My first thread & I may well have chosen WAAAY too general a thread title! I'll try to paraphrase but prepare to take a deep breath!!!
Son, 22, approx 2+ years heavily into weed, latterly (maybe a year) heavy alcohol use & cigarettes plus all the time junk food, has piled on 40kg over that time. No job during the whole period. Increasingly bad personal hygiene. Anger damage to doors, light switches.
I've been enabling (I know, I know) and am now <nearly> financially struggling. There are times he acknowledges he needs to change his life, but that coincidentally always seems to be just before he needs more weed, and once he has it he's down the slippery slope to gaming, anger, etc.
Back story: Dad died suddenly a week after a terminal cancer diagnosis 7+ years ago, we had to leave Spain, sell home, set up in UK, I had to go back to work, then we discovered dad had been having a second relationship in the UK the whole time. Son had been asked to keep his knowledge secret. One remaining grandparent died a year later. Favourite dog died a year later. Four year legal battle to get me anything from Will, which he was about to change. Barely scraped through education, got six GCSEs but hasn't stuck to anything since. He's opened up to the extent he has nightmares about his Dad's relationship with him as a child, emotional abuse etc. But WON'T get therapy or stick to the substance help he's contacted several times. We moved to a house with a decent chunk of land on the understanding he would use working outside to help clear his head, change his behaviours. He owns half the house. He has a trust fund available in three years, but now says the knowledge it's there hasn't helped him, the exact opposite. Couldn't cope when second dog and one of our cats died within a couple of months of each other, think that's when the drinking started.
So - the reason for posting: I'm trying to stick to the boundaries I should have set but the other day I got angry & instead of biting my tongue, told him to shut the fuck up. Since then he's barely acknowledged me, been acid, unpleasant, etc etc and says he won't forget it and now the words coming out of my mouth mean nothing to him.
It's pointless saying what should I do, because we can only really guess what anyone else's experience/life/feelings are, but I could do with some input for sure. Half my problem is I get flummoxed when he's being unpleasant, and lose all sense of what I should be saying. Help!