Stepping Back

I’m taking some time out. I’ve driven down to the Dorset coast, and checked into a hotel overlooking the sea. It is quiet and beautiful here, more so than I remember it being from when I here with Alex last year. I am alone on this occasion, the first time I’ve taken any time away from my family that has not been a business trip, and never for so long. I plan to stay four nights.  I have a double room to myself, with a sea view for which you have to pay extra. The Grand Hotel is perched on a cliff top in Swanage, with a private beach below that you reach by means of a steep wooden stairway. There are palm trees in the garden, and little tables where you can have tea in the summer. Looking up I can see that a large family of doves have moved in just below the rafters, behind the large faded letters spelling out the name of the hotel. After last night’s heavy rain I’m surprised to have woken up today to a searing sun reflecting its glory onto the sea, in the exact same spot as the moon had been the night before. How magical that is; I wish I knew more about the moon and why, unlike the sun, she cannot always be seen and certainly not in the same place two nights running.

After being, at first, almost unable to sit down from worrying about what I should be doing, I am now getting more used to being able to do exactly what I want. My adrenalin levels have been running dangerously high these past few years, guess it will take more than a drive down the M27 to slow them down to a normal rate. It’s often only when you relax that you realise just how stressed you’ve been. I am still waking up, though, and going to bed too, thinking about William, with even more reason now. He is no longer at home. We placed him in temporary bed and breakfast accommodation last weekend.

I think I’m trying to say that we threw him out. The strain of locking doors, worrying about property going missing, wondering where he was, waiting for the next call from his college about absences – all of this was beginning to be too much. My husband is on a long trial down in Chichester, choosing to commute from our home in South London, and as a result is almost catatonic by the end of the week. Weekends are prime sorting-out-problems-with-William events. He usually disappears on a Friday. We are never sure where he is, or whether he’ll be coming back, small beer you’re probably thinking considering his behaviour over the years, but it’s the smallish things that, when repeated, get to you most.

After spending a lot of time with the computer and telly both going at the same time in his bedroom, and sleeping in his clothes, Will had a sudden rush of energy that seemed to come on after a trip to the Job Centre to sign on. He went for an interview at a restaurant in the City, and returned triumphant saying that they’d offered him a trial shift the next day. He could go to his class at college in the morning, and then onto the job. I gave him a hug and said well done, and the next day gave him money for a travelcard and food, and off he trotted, clean and besuited. Jack was convinced that his brother seemed to be telling the truth this time, and remarked to me how he seemed to be excited by the prospect of working. Will didn’t call to let us know how things had gone, nor return that night. When he came back on Saturday  he told me that he’d been paid by cheque for the work he’d done at the restaurant, and that the manager had told him to ring in later, to find out if he’d be needed that night.

It all sounded plausible, but it wasn’t true. Something made me ring the restaurant the next day when Will was again sitting at computer/television, when he wasn’t sleeping the day away, fully clothed. He had clearly not been invited back to work there. The manager I spoke to had never heard of him. Another lie. He hadn’t been into college on Friday morning either, the only morning he is invited into the place now. So, talking to my husband on Sunday morning we both decided that it was time William lived on his own. Constantly lying to us was almost as bad as stealing from us. He hadn’t been to his drugs counsellor either, and only went when I took him there.

My husband sat down with a copy of the Yellow Pages and started to ring local bed and breakfast places. None of the ones advertised could do it, but he was put onto an Italian family who take in paying guests – Mario and Maria. Yes, they could take him, they said. And that was it, we had somewhere for him to go. Last time we’d asked him to leave, back in October, when we found dope in his room again, we had left him at the local railway station at ten o’clock at night, giving him a hundred pounds to go. I’d spent the next three days worrying about him, until I found out he was at a friend’s house and perfectly fine. At least this time we’d know where he was. Seemed simple enough, even though the whole thing was ghastly and depressing, a given for us. Jack said he wanted to go to the gym, so I gave him a lift - popping into the supermarket on the way back for potatoes. Guy was planning on cooking a roast for lunch, so we could eat before throwing out our son. Hmm. Looking forward to that.

