Overwhelmed by supporting stepfamily

[Blender]

Long time reader, first time poster.

Basically overwhelmed by living in ground hog day. Stepson has mental health issues, past trauma, and substance abuse problems up to and including week long meth binges.

household rules and boundaries have gradually eroded as there is no way of enforcing them. Drug counselor has said to make sure he has a safe place to land, and just keep supporting him in good choices, can't provide consequences for bad choices as that feels like punishment and it'll push him away, blah blah.

He moved out at 16 then back in six months later "for two weeks" (three months ago) when people around him we're buying him alcohol. We live with instability, mood swings, the threat of violence to people and property, manipulation, petty theft etc etc etc

I just see the black tunnel if this situation stretching ahead until one of us dies.

Psych, counseling, lifeline etc all end in various flavours of "that sounds really hard to deal with" and "learn acceptance" but nothing practical that I can actually DO other than keep my mouth shut, don't rock the boat, and learn to suck it up.

I have constant suicidal ideation - serious, but not urgent... I know exactly where, when and how, if things don't get better.

It feels calming to run through the plan step by step in my head, and makes me feel like there is some "hope" for the situation changing.

Currently there's about 75-80% chance of it all being over in under 2 years.

[Blender]

Thanks Juliet.

Naturally I'm paraphrasing the professional advice a bit 😀

I've not managed to work out the difference between "accepting the things you can't influence" and "just sucking it up" in this context.

For self care, I do remove myself and go for walks or drives and so on, which just feels like more giving in. In order to keep going I need to avoid being in my own home, and stay away from the functional parts of the family...

Every time we allow him to do his own thing and hit rock bottom, we *think* it'll turn him around... But he finds new ways to sit past it. It was nearly enough to get him into rehab when he was stabbed.... Then again when he was arrested for putting a drug dealer in hospital... Then again when he had an involuntary admission after alcohol induced psychotic episode... Nearly, but not quite each time.

We'll have to wait it out, keep going until he has a revelation, or develops his frontal cortex, or one of us dies, sooner or later.

[geoff]

Hello Blender, and have read all the replies back to you, and although it may be different when we're talking about our own child, rather than a step son, basically it's not, although your control could be different if he was your son, but it can extend the gap between you and your wife because her concern is slightly not the same as what you're thinking.

Well, I'm not sure if there is a difference between 'accepting the things you can't influence' and 'just sucking it up' , maybe at some time there is, but on other occasions, it's virtually the same, depending on the situation with your wife.

If you give an addict an inch they'll run a mile with it, because how do you know whether or not you're helping them or just allowing it to happen, that's a tough question to answer because if there is a bed, food available, the warmth of the house when he returns is this giving him the satisfaction of a place to return, another awkward question.

It's his mates who are encouraging him and the same applies to people going into rehab, then coming out, one chance is by blocking them from their previous mates who feed them this addiction.

Geoff.

[Juliet_84]

Hi Blender,

Yeah I can appreciate that, I just meant that it’s all well and good for people to say support them and be positive oh and look after yourself as an afterthought, even though those concepts seem to be diametrically opposing. I know want you mean that you shouldn’t have to leave your house to find peace, but the reality is that is the situation you find yourself in to a large degree. As long as you find peace at the moment I don’t think it matters where you get it from. Does he live in the house? Is there an option to move him out to something like a granny flat, garage etc to create a bit of physical space for you? I understand that the chaos is around his life anyway, but sometimes being able to escape the eye of the storm helps a bit too.
Those are all pretty serious things that happened, I’m sorry that none of them served as a wake-up call for him. I think because of the nature of these circumstances they were all fairly acute situations and he recovered from them fast enough that he didn’t have to change. Have you spoken to any of the counselors about you and that you feel as though you can’t do this anymore, can only see suicide as the only way out etc? Everything is understandably pretty focused on your stepson but he can’t just take everyone down with him as collateral damage in his war on himself.