Than They Were

I really don't know what to do. 
I still feel like I didn't handle this right. 
I feel like there's probably nothing I can do now
that I made things even worse than they were. 

Like making the police aware was one thing, 
but them talking to my son about it
was making him aware. 
And he's aware that they are aware. 
And that I made them aware. 

And it feels like an ambush on him. 
I understand that. 
Since he was talking about it, he was thinking about it. 
Doesn't mean he was going to or that he will. 
Or that he has.... 

The police can only do something
if something is happening. 
In this situation, it hasn't been helpful to talk to the police. 
Which I already did. 

It hasn't really been helpful to talk to anyone. 
A few people have been trying to help me, though. 

They told me I did the right thing. 
They told me they would have done the same. 
That I can only look out for myself. 

This "Wait and see" thing.... 
This "It's up to them" thing.... 
This "Try to relax" thing....

I called the distress line a bunch of times. 
They tell me to connect to a counsellor. 
Or they will refer me to a crisis team.
Which I should have done before getting the police involved
because the police can't do anything. 
And I really made a mess of things. 

My son won't talk to me, his father won't talk to me. 
Even though they weren't really talking to me
a bunch of times before this....
It's just under these circumstances
when things are up in the air.... 
When I don't know what the outcome will be. 
When I needed to get help for my son.... 
But I told people who couldn't help him. 

A friend was telling me that I can't control the outcome. 
But I should have been the person my son could talk to. 
And he was telling me these things. 
I just didn't know what to do at the time
and this has been very overwhelming. 
Probably for him, too. 
Because it's like he lost his mom 
and lost the person he could talk to. 

Even though I'm still right here... 
But I have to do something about those things. 
And no matter how many people tell me
that I did the best that I could do, 
it doesn't feel that way.... At all. 
Or that I did the right thing.... 
How was it helpful?
To make the police aware?
Did it get him the help he needs?
The person he can talk to?
Now that he feels like he can't talk to me anymore?

Yes, maybe I had to make the police aware. 
Maybe I had to do that.... 
But them making my son aware that they are aware
wasn't the best thing they could have done. 
Especially since they decided not to take him to the hospital. 

And my friend, the other night.... 
"I don't know what to tell you. 
I've got nothing. I'm going to smoke a joint."

It felt like "Damned if you do, damned if you don't."
Even though I wasn't SURE
that he was going to go through with it. 

The fact that he was talking about it the way he was.... 
I had to tell someone. 

And yeah, writing about it.... Is just writing about it. 

My son's been a pretty good kid most of his life. 
So this stuff completely blindsided me. Completely. 
When you've never been in this situation before.... 
You won't know what to do or how to handle it. 
You will want to seek advice. 
You will need counselling
and counselling can only do so much... 

Like the distress line.... It's to refer people to the crisis team
and to refer them to counselling. 
And this is some of the heaviest stuff I've ever had in my life. 
There are only two ways it can go from here. 
Either up or down. 
I feel like I let my son down. Big time. 
I know he's angry with me. 

And interfering the way I did, didn't f*cking help the situation. 
I'll give it that, but I really didn't know what to do. 
And I should have done something sooner. 

And it seemed like I didn't take his feelings into consideration. 
It seems like he wasn't taking mine into consideration, either. 
Feeling like I'm going f*cking crazy over here. 

Like "Just keep yourself safe, don't worry."
When I want to keep my son safe, too. 
And I want him to want others to be safe, too. 
And not want to inflict any pain onto anyone. 
All because he's suffering and he could talk about THAT
and let me figure out a better way to get him some help. 
But he doesn't want it. 
Because it wasn't offered to him in the right way. 

He needed an intervention and a better environment. 
Living with a parent you can't talk to gets lonely. 
No siblings. Not many friends.
He told me he gets lonely. 
I told him he could come see me when he got lonely. 
Now, obviously he won't want to see me anymore. 
And the visits weren't just to get him out of his room. 
It was so that we could try to bond more. 
That's what the trip was supposed to be for, too. 

He didn't want to talk to me about mental health stuff. 
But the things he was saying needed to be addressed. 
And I didn't know how to approach it. 
I approached it the wrong way and ruined everything. 
I didn't catch it at the right time, either. 
Didn't know the extent of it. 
His dad didn't know, either, 
but his dad knew he was spending all his time in his room. 
Wasn't checking up on him, 
wasn't asking him questions, 
was yelling at him. 
Who knows what life has been like with him.... 

I thought he was being taken care of, 
but he's been isolating himself more and more. 
And I thought he just wanted time to himself
to think about things and just be alone, 
but it really hasn't been good for him. 

