My Son is gone again

I am in Oregon I thank you so much Christina I really dont know what else to do. He is still not home I am so worried about him. Im ready to lose my mind.

Hi Isobel thank you for writing me I appreciate your story. I understand what you are saying I have had to do that for myself it is really hard to pull away and let them be. I have not heard from my son for 2 weeks now he missed his mental health intake appointment his cell phone is shut off for not paying the bill so I have no way of getting a hold of him. We did figure out that he is still going to the bank to get money out so he does still have a little money left, so at least we know he is still alive and around. by we i mean his grandmother and me. We drove around yesterday trying to see if we could find him, I told his grandma that he is not going to be where we can find him right now we are just going to have to wait for him to come to us. So it is funny that you said that today in your post. We did file for the involeneery commitment and we went down to the SSI office to take him off as the payee on his check they granted it they just need us to write a statement saying why he is not fit to handle his money. I really appreciate all of your comments to my posts it really helps me get through this a little easier.

Sheri Jakeman

Scared for son

Hello Sheri,

My son is now 38, all kids are different so I dont want your son to get agitated and then he might take it out on you, Paul got to pretty low level and frightened and asked for help, he knew that I was dead against drugs and had told him for years that cannabis was causing his illness etc and as long as he was using i was not going to have anything to do with him (that was another thing that was very difficult for me to do), you have to find out if he is using or not?, I have found out that over the years visiting Paul in hospital and speaking to the patients most have used drugs and some are still using.

Paul came in the house tonight and said that he had met a guy that was hostital with him a few years ago and said that a guy that was in the hospital with them had died,he was still using drugs, which is really depressing but mental health and drugs together is lethal

Paul was about 30 yrs old when he stopped the cannabis, occasionally trying it again and ending up in hospital again but now he doesnt that i know of do it.

The reason i am replying so soon as this is my first time on this site and first time Ive replied to anyone and if your son is not ready to get help and still in control of some of his life he might not take to you stopping his money?, only you will have an idea of how he would feel.

Also my sister is a teacher in Social Care and her Husband a Lecturer in Phsycology, so any time I was unsure of what to do I would phone them to make sure I was doing the right thing, it is never easy to say the least.

Isobel.

Yes I understand of course before I took the route of taking over his money I had talked to mental health about it and how he is just blowing it. they had said it might be a good idea to take control. I know my son if he has no money comming in he will come home. But with this illness who knows it is a sit and wait thing and that is all I can do at this point. As far as I know he isnt doing drugs anymore but with him being sick again he very well could be. Thank you again

Hello Sheri,

Hope you are doing okay as sometimes our lives are harder than our siblings and you are coping okay?,

Isobel.

I am doing as well as can be expected with all that is going on. Im so sorry I just read what I wrote before and it sounded so harsh, I am just at my wits ends with this I feel like I need to be hospitalized at this point it is making me crazy. I really appreciate all that you are saying to me dont feel like Im not please.

Hi Sheri,

I am sorry your son has not come back and at this point I want to echo anonymous's suggestion that it is possible your son may be doing drugs.  You don't know this for certain, so I don't want to plant an idea in your head.  When someone I know was abusing drugs he would run out of money and come begging for five dollars at midnight because he didn't have the toll to pay for the bridge home.

I wondered if you lived in New York City, I had the name of an attorney so because you do not I have a suggestion.

You may want to contact your local NAMI in Oregeon to see if they know the name of an attorney who could help you get guardianship if that is still a concern of yours.

The lawyer who talks to the crowd at NAMI-Staten Island talks about estate planning and special needs trusts, so if you lived near here, I thought you could call him and see if he does guardianship matters.

So perhpas NAMI-Oregon knows of an attorney.

However, I agree with the other comments about giving your son enough rope to learn from his mistakes, because if you bail him out repeatedly he will not learn.  We only learn the hard way.  Nothing that comes easy teaches us a lesson.

Regards,

Christina