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SS totally acting out

MissJulsie's picture

SS 16 is pulling stunt after stunt to get attention. On the one hand, he doesn't bother to come see his dad (my hubby) for months at a time. Then on the other hand, writes things in Facebook, like "Hate my father" and "Does anyone care about me?"

We had a baby girl 5 months ago. SS still hasn't seen her.

the last time he spoke to DH, he said that he often feels like killing himself. 

tog redux's picture

Is anyone getting help for this kid? Teen suicide is on the rise.

ETA: Read your past blogs. This kid is a victim of parental alienation - I realize DH may not be able to get him help, but he should be very concerned.  I wouldn't dismiss this as attention-seeking.

MissJulsie's picture

There is no communication between DH and BM, so we wouldn't know. I'm not allowed to contact BM ever, as she issued me with a formal ban. I reckon if I disregard it, she'll get an IVO on me, like she did to DH. I rang the school SS goes to and told the principal to get the school counsellor involved. The principal said they already were providing all that and more. 

DH hasn't done much at all. I'm disengaged from SS, but I'm stepping in, as the threat of suicide is not something that can be ignored. 

Harry's picture

You don’t see him for months at a time.  So block him on Facebook , and all social accounts.  Then you will not know what he writes.  Good he does not see you DD, she does not need that in her life. He will be no good for DD.    Let BM and BF. Handle him.  He has two parents, you are not one of them.  You have a DD that your only concern 

MissJulsie's picture

I agree Harry. I have simply done a few things to help from a distance. Even though I'm disengaged from SS, it would be unthinkable if the poor boy actually topped himself, so I need to do my part to make sure that's never an option. 

Jcksjj's picture

He told his dad he often feels like killing himself and his dad did what exactly about it?

MissJulsie's picture

His dad has done very little about it so far in the grand scheme of things, other than to try and encourage him to visit. 

MissJulsie's picture

STaround, that was three years ago. Between then and now, SS has not only had his access visits with DH at Grandads house, but eventually I renegotiated the ban, and agreed that SS could come and stay here once a month. When he DOES stay at his rich Grandads house, he has his own room, with double bed, TV, x-box, and every other electronic gadget. Grandad also has a pool. These days, SS simply doesn't bother coming to visit either DH or grandad, even though he gets spoiled and showered with love and attention.  Anyway STaround, did you read WHY I banned SS from coming to my house at that time ?

ESMOD's picture

Yes.. you got upset he called you names.. I just read it.. I think you really overreacted.  The kid was obviously being fed a lot of BS by his mother.. and instead of letting his dad deal with his son.. you go balistic and ban a minor child from your home.  I think that was a mistake because it clearly showed his son that he was right in that YOU are a problem and that his father doesn't care about him.. at least not as much as you.. that "you" come first.

Probably hard to walk things back at this point..

Look.. the kid threw a tantrum.. you banned him.. your DH let you do that.. so.. I'm guessing that you will deal with the fallout.. actions have consequences for all of us.

tog redux's picture

BM would have badmouthed her and SS would have hated her anyway. Alienating parents don’t need ammunition, they make it up. 

And a husband should put his wife first, isn’t that what we discuss all the time on here? 

ESMOD's picture

We can make things worse or better sometimes.. I think OP made it worse by reacting the way she did.

Yes.. the adult relationship is the "primary" one, but that doesn't always mean that she will be FIRST.. that is something that the boy should have learned.. and his father could have worked in that direction. 

Yeah.. PAS is a tough road.. but.. I don't think OP helped with her reaction.. because it really did make it even more clear in the boy's mind that his mom was right.. instead of giving dad an opportunity to help his son see a different perspective.

tog redux's picture

You’ve obviously not experienced PAS. You are damned if you do, damned if you don’t. No one can be perfect and tough decisions have to be made. 

You have to decide how much misbehavior to put up with, when to protect yourself, how to deal with lies and false allegations.  Alienated kids are very difficult. 

