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The sort of detail like "check your drivers license" and "get a phone lined up before you come to the states" is just the sort of detail he can't seem to get his head around - and just the sort of detail that ANY ADULT NEEDS TO GET THEIR HEAD AROUND.
It's beyond frustrating. I am really worried about him, but I'm also tired of worrying about him, if that makes sense. At some point he's simply going to have to do better. Knowing he has the mental capability makes letting go of trying to continue to help him a lot easier. But it's still sad.
Does his wife seem like someone who can pick up the things he can't handle? Didn't she know about the drivers license and the phone?
Does his wife seem like someone who can pick up the things he can't handle? Didn't she know about the drivers license and the phone?
I was thinking the same thing. Often when your spouse has deficits you need to take over those areas in your life-time partnership.
KA, just imagine how different it could have been if your son had his own phone and his own car. You could have said hours and hours earlier, "Honey, I am getting sick and I really can not handle all of this arguing. I'm going to the doctor and then going to bed." and you could have handled your own health needs without worrying about your son & his wife not have a way to communicate or to travel.
With a car and phone he could have easier called his buddies and met them for a drink or a meal or drove to his sister's house to visit with her or anything else.
Does his wife seem like someone who can pick up the things he can't handle? Didn't she know about the drivers license and the phone?
There's a serious language barrier. She is Korean and while she is very smart - she's smart in Korean. Not so much in English. So I really have no idea.
I was thinking the same thing. Often when your spouse has deficits you need to take over those areas in your life-time partnership.
KA, just imagine how different it could have been if your son had his own phone and his own car. You could have said hours and hours earlier, "Honey, I am getting sick and I really can not handle all of this arguing. I'm going to the doctor and then going to bed." and you could have handled your own health needs without worrying about your son & his wife not have a way to communicate or to travel.
With a car and phone he could have easier called his buddies and met them for a drink or a meal or drove to his sister's house to visit with her or anything else.
BELIEVE ME, I know!!!!!
I was beyond frustrated. BEYOND frustrated.
I still haven't seen hide nor hair of him and I leave Tuesday on a trip and tomorrow will be very busy out and about. So who knows? I'm still so mad I don't even care.
Wow. I don't have anything to add. Your son just sounds... unbelievably immature and thoughtless. So sorry!
My thoughts exactly.
He is very emotionally immature but that's no excuse for being so rude and thoughtless. I can't prop him up - he's 30 years old, and chose to move across the globe to Guam and chose to marry a girl who, while very sweet, barely speaks English.
He's going to have to figure this stuff out himself.
I've been following along and it sounds like a nightmare. Serious illness and death bring out the best and the worst in people. It does all come to an end but the toll it takes can be immense.
It's been a long time, but I dealt with my dad's Alzheimer's and, after he passed, my mother's cancer and rapid death. That's bad enough but of course Evil Sister made things much worse--the queen bee who never worked a day in her life, master manipulator, liar. Made my dad's illness even harder to deal with, then when he died and my mom was just starting to get out on her own and starting to do well, Evil Sister decided to move in with her!
Of course, Evil Sister's plan was to take over, get mom to wait on her, and eventually inherit everything. My mom would call up crying because she couldn't get E.S. to move out. Cancer intervened and mom went into a nursing home and died a month later.
Turned out E.S. in the confusing days after my mother had died, when the rest of us were in shock, decided to change all the locks on the house so that she could take whatever she wanted. You need an ally--my cousin was on my side and together we went to the house and my cousin sweetly convinced E.S. to let us in. It wasn't that I wanted anything, it's the idea of being locked out of your own mother's house! Emotionally I needed to be in my mother's house, surrounded by memories, not locked out.
While we were there we discovered a notice saying that the oil tank had leaked into the ground. Of course E.S. had done nothing about it, hadn't told me, and there was a cost into the many thousands of $$$ for the clean up. Besides that, E.S. would not leave and thank goodness there was a management (because it was an age restricted community) that finally got her evicted.
The eventual result is that I have never spoken to E.S. again. Other fall out is that my ex, like your son, had PTSD. He'd lost both parents very recently and now my mother was the last straw. It triggered his PTSD and landed him in the VA hospital. He was never the same again. I'm not saying that your son will never be the same again but the VA did determine that it was the deaths
that caused my ex's strange, irrational behavior.
There is no road map. There was no book (at that time anyway) with help on what to do. It takes all your time, energy, and wrecks havoc with your emotions. This will take its toll on you but you can try to pamper yourself when you get the chance. Even a few days away can help. If you can clear your mind for a while and think of other things.
Also, any friend or relative that can be on your side is a definite asset. Even if it's just for emotional support. You really need that emotional support when you are stressed out by all the paperwork and legal entanglements plus the pain from the recent loss of your other parent and the hurtful actions of other relatives (my sister or your son or crazy brother) who only serve to make matters worse.
