Do you tell them why you won't help them?
Hello. I'm a long time reader and only posted once or twice in the past (I think my previous posts got lost somehow).
I have learnt a lot from this site so thank you to everyone for all the advice I have received. It has been extremely helpful. At one stage I thought I was addicted to the forum as I was reading it so often!
My addicted son (not sure of his drug of addiction), has been giving our family serious grief for 7 years now.
He is 24 years old. He can't hold down a job, was kicked out of our home due to his behaviour quite a few years ago (abusive, smashing things up) and has caused a lot of heartache to our family. My husband and I are in the middle of separating but living in the same house at the moment. Life is not fun.
My son called my husband tonight asking for money. My husband did not agree to giving him any so he called me asking the same. I told him I won't give him any money. He became aggressive and threatened to come and rob us and called me a terrible name (the last time he was threatening I told him not to contact me again). This has been his normal, terrible behaviour with everyone he is close to including my parents. It is very distressing.
My son ended up coming to our house tonight, walked in with an aggressive demeanour and again asked for / demanded money allegedly for food and petrol. I stayed calm (I have to admit that I am a little frightened of him these days) as I didn’t want to set him off. Anyway, long story short, everything became rather heated in our house. There was yelling from my husband (he is extremely stressed due to our separation and starting a new job), and my 21 year old daughter also started yelling at my son. She is over his behaviour and says she was sticking up for us. She has been very supportive over the years and is very mature. Her yelling tonight was out of character but she says she has had enough. As I explained to her, she needs to stay calm and not get involved as he is unpredictable and I am worried about what he is capable of.
Anyway, I offered him food, whatever he wanted out of the cupboard. Of course there was nothing that took his fancy and he ended up taking a loaf of bread.
When he loses his mind he gets angry there is no reasoning with him and becomes verbally abusive. He is very unpredictable. I was concerned for my daughter as he has become physical with her in the past (a bit of a shove with yelling). She normally keeps out of it but she has had enough of his disrespectful ways and felt like she had to intervene.
My question is: When he asks for money, what should we tell him why we don’t give him any? Of course we would like to be able to give him assistance, but we know we can’t as it will not help him get better. Your help would be appreciated.