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Stepson wreaking havoc

KikiMoMo's picture

 I’ll try to make this short as I can with as much detail as possible. My stepson, 14 years old, has recently become a handful to deal with. My husband and I got primary custody of him and his two siblings in 2015. Within this past year, we have had numerous hospital admissions due to him passing out. After he was deemed medically fine, we were told that the fainting was due to stress and/or anxiety.  He has been seeing multiple counselors for a year and a half with no improvement.  Recently, within the past two months, he has started with threats of suicide and now threats of harming others. We received text messages from his girlfriend’s mother of screenshots where he told his girlfriend that when they went to the movies he wanted to kill her so he moved away from her.  He had previously said that she was the only one who understood him and he felt better when he talked to her.   He was enrolled in a 90 day program at his counseling center to help him deal with his issues. As far as we know, there was not a specific event that caused all of this to happen. He doesn’t speak to his counselors about anything that bothers him, and he pretends like everything is fine. At home,  he acts completely normal and helps with chores and the cooking. When we go through his notebooks, we find disturbing messages and pictures and thoughts that he has written down mentioning the harm he wants to cause to people. He has been admitted to the local psychiatric hospital three times, he is currently there now. They stabilize him for a week and send him back home.  He left with his mother for the summer last week, had a breakdown over there, and she took him to the psychiatric hospital where they admitted him. It has come down to causing problems with my marriage due to my husband not wanting to admit that there is a problem with his son. He thinks that I am being judgemental and unfair towards his son. He tries to give him what he wants in order to keep him happy. It’s obviously not working. I’m nervous that one of these days he’s going to cause harm to someone in our family, most importantly my son who is the same age. They don’t always get along and I’m afraid one day he’s going to take his anger out on him. What options do I have ?  My husband thinks that I’m overreacting, but I would never forgive myself if something happened to my son. Am I being selfish?  Do I just throw my hands up and leave? We had issues with his older sister who is now 18 and has now turned into a lovely young lady. She went through a severe depressed state but she never talked about causing harm to others.  I wonder if this is something that will pass and he will be fine, or if I making a mistake by staying. Please help. 

Comments

KikiMoMo's picture

 I would also like to add that before all of this drama we had a good relationship. I also get along well with his brother and sister. His mother and father don’t really get along that well, but they have been trying to tolerate each other to deal with this together. Since all of this has happened, it has been very hard for me to be a loving stepmother to him. I have a lot of resentment towards him that I have recently started seeing a counselor to help me deal with. My counselor suggested that we try family therapy which I am not against. It just hasn’t happened yet.

Notup4it's picture

Is he going back to his moms after the hospital for the rest of summer?  If so at least that can give you some time to process this and decide what you want to do. 

Family counseling I’m sure would be a good idea- it might encourage him to possibly open up??  It is really hard to say what to do.... but I personally always take any threat seriously to be cautious. 

Harry's picture

This never ends,  most likely there really no real fix,  just meds,   But the leaves of medication what’s needed, normal interferes with sexual performance so they go off medication to be normal.  Then the cycle goes on and on. 

This is going to be your life,  with DH head in the sand,  it’s going not going to be good.  Try family counseling, just hope you get a counselor who knows about mental health problems. 

vansm's picture

You may need some counselling too. 
Your SS is mentally ill.  He needs help.  He needs unconditional love.  I understand if you can't tap into that anymore but that's what you would do if the tables were reversed and it were your son.

If you can't do that I'd leave.  This is likely a long haul issue. 

24 years as a SM's picture

You need to protect your son, one of my nephews had mental issues, he would write horrible thing about killing other people. He had a list of people that he wanted to kill. Do not take your SS writings lightly, this is a warning sign that needs to be addressed. My nephew damn near killed his own little brother, because my sister was in denial. Sadly my nephew was made a ward of the state, he was in a juvenile mental hospital until he was 18. The state released him, with a bus ticket back home, a days worth of meds and an appointment card for the county mental health. He killed himself 1 week later.