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Oh Frankiejo it sounds truly awful.I gather he is still at home ? I think you woukd be wise to move him out and try to put strict boundaries in place. You deserve your own lives now and he is an adult by the sounds of it. And you know what he says is just to wound you? You sound like you have been an amazing parent but unfortunately you are facing an uphill struggle. Dont take on board the criticism . It is simply not your fault. So many times i resd things on here that make me reflect on how unfair life can be at times and this is definitely one of them . I hope you can find a way forward and a brighter future for you and your dh . Best wishes wizzy x

Just wanted to send you support. I totally understand your comment on bothering with adoption, it can often feel like that! The little lad who I call son (and who calls me mum!) has announced that he is moving back to his BF this year as he turns 18. Although he has not lived with us for some years we have had a lot of contact with him and this hurts. It also feels like all our years of effort have been for nothing and that his life will return to how it was always going to be without the LA's intervention. However his unpredictable moods and sexualised danger to his sister mean that he can not come home and I have to accept that there is nothing I can do about that (short of leaving my husband and daughter and living alone with him, at my own risk) Adoption is just about doing our best. Not always getting it right by trying anyway, just as all good parents do. We can't make our children do or be anything. There comes a time when we just have to accept that they are old enough to know right from wrong and it is up to them to put that into practice. At the moment I am hardening my heart and stepping back. I will be there in the future but only on my terms. Part of parenting is teaching with our own actions. Violence/aggression/nastiness is unacceptable and if we continue to accept it we condone it. My advice would be to harden your heart, make him take responsibility by moving out and standing on his own and then re-find your own life and live it. You and your husband deserve to enjoy the normal retirement that every parent deserves when their children grow up. Who knows where you will all be in 5 years time (he might have grown up!) but adoption should not be the only thing that defines us. Stay strong. x

Hello from another awful mother, fount of all evil. All of my AD & AS’s many poor decisions, catastrophic lying and threatening behaviours are because I dared love them. Treated them kindly. Patented with warm friendly but firm boundaries. Fought numerous battles with schools etc to get support. Fed, watered and protected them from the troubles of their past as best I could. The thing is, I know and you know that actually this is very high level parenting that’s utterly exhausting not least because you get very little if anything back. The lying about how it’s all your fault is twaddle & just not true. It’s just a wild emotional stab in the guts. I read once (think it might have been holly van gulden) that in a child’s mind there are 2 mothers. There’s the witch mother who shouts, hurts and destroys and sets kids up to do badly. She’s a witch so can jinx things to go belly up just because she’s mean. There’s also the lovely mother. Who makes things all wonderful. Is serene. Cooks lovely food, takes time lovely fun with kids. When children are small, you have to stop them eg posting toast in the DVD player. The child sees you as witch mother. Quickly you hug and say ‘now don’t do that again my love, let’s play Lego!’ And you morph into lovely mother. Over a few years the child realises that you are both mothers and you are just showing an aspect of yourself. Children subject to early repeated trauma haven’t got the brain structures to cope with the aspects of mum. So when they are stressed they believe you to be witch mother... they are stressed and in trouble lots so guess who you are cast as most often. Flosskirk is good at explaining it. But it proven true in my AC. In the end here we made the awful decision that we could no longer have contact with blossom and be safe. Partridge is local to here but he is very much in the ‘contained at arms length’ relationship wise because of his troubles life and constant lying. Re adoption being hard, yes. I would not have adopted my 2 had I known the extreme life it has dragged us through. The enormous wider family impact too has been grim. However if I hadn’t had been a mum I think I would have struggled to reconcile myself to childlessness. Also I have changed and learned a vast amount through these past 17yrs. Certainly I’ve made some amazing friends through adoption I can never say I regret meeting.

Thank you for your support. Well it all kicked off tonight. He had a couple of cans of beer and was a bit tipsy, but then wanted a Indian takeaway. So I took him to it and while he was wanting (a good half an hour) had 4 pInts he said. He came back home and got more and more aggressive waving his arms around and swearing, we were so concerned we left the house drove off and phoned the police. Meanwhile he's telling me we're locked out he's wreaking the house my house rabbits are going to die etc. The police arrived and it took three of them to get him in the back of the van and he was making such a racket, (we have only just moved what on earth are the neighbours going to say). I told the police he needs psychiatric assessment as I'm sure there is more to this than his Autistic spectrum and that he can never come back home. Of course I feel bad as he has no one else to help, but I suppose social services etc will have to step in, I dare not take any more chances as next time we may be injured or worse. If only I could turn back 18 years.

