I’ve failed raising my ds

OP is help seeking anyway. That's not failing. We all have things we'd do differently with hindsight.

What do you think of the army suggestion? Do you think you could persuade him?

What is the reason you don’t want your call SS?

Because you think they won’t help or that you’ll/he’ll get into trouble?

SS aren’t the scary people that they used to be. Their job is to help.
I am not SS but I sometimes have to work alongside them and just last week they found a young person I work with a lovely flat, paid for the appliances etc inside and gave them a grant to help them with bills.

After 18 then they probably won’t help as much but that’s why it’s important that you’re really proactive (and it’s going to take some time to convince him).

If you don’t want to contact SS right now then try the other charities mentioned first.

I assume you’re on benefits - have you spoken to him about how these work?

If he doesn’t have a disability then he’ll be expected to look for work and they’ll sometimes put him on doing unpaid work or stop his benefits.
Its also a very crappy life for such a young person.

What is stopping him from going college or getting a job?
Is it social anxiety or is it that he can currently do what he wants but when he’s working he’s got to get up early etc.

Gently, leaving this thread is not going to help either of you.
You’ve buried your head in the sand for the past few years and now you’ve got a few months to try and do whatever you can to set him on the right path (and make life better for yourself too).

What is it that you want from him/this thread?

His behaviour is filled by the accumulation of anger and frustration over the years.

It can get better but it is going to take a long time to undo everything. It will take a lot of mental and psychological efforts.

You need to start being completely honest with him. At the beginning, he will be awful and reject all your honesty. The anger will be even more present, but gradually he might start opening up about his feelings. It's at this point you might be able to discuss the past and talk about the future.

Are you prepared and able to do it now? It will be hard, especially at the beginning, but it's the only way.

You asked for help, it’s been suggested and you’re rejecting all of it- what did you want from this thread op?

your son has been massively failed, it’s now or never.

@Lastradaleia What did you call the police about? I’m not clear on this.

Please give Social Services a try OP. You have nothing to lose and potentially a lot to gain. It might be uncomfortable to ask them for help but remember you are doing it for your son's sake.

You keep saying all the things he did and the way he behaved… but you did nothing. You pulled him out of school and did nothing, no
parenting, no education, no correcting behaviour. Parenting is hard work and constant - you don’t get a break. You had a kid who desperately need a strong guiding hand but you sat there and went “ah, he doesn’t like that so I’ll not do anything about it.” He was a child. You were his parent. What were you doing?

And now you’re point blank refusing to
engage with outside services to help
you because you clearly aren’t capable of doing anything about him. Poor kid. He is going to have a minimum wage life if he is lucky, but far more likely to end up homeless with sever mental health issues because he has been neglected for at least a decade.

He's 16. Social services duty of care ends at 18. Giving up now and saying "he's nearly 17 and they won't do anything" is exactly what's got you in this situation - him dropping out of secondary and doing effectively nothing for 6 years. If he'd been in the system, if he'd even been in care, he'd have had some interventions and support, but because you've taken him out of the system, he's had nothing.

And now you're going to keep saying they won't do anything. They won't if you don't ask, if you don't push, if you don't fight to get him the help he so clearly needs and has been deprived off for all of his formative years. No wonder he's seeking it from dodgy places online because at least they engage with him and give him some outlet for his rage and despair. I know you've had it hard too, but this is a crucial time for your son and if it's 'months' till he's 17 then it's well over a year till he's 18 so don't waste it by lamenting how bad things are and how nobody will do anything. People have given you leads here. Go back to the GP, go to SS, go to Young Minds, all of that, arm yourself with information and fight like hell to get him the help and support he needs before he end up in prison.

And why don't you get child benefit for him? You need that for your pension, and for his care. Honestly I sympathise with your loss and MH troubles, but this boy barely exists as far as the world is concerned, it's no wonder he's so fucked up.

I haven't seen many people giving the OP a hard time, other than to be upfront and honest about the situation she's in. When OP asks for advice, then flat out refuses to follow said advice, it begs the question of what they are seeking from a post like this. Support in real life would be much better and, although it can be hard to know where to turn, OP has had counselling so is capable of seeking support where necessary.

And there is the added complication which is of course the OP's son. OP has struggled, but it is her son that will potentially now spend his life paying the price of those struggles. He is at a borderline age now, and I wonder if that's why so many posts are more sympathetic to the OP than her son. I wonder if she was writing about a much younger child, 10 or 11 say, whether to responses would be much more matter of fact in terms of telling her it is her responsibility to make sure he doesn't slip through the cracks.

Having more or less slipped through the cracks now, are we really suggesting tentatively that the OP could perhaps do some research on organisations that may be able to help? Or should we just be honest and tell OP that it is her responsibility, and has always been her responsibility, to seek whatever support this young person needed, however many avenues she has to go down to do so.

Right, you’re not going to involve outside help. So what are you going to do?

You pulled him out of school and your reason for not moving to another school was because the “other schools weren’t the best.” Do you think you gave him the best then? Pulling him out and giving him zero education, that was the best? Better than any other school could have done?

You have failed him in almost every way. Your way of doing things doesn’t work. So do it differently - call social services, book counselling and drag him there, call colleges, call anyone providing apprenticeships. Start being proactive and try to get him some sort of life. He is going to pay for what you’ve done for the next 60 years.

She can’t because he isn’t in education.
It was me that mentioned it OP, I’m glad because you don’t want that mess to deal with on top of everything else if you were receiving money for him.

Continue to ask to be absolved of the guilt of completely destroying any hope her son had of a normal life.

Social services won’t help due to his age, they’re overstretched as it is and he’s 17 in a few months so they wouldn’t do anything and he wouldn’t engage.

So he's only 16. That's two more years he should be in school and could get help from social services.
If you want to help him you can't do it on your own. You have taken him out of school and done nothing to give him any education. Do something now while there is a chance.

OK understood. How did the school respond when you reported the bullying incidents?

Never mind the benefit fraud bs, this about your son. Him being 16 and not in education isn't a reason to not get child benefit as if that's a fait accompli - it's a reason for your local authority to step the hell up and make sure he gets the compulsory education or training that it's their duty to provide, then you get the child benefit for his care and your DS get some purpose and future.

I don't understand the passivity here - your choice to de-reg when he was 11 is not irreversible. You don't seem to realise he's still a child and that the system has a duty to intervene if you go back to them and don't let up until they sort it. Stop thinking of him as having aged out of getting any help and get the help that he's entitled too. No one wants more NEETS becoming violent sexist criminals. Now is the opportunity to really do something. You can't just shrug and give up.

Frightening to think about this violent porn watching completely uneducated 17 year old roaming the streets

When a 13 year old says that about schooling… you still school them whilst working through the underlying emotional issues. You don’t go “oh, that’s grand, let’s not bother then.”

And you’re still doing it. “Nothing will work, he won’t talk, no point, ah well.”

Your way doesn’t work. It hasn’t worked for a decade. It isn’t going to work now. Call for help, start doing something. Stop washing your hands of him. He has a very limited time to get things turned around before he is on his own.

You've let him lead on decisions he was way too young to make and you won't change because you're scared he'll be angry. So you're going to carry on making the same mistake until he's an adult and then really nobody will help. Imagine if he rapes someone or worse, when you could have done something now to set him on a better path. But you didn't because you didn't want anyone to tell you what a shit parent you've been and you still have this idea that no one will do anything, even though the one who's done nothing is you and actually the system can and does have to do things, even if it takes some effort and persistence. I don't know why you posted either if you're not going to do anything and just want to be left alone to carry on letting things getting worse.