Family and Friends Forum

This is my first time posting. I’m not sure if you can help, my story is about my son and is long, but I just don’t know where else to turn. We’ve been going through a very hard time with our son ever since he was an adolescent. He is now 24. His difficulties when he was younger I believed were just because of age, personality, friend group etc. As he’s aged we’ve watched the “experimental” marijuana and alcohol use turn into full blown addiction. His behaviour difficulties were diagnosed as ADHD about a year and a half ago, however that is just the tip of the iceberg. I became certain over the last 2 years he has much more severe mental disorders than that, however I wasn’t able to get him to see any doctors or therapists to pursue it. I believe now that his substance abuse stemmed from being a coping mechanism and without proper supervision or medical guidance, he has just been self-medicating unsuccessfully for years now. I learned it was worse than I had ever imagined when a few months ago our adult daughter, revealed to us that her brother had touched her sexually inappropriately when she was about 10. She explained (in a letter) that it only happened once but she was telling me mostly to get it off her chest. She had sort of pushed the memory away until she started being faced with this sort of thing through her education, which brought it back up to the surface. She said she didn’t want him kicked out of the family and it’s not that she didn’t want to see him ever again, but she wanted him to get help. She hated seeing how he treats us and his obvious addiction problems. Needless to say I was gutted. With all the ups and downs with him, I never imagined THAT could have happened. I was lost as to how to proceed... I confronted him about it and he admitted it. He also wrote a letter of apology to her. I still wasn’t sure how I was going to go on with my life knowing this, but apparently the sun goes down and comes up every morning whether I want it to or not. Then a couple of months ago things spiralled drastically out of control. His relationship with his on again/off again girlfriend of 3 years was finally over and he lost it. I can spare you of the endless details and tell you that we finally intervened and sent him to a rehab facility that was supposed to deal with co-occurring disorders and give him mental health help along with addiction recovery. The place turned out to be nothing like what was promised, almost a sham, and he left early, coming home worse than when he left. His paranoia, anxiety and inability to function were just as bad as ever. After another tortuous couple of weeks of kicking him out of the house and seeing him flounder, I continued to plead with him about getting a psychiatric evaluation. He kept refusing, but after another long story I can spare you of, he came to me agreeing he would go, but before we left he wanted to tell me everything. He confessed to me that he’s been struggling with an addiction to child pornography. I asked him if he had done anything or touched anyone and he said no. He said he hated that he looked at this stuff but didn’t feel in control of being able to stop. I’m not even sure why he told me. Despite that I was still grappling with what he had done to our daughter, I was still sickened, gutted and in shock. At that point he had also backtracked about going the hospital for the psych evaluation. Not knowing what else to do I got the police to come to hopefully make him go and even though they couldn’t really do anything (and I hadn’t mentioned the big bombshell part), they still were able to persuade him to agree to go voluntarily. By the time we had seen the nurse, who he did in fact admit that part too along with everything else, 2 more doctors had decided to admit him involuntarily. I thought that was a good thing because then they could legally keep him, as he was already backtracking again and wanting to leave. He also told me he’d never forgive me for this as he somehow thought it was my fault they decided to admit him. Anyway, after 2 days of being in the psychiatric unit waiting for the actual psychiatrist to see him (because it was a long weekend and no doctor was there) he finally saw the doctor. But by then, apparently he was able to release himself, even against the doctors recommendations. I'm not sure if he ever did tell that doctor this part of the story, but I imagine probably not because they did let him go. He called me but I told him I would not pick him up, and so he took a taxi to where I was, and where his car was, and then he took off. I only saw him outside, he never came in, and I haven’t seen him since. This is the third day now since then. I am devastated, horrified and feel responsible some how. I mean, I gave BIRTH to this person. This knowledge has been torturing me since that moment I found out. I can’t wrap my head around it. I don’t understand it. I’m so ashamed of him, and so afraid of being judged... I know full well how the world works... when/if people found out, no one in our family will be able to look at us or him the same again. I will never look at him the same again. I don’t feel like I will ever experience happiness or joy ever again. Like I don’t deserve to.... I just don’t know how to process this. On top of this I don’t know how he is coping out there, somewhere, who knows where... I have no peace, let alone even feeling normal.

Whether to contact the police or not is my biggest (well one of) struggles right now. As for what he did to my daughter, I'm not sure... he would have been just 15 at the time, so what could they possibly do now, 9 years later. She never wanted to go to the police with it either. However, she doesn't know about this newest revelation so I don't know what she'd think now. She is away at school and really just wants to put this whole summer behind her now and move on with her own thing. I'd hate to drag her back into it. And as for the viewing, I actually don't even have any proof... it was just his confession... plus the struggle is because I know how mentally ill he is... is getting him thrown in jail going to solve anything? But I'm tortured because YES, that's the right thing to do! But then sick to my stomach imagining the widespread fallout of what it will do to the whole family. I just wish he had stayed at the hospital of his own will to try and get better. He hates that he does it, I know that, but he's got all this other paranoia going on about other things that he believes is the important thing he needs to handle right now. And I just can't process this. I'm panicky and nauseated ALL the time.