"You did the right thing, you brought it to light."
Was it the right thing?
Because that wasn't all that I was supposed to do. 
I was supposed to get help for my son. 
Would I have been able to?
If the doctor saw the warning signs? If the police did?
If he had opened up to his dad?
If his dad would listen to me?

I think it exasperated the issue. 
I should have found a way
where my son would trust me
and gone with me to the hospital. 
And saw that I do care about him. 
And that I do want to help him... 

And they will refer me to a crisis team. 
And it already feels too late to do something. 

They can reach out to his father
who is in deep denial, like I was for a bit. 
And I feel like doing something like that
would be better than another ambush. 
The ambushing does not help, at all. 
It wasn't intended as that, though. 
I should have thought things through. 
Especially the last attempt. 
The first attempt was a bust. 

My friend said: "You think you can control the situation. 
The more you try to, the more you see that you can't."
Because I don't have control of other people.
Can't make them cooperate. 

"You can't blame yourself." But I do. 
There's a lot I should have done. 
That I'm seeing now that I screwed everything up. 

The guy who urged me to talk to police about it.... 
He doesn't see how I f*cked up. 
He's saying I did the right thing.
What if the right thing was to keep communication with my son
which I f*cked up before I talked to the police. 

Like after 2 years and I was finally starting to talk to my son....
During that 2 years, I should have done more to try to see him. 
I called so many times during that time. Both him and his father.... 
I was floored. Much like I am now, but I'm like.... 
It's really hard to describe how I feel. 
And I know why my son is angry with me
which makes me feel even worse.... 

Like a friend said, "This may not be something to ruin his life over."
If he doesn't want to hurt anyone
and wants to get treatment, then cool. 
Like THERAPY. Big time. 
I f*cking need therapy, too. 
A friend even told me:
"I'm going to need therapy after dealing with you."

I signed up for counselling today. 
I talked to the distress line worker today
and that didn't really help, a lot.
I called a few times already. 
They tell me the same things:
"I'll make a referal for you."

I just keep waking up from my sleep. 
And I know that I can talk to them right away. 
Or I can jump on here to write about how I feel or whatever.... 

But about this report.... 
I don't know what will come of this. 
If they'll just dismiss it or if they are mad enough at me for it
to come after me in some way. 

"You could have left him alone."
And I didn't know what the police were going to do. 
The only option they gave me
was to file a report or not file a report. 
But going to talk to him about it....
And should I have done it?
Should I have not done it?
"You did all that you could do."
It doesn't sit right with me. 
Because there was probably a better way to handle everything. 
But turning a blind eye to it.... 
That wasn't handling it. 
Leaving him alone wasn't handling anything. 

Learning lessons the hard way is f*cking hard. 
And bailing out of fear is a coward's way out. 
And I'm not exactly bailing. 
F*cking up happened. It wasn't an excuse to bail. 

I should have known that the police couldn't do anything. 
I should know by now, that I can't really do anything. 
I was trying to reach out. 
I should have been doing more of that. 
More listening. 
More building trust. 
Helping with his challenges. 
Showing him I was willing to help him. 

It's that I didn't know what to do about some of his issues. 
Especially the most serious issues. 

Like I had to do something....
Every parent has a responsibility to do something, 
but I did the wrong things at the wrong times. 

I was trying to protect myself mentally, emotionally. 
I couldn't even talk about this for a long time. 
It took a while for me to be able to tell his father. 
Because it took him a long time to take my calls. 
And he only met with me to get the money. 
That's part of what took so long. 
And partly because I didn't know what to do. 
And not knowing what to do
is a lot different from not caring. 

And yes, I was distracted by another situation
that obviously didn't f*cking matter in the scheme of things. 
And I could have handled that better, too. 
Should have been dealing with this. 
I wasn't even mentally prepared to deal with it. 
I didn't even realize what I was dealing with. 
"Didn't you have enough clues, A***?"

"You can't blame yourself." Welp, I f*cking do.
Who else is there to blame?
Everyone who should have been helping him and I?
Everyone who put everything on me?
No, it was on me. 
But it was also my son making sh*tty choices. 
Because he didn't and doesn't have the help
to make the right ones. 

And look at the choices I made.... 
Do a wellness check.... Then tell the cops, twice. 
And the cops confront him about it.... 
And if I knew they would.... 
Maybe that wasn't the best route.... 

"Yeah, we got a report....
Is any of this true?"

How far was that going to get me?

And a friend told me:
"What's done is done."

Someone else told me:
"Maybe he would have forgiven you, eventually for that, 
but I can't see him doing it now..."

Why did I think that was my only option?
Why did I think that was the best thing to do?
Why did I think that was the right thing?
Why was I so quick to act on that?
Why do I listen to bad advice?

"It is a no win situation, you had to try."
Try what? To p*ss him off more?
To waste more time?

"You can only help people who want help."