“Actions have consequences” is a really condescending thing to say.  Sometimes you have to do what’s best for YOU, whether that makes the alienation worse or not. 

ESMOD's picture

Believe me.. my DH's Ex did her darndest to PAS her girls.  calls to them "mommy misses you.. do  you miss mommy".. "tell your deadbeat father to give me money for this"..

It does suck because stooping down to a person's level doesn't help.. and I absolutely support someone's right to stand up for themselves.. but when an immature kid says the equivalent of "I hate you".. (which virtually every bio kid on earth has said to their own parents or siblings at one time or another).. and the adult says  "you are banned from my house?".. that is overreacting and responding immaturely.

I'm not saying that being more adult would have made things 100% different in outcome.. but I certainly don't think it helped.  It's not condescending to say actions have consequences.. it's the truth.  If I had stooped to the BM level and spouted off about the things their mother did that were not in their interest.. I might have a very different relationship with my SD's than I do.  fortunately, my DH's girls were not 100% susceptible to their mother's attempts. 

I think the better course of action would have been that she had given the father an opportunity to deal with this.. not set an ultimatum. 

I guess i am also pretty solidly in the camp that says that you shouldn't ban minor kids from your home unless you (or others in the home) are in peril from them being there.  It is validation that can cement the PAS. 

Maybe my BM's attempt didn't work well because our actions (my DH's and Mine) showed a totally different tale than what BM was trying to feed them... really hard to believe things when you see the absolute opposite.

Not saying we didn't have issues at times.. and I do think that the older daughter bought in to her mom's BS a bit more.. but I wasn't going to tell him he couldn't have visitation in his own  home (the one we shared).

tog redux's picture

Would you tell someone with lung cancer from smoking that “actions have consequences”? I doubt it.

You can pat yourself on the back for supposedly handling the PAS correctly and that’s why your SDs weren’t alienated, but that’s likely not the case. Most likely the girls were already resilient or BM wasn’t great at it. At least have some empathy for those who had a worse alienation situation than yours, instead of assuming you know the “right” way to handle it. 

ETA: Read her old blog. This woman put up with BM's alienation and SS's reactive behavior for SIX YEARS before she set a limit that he couldn't come over.  In the mix of that was her husband's useless and passive behavior when it came to his son and his ex.  I don't blame her a bit for finally setting a limit.  I wouldn't have done it that way, either, like you - but I didn't have to.  My DH set his own limits.

 

ESMOD's picture

Things are not always easy to diagnose online. What's done is done.  I still am not for banning minors...and engaging with a bm like that may be satisfying in the moment but usually bears little fruit. Her husband clearly has handled this poorly... I guess op took what she felt was the lesser of evils. 

tog redux's picture

I'm not saying banning the kid was the right thing to do - I'm saying to have some empathy.  I know I sure as hell made mistakes in this journey, as did DH. If you think you didn't make any mistakes in dealing with alienation, you are lying to yourself. . I'm sure you wouldn't want people on the Internet reminding you that "actions have consequences" when you made difficult choices related to YOUR situation, which is different from anyone else's.

ESMOD's picture

Believe me...there is nothing that a stranger could say that is any harsher than my own judgment on myself. Im hard on myself.. to a fault.  My actions have consequences and I'm well aware of that fact. We all have regrets... 

Harry's picture

SS cursed you out.  Then he should be ban from the home until he learns how to behave like a person. Him not changing is keeping the ban in effect 

Rags's picture

While IMHO many suicide threats are just manipulation, I would not risk it with a child in my life.  That kid would be subject to a wellness check from the Police, EMS transporting him to a facility to go on suicide watch and mental health assessments, etc, etc, etc... each and every time he mentioned suicide.

I had two kids in high school threaten suicide when I was on Officer of the Day (OD) duty.  One cut his wrists and the other was sitting in the 4th floor window of his barracks room threatening to jump.  The first one I had escorted to the infirmary where I cleaned and bandaged his wrists and the other I talked with while inching toward him then dragging him out of the window.  I was one of three Cadet Infirmary assistants with first responder training.

