. 
And I didn't know how to address a lot of what he told me. 

Knowing that he may never speak to me again is hard. 
It is his choice, up to him, to reach out. 
I didn't make it easier for him to talk to me. 
I wanted to make it easier. 
I wanted him to know I was there when he wanted me to be. 
That I'd help him if I could. 

I know that I failed by bringing the police into it. 
I shouldn't have gone that route. 
I wanted to know what my options were. 

Of course I wanted to help him. 
I still do. I still want to help him. 
I don't want to villainize him. 
As far as I know, he hasn't done anything. 
I know that he's at risk. 
He'll soon be an adult. Legally. 
And there isn't anything I can do, at this point. 

He won't talk to me now.
I f*cked up handling this. 
I needed his father's support, too.

The wellness check backfired. 
The report backfired. 
Maybe even talking to his doctor. 
Because I don't know how his doctor is going to handle 
what I told him and how he'll handle my son. 
In light of what I told him
and his doctor can't tell me anything. 

But his doctor can make the referrals that he needs
to see the psychiatrists. 
If he knows that I spoke to his doctor, 
all bets would be off. 

I was told that it could be OCD.
And that OCD can be treated.