processing

After reading Cindy Bodie's post today about a mentally ill man who stabbed a police officer after telling his mother he needed to go to the hospital (for mental health issues), I commented the following in her blog:

Do you think the NY man's mom was in temporary shock and denial, or do you think she typically enables him by staying in denial of his issues? I know of a mom who blames the police and the stupid law for her son's repeated parole violations. Now he is in prison for accumulating those violations.

I try to keep my head above water in the traumatic situations my son gets himself, and me, into. I try to keep my head clear so I do not enable him. It is a bit of a struggle, as I blogged a few minutes ago, because I am terrified of him going to jail.

I keep thinking, well, my son isn't hurting anyone, just the house. Where will I draw the line? Where do you draw the line?

It's a very fine line between teaching my son a lesson by sending him to jail for breaking the ceiling, and causing trauma and pain for both of us that he may not learn his lesson from. I keep thinking "It's just drywall. He will lose privileges and work around the house for money until he can fix the hole." Am I protecting him from something I should protect him from? Or am I protecting him from something I shouldn't?

I HATE this part of my job.

Now I sound like a teenager.

I feel very far removed from the mother of the man in NY who gave a police officer a brain injury. I just don't feel like my son's issues are as severe as his. Maybe they aren't. Or maybe that mother had my very same thoughts of protecting her son when he was fourteen, and enabled him to grow into a man who committed several crimes and put a young dad in the hospital. Or maybe mental illness is something neither Brennan or I will have enough control over.

Again, I HATE this part of my job.