I had to transport the one who sliced on his wrists to the ER (the cuts were superficial).  The ER Doc was complimentary of my work on cleaning up his wrists.  

On the potential jumper, I got him out of the window as the police and fire department pulled onto campus.  When I had him on his back from dragging him backwards out of the window in a headlock my SGT and PVTs of the guard dog piled on him and we held him down as the responders ran up the stairs.

Sadly both of them did succeed in killing themselves a couple of decades later.   I could not help them long term but I could prevent them from killing themselves at that time.

IMHO this kid is likely maniplating. But in the chance that he is serious, I would do everything in my power to keep it from happening on my watch.  He would have to do it when I had zero ability to prevent it.

Losing a child is the most devastating thing that can happen to a parent.  Losing one to suicide has to be exponentially more painful than losing a child to an accident or illness.

DH needs to go all daddy on this 16yo and do everything in his power to keep his son safe.  What BM wants or says through all of this makes no difference. But daddy needs to step up.

I may not succeed in preventing a suicide, but not due to lack of trying.

 

completely overwhelmed's picture

My SD (almost 18) has a history of suicidal ideation and threats. My DH and I and others involved in her care have taken seriously all of her threats and she's had many trips to the hospital after taking about suicide. While I do think she is in part serious about wanting to end her life, she does use it to get out of trouble. Twice in the last year she's told school staff she wanted to kill herself when she was in serious trouble and it resulted in a trip to the hospital and delayed school suspensions.

Has hospitalization helped eliminate her mental health problems or caused more? That's something I'm not sure about. It hasn't helped her behavior and she's just as depressed and anxious.

Even in the children's wards, it isn't pleasant and that isn't a deterrent to prevent her from making threats when she knows she's going to have a "vacation". But it's not a vacation. She's had been strip searched many times and has told her therapists she feels like these were sexual assaults because of how much the staff has touched her in private areas. The staff have to check to make sure she doesn't have any contraband and some act like it's a jail than a hospital. And some of the facilities she's been at have not put up with her being belligerent and refusing to take medication and that's resulted her being treated very harshly and not like we might hope are kids are treated at a hospital. She's been restrained and medication forced down her throat at multiple times now.

The result is that she really has very negative associations with the entire mental health field and she has major psychiatric problems and that's going to be a significant part of her life.  My DH didn't go and check out these facilities. The worst one was where she was taken by ambulance from the therapeutic boarding school in Idaho after she refused to drink water or eat. We had no control over where she was taken and when you're worried about your child killing him or herself, you don't think about checking out where they are taken.  I don't know how much what my SD says is or isn't true, but she does say she would rather die than go back to that hospital in Idaho because of how she was treated and I do want to warn parents about that and you should do your due dilligence to check where your child will be cared for.

 

Rags's picture

I would surmise that with her know history that the hospitals know that she is in large part faking and manipulating and are amping up the unpleasant consequences to make a point.   

Once a minor is in a mental health facility it is the the facility that has primary decissioning authority on the treatment for the child and what escalating treatments will be applied.  

I would say that it is time to tell this young woman that if she does not want to return to Idaho that she needs to knock her crap off get serious about her life and dealing with her mental health and not manipulating and playing games.

Just my thoughts of course.

When my SS pulled his crap during his Sophomore year of HS we dumped his ass at Military School and let him know that the lying and other manipultive crap was over.   As it turned out, he thrived in that environment and did great. Until the SpermIdiot helped him hack the school fire wall and they would stay up all night playing WoW so SS was comatose in class every day.  

One thing I have noticed is that private facilities can be far more strict and firm handed with kids than public facilities can.  The Military School that my dad, my younger brother and I attended was no bullshit and did not hesitate to apply extremely unpleasant consequences. The Military School we sent SS to was semi private and did not have nearly as strict a structure and consequences.  Sadly.  The crap he pulled would have been met with an existence of abject misery at my school.  Which closed 6 years before SS went to boarding school.