While I was out Guy woke William, packed up his clothes and told him he was going to have to go as we’d all had enough. No bended knees supplication from Will, I was surprised to see when I returned. I just don’t get it, I would never let anyone put me in a B and B – I’d have done anything to make sure I wasn’t sent away. But not this one, he doesn’t seem to feel he has the power to make the changes in his life that will lead to peace for him or for us. He sat in his coat and played the piano while we all ate lunch.

Guy insisted I come along to take William, although I felt ill at the thought. Alex told me I should do it for the sake of all the family. I couldn’t go into the place, though, and stayed in the car. Guy came out smiling, saying how nice the Mario-Marias had been.

‘They’re lovely. She’s like Bella Lasagne out of ‘Fireman Sam’. She’s a real maternal type, really sweet, you’d like her. He’ll be fine there. It’s not as if we’re sending him to a household like the West’s place’ he said, looking relaxed.

Oh, great, you mean they aren’t likely to cut him up and put him under the patio? – good one. I did smile, though, when Guy told me that William would be sleeping under a picture of the Madonna and not the one that’s married to Guy Ritchie! Let’s hope this works out. Guy says he’s almost sorry for Mario, but had handed over £160 in cash, and that had made him smile. Guy didn’t leave our home phone number. Wise move. I gave Will a hug, telling him to look after himself and to call me. At the very least it would give us a Will-free week, but as to the long term future, that was undecided. Guy’s plan was that Will apply for housing benefit that week, and then he could be re-housed at a later stage.

The next day Will rang me up at 11 o’clock to ask if he needed to vacate the house during the day. He’d just got up. I reminded myself that this was another reason he needed to be away from us, he liked to spend his days in a semi-vegetative state, and being in someone else’s house I’d thought he may not feel he could do so. Think I was wrong about this. Even though we had asked him to leave, I did not want to give up on Will. The next day I went to talk to our GP about the fact that I was convinced more and more that Will had become ill through his addiction, and my concern was that he was heading for psychosis and schizophrenia. I explained that if someone could convince Will that he was suffering from an illness that would not go away by itself, he might be able to avoid worse problems than he had already. The doctor told me to bring Will along and he would do what he could.

I took Will along with me on Thursday, but the meeting did little to help. I challenged something Will said, which was lies, and he got very angry with me and began shouting at me in front of the doctor, turning to him to say ‘Can you see what I’ve got to put up with?’ The doctor told me that the way I was talking to my son was dysfunctional. As I tried to explain why I’d challenged my son, he told me he wouldn’t listen to anything more I had to say and began smiling down at his folded hands, shaking his head. I left them to it, which was probably what I should have done from the beginning, knowing though that if I did there would not be a positive outcome. Which there wasn’t.

I left Will at the surgery and drove off at speed, unsure where I was going,  ending up at the shopping centre at Bluewater. I cried all the way. I wasn’t sure I could do any of this any more, I just didn’t have the strength. I was trying to help him, but I don’t think he really wants to be helped, which frustrates the life out of me. And now someone is telling me I’m dysfunctional when all I want is for my son to get better.

Will disappeared the next day, without letting the Marios know where he was, which upset them. He was due to check out of the B and B by ten o’clock on Sunday morning. Guy and I decided not to organise another place for Will, seeing as he’d gone without telling anyone where he was. We went to collect his things when there was still no sign of him on Sunday. He turned up again at the B and B late on Sunday evening, wondering where all his stuff had gone. When he rang our house, Guy told him that he was on his own now. The conversation went on some time.

Everyone I’ve spoken to lately has said that we have to step back and let our son reach the holy grail of the ‘Rock Bottom’, from which he’ll come up. So, that’s what we’ve done and it feels awful. I hate not knowing where he’s sleeping, and he rang me today to tell me he’d slept rough last night and that his benefit money has not gone into his account as promised. I transferred £100 into his account immediately, knowing that Guy would not have done so, and probably rightly so. I can’t believe this is happening, but if it means he realises how crazy he is being then maybe being homeless will have been worth it. I think, though, we have a long way to go. He has yet to ‘own’ his problems, and if he continues to smoke cannabis I fear for his long-term mental health which is already in tatters.

© Debra Bell 2007