Tracey in Maine

I started therapy as soon as I knew I was pregnant. I was a messed up person, all my life I had done things I could not understand or explain, I was in the mental ward of the hospital once for a month as a teenager and it did nothing but mess me up more. I lied to anyone who would listen, always felt inside I was just made bad. I took the normal families teasing and messing around personally, and just didn’t understand why I felt so sad inside at times.

That was just as a teenager. I was 22 when I got pregnant. I had multiple abusive relationship and allowed myself to be bossed around and insulted, I couldn’t explain my feeling and turned to anger. I had just recovered from almost dying from the doctors not diagnosing my Addison’s disease till the last-minute and now had to depend on a little pill just to stay alive.

My sons father was an abusive one and an alcoholic who I went back and forth with till Jacob was a year old and we lost everything in a house fire. He went to jail for three years and I became free of him. I knew I had to work on so much to be able to raise my boy so he didn’t turn into his father or a serial killer!

I thought I failed till he turned 18 and literally flipped a switch. He had been caught shoplifting, drank and smoked pot, and I had to have the police take him to school many times. Now he’s 20. He is home for summer break from college which he got into and started from going to job Corp which used to be just were judges sent kids, but, he has his diploma even tho he had to take extra classes to get, he has a CNA license, an ECT license and personal trainer license, but, he is still completely inconsiderate, kinda selfish and seems to have no empathy. I know it could be so much worse but it is killing me! We have so much on our plates right now but he just ads more. Doesn’t seem to care or just doesn’t remember anything I tell him or ask him. I feel I failed him. We’re did I go wrong , what did I do, or not do to make him become like this?, especially since I am a “give the shirt off my back kind “of person….