I would suggest you contact a lawyer and see if they and the police can sort out some kind of restraining order. SW might step up to help your son but if he is an adult they may not. Resources are thin on the ground, and they are highly unlikely to support you and your husband. They do not have a duty of care to you. You will have to lookout for your own safety. Take care, hopefully folks with more experience will pick up on this post soon. Do not feel guilty or a failure. Your son was too damaged by his early experiences before he came to you, and is unable to return affection for all you put into looking after him. you may be right about mental issues.It is reckoned that many kids come into care because their parents are self medicating their own mental health and other issues with drink and drugs. If he inhereted some of these issues he may be repeating the cycle. Possibly exaggerated by modern high strength weed or other drugs. Your parenting will probably have kept him safe longer than otherwise would have been the case, but now you need to step back and let him learn from life and his mistakes. Maybe one day when he more mature he will realise what you gave him but all her is seeing now is though the drugs and drink.

Hey. All I can offer you is support. I can't really comment on the autistic spectrum as I don't have experience. But I really do understand the other stuff. I've had to call the Police so many times re AD (age 15) and it just doesn't stop. I really feel for you. I really do. Just to give an example, the Police were around this Sat (oh yes, only yesterday) to dig in to something that we had reported; well she's run away from home basically and is therefore a Missing Person. Within minutes of them leaving to go and investigate I got a call from the Police because AD is the suspect in a (non-related) crime, and they want to talk to her under caution. Great! If you think that other little bits of humanity (rabbits; dogs; cats; other children; yourselves; other - in no specific order!) are in danger then please call the police. Always, My experience (and I've got quite a lot here) is that they are lovely and understanding and non-judgmental). Oh, and I've been "Pure Evil" for years - My AD just can't cope with the fact that I'm actually quite nice but have boundaries. On one level she gets it; on another she really, really doesn't. Probably doesn't help that DH's boundaries have got tougher when mine have got a bit more relaxed. interestingly, when AD wants something then I'm "the best Mum in the world" - this can flip within days or minutes. Personally, I don't believe a word of it. Ramble. Ramble. Hugs. Peahen

Oh thank you so much. The police came back and are putting in measure that he shouldn't come home, and if we ring 999 there is an alert showing up. I can only take comfort in the fact I have done more than most birth parents would do, but I still wonder if he will be out on the streets. My rabbits did not suffer any harm at all, and I didn't think he would do anything to them, but you can never say never.

Now relax! I can imagine how hard all of this has been. But it is over for now. Take some really (and I mean really) deep breaths ... I salute the Police across our realm because they just seem to "get it". When it comes to where your DS will be in the future then, right now, I think that you need to stop worrying about AS and start thinking about you and DH; let AS worry about himself. No? Just for today (or maybe its tomorrow) can you just take DH out for an eggs Benedict or a full fry-up or (if you're in trendy East-ish London) then smashed avos on flatbread with bacon snips and truffle oil? It isn't a scale between birth parents and adoptive parents - if it were then in terms of absolute effort against the odds then us adoptive parents would win every time. But we don't know what the scales look like and we don't know what the odds are when we start. But the truth is trying to balance birth vs adoptive will send you mad before it helps you (by my observation only). Glad the rabbits are Ok. Peahen.

I am glad that you are feeling safer. Like others we found the police to be helpful I times of crisis. It is probable that your son will gain other diagnoses and maybe some projects will be able to help. You need time to rest and recover. I too was evil and out to ruin our girls' lives. When we talk about things like this now, both girls say it was just words and a lot of their angry feelings. I am glad that this is in the past because it was painful ,stressful and hurtful at the time and undermined my confidence in parenting the girls. You need a cut-off point now. It is good that the police are putting in safety measures. Thinking of you at this time. You have given opportunities and a family life. Be forgiving to yourself . Johanna

Thank you Johanna. I know it is a relief to know he is out of the home but I still feel I have failed maybe I should have gotten him more help but he has not been very receptive to other help. I will try to rebuild my life but I'm not sure how easy it will be.