This sort of experience brings out the best in people like yourself and the worst in others who are greedy, controlling, hateful, or mentally unbalanced. After my ordeal was over, a wonderful uncle said, "If you can get through this, you can get through anything." In other words, you will be the stronger for it.
I've been following along and it sounds like a nightmare. Serious illness and death bring out the best and the worst in people. It does all come to an end but the toll it takes can be immense.
It's been a long time, but I dealt with my dad's Alzheimer's and, after he passed, my mother's cancer and rapid death. That's bad enough but of course Evil Sister made things much worse--the queen bee who never worked a day in her life, master manipulator, liar. Made my dad's illness even harder to deal with, then when he died and my mom was just starting to get out on her own and starting to do well, Evil Sister decided to move in with her!
Of course, Evil Sister's plan was to take over, get mom to wait on her, and eventually inherit everything. My mom would call up crying because she couldn't get E.S. to move out. Cancer intervened and mom went into a nursing home and died a month later.
Turned out E.S. in the confusing days after my mother had died, when the rest of us were in shock, decided to change all the locks on the house so that she could take whatever she wanted. You need an ally--my cousin was on my side and together we went to the house and my cousin sweetly convinced E.S. to let us in. It wasn't that I wanted anything, it's the idea of being locked out of your own mother's house! Emotionally I needed to be in my mother's house, surrounded by memories, not locked out.
While we were there we discovered a notice saying that the oil tank had leaked into the ground. Of course E.S. had done nothing about it, hadn't told me, and there was a cost into the many thousands of $$$ for the clean up. Besides that, E.S. would not leave and thank goodness there was a management (because it was an age restricted community) that finally got her evicted.
The eventual result is that I have never spoken to E.S. again. Other fall out is that my ex, like your son, had PTSD. He'd lost both parents very recently and now my mother was the last straw. It triggered his PTSD and landed him in the VA hospital. He was never the same again. I'm not saying that your son will never be the same again but the VA did determine that it was the deaths
that caused my ex's strange, irrational behavior.
There is no road map. There was no book (at that time anyway) with help on what to do. It takes all your time, energy, and wrecks havoc with your emotions. This will take its toll on you but you can try to pamper yourself when you get the chance. Even a few days away can help. If you can clear your mind for a while and think of other things.
Also, any friend or relative that can be on your side is a definite asset. Even if it's just for emotional support. You really need that emotional support when you are stressed out by all the paperwork and legal entanglements plus the pain from the recent loss of your other parent and the hurtful actions of other relatives (my sister or your son or crazy brother) who only serve to make matters worse.
This sort of experience brings out the best in people like yourself and the worst in others who are greedy, controlling, hateful, or mentally unbalanced. After my ordeal was over, a wonderful uncle said, "If you can get through this, you can get through anything." In other words, you will be the stronger for it.
Wow, THANK YOU so much for this post. You cannot imagine how helpful it was. I almost started crying when I read "You need an ally." I do have allies - good ones - but just reading that really made me appreciate them even more.
When my son was being so awful to me, and saying such hurtful things, one thing he said was "Mom, think about it - you're arguing with me, you're arguing with your brother," (the crazy one), "You're arguing with your daughter - who is the common denominator?" Well, the common denominator is that all the people he mentioned are the most emotionally volatile and/or unstable people in my family, and for some reason when they get crunk they REALLY don't like me because I am a very rational, direct person - the very kind that sets their fragile nerves on absolute edge I guess. I guess because they don't want to hear WHAT MAKES SENSE - they want to revel in out of control emotions or something, anyway it drives me up the freaking wall.
I looked at him and said, "Hey, guess what. I'm not arguing with my husband. I'm not arguing with my sane brother. I'm not arguing with my mother. I'm not arguing with my oldest daughter or her husband, or my brother in law or sisters in law. And if Dad were here, I wouldn't be arguing with him. That's good enough for me."
My husband and oldest brother especially have been AMAZING in all this and have really swooped in protectively. I can't say how much that means to me.
Of course, what I really want is for everyone to just quit the game playing and the drama. Funny how the people who are actually doing the least for anyone in these scenarios typically cause the worst stinks.
It's because they are afraid of losing their cash cow in a lot of cases (your ES and my EB for instance). They see the gravy train coming to an end and they begin trying frantically to jockey for position, throw up smoke screens, grab what they can. It's really pathetic.
Death definitely brings out the worst in a lot of people. And I wouldn't say it's brought out the worst in me, but it's taken it's toll on me - it's hard to not only do what is expected and required, to grieve, to try to recover your own equilibrium, and then to have to deal with lunatics at the same time.
KA....I hope your trip on Tuesday is somewhere fun and relaxing. You deserve it after all you've been dealing with.
BTW I wish I had you as a sister!
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