Julie Myerson - why am I not surprised that a book has materialised concerning her own son's drug issues?

[glasjam]

Read this is in today's Observer www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/mar/01/julie-myerson-novel-drug-addiction

Does anyone else have the uncomfortable feeling that I have on learning that she is writing about her son's drug problems? I know that writers often mine their own personal experiences for material but I think she's putting her literary endeavours ahead of her son here. From what I can gather, he is still young, his drug issues are ongoing, and although he is out of the family home, surely this is risking any possible future reconcilliation? I also baulk at the way she "weaves historical research about Yelloly with her disturbing account of her son's ejection from the family home" It just smacks of middle-class-writer angst.

My cynicism is further fuelled by my very strong suspicion that Julie Myerson is the author of Living with Teenagers - but that's another story...

The paying for education bit further down in the thread is bollox Celia, I agree.

There's kids at manchester Grammar and Manchester High School for girls just as much if not more so than the local state schools.

They are able to afford better quality drugs after all.

With this sort of problem that's meant to say

minx of mancunia-I do agree if you haven't been around someone (sibling in my case) with a serious cannabis habit it is difficult to imagine. You could be describing my brother. He has lived at home with my elderly parents for a number of years and has had had only one job from which he was sacked for violence against a co-worker. My parents will not throw him out. He has finally now started counselling/therapy and has quit smoking-who knows if it will last. He is much younger than me and i can really relate to J.M's feeling of 'where did that lovely little boy go?' OK so the woman is a bit annoying and fey but I don't think she deserves the vitriolic pieces especially by other journalists in the national press-many of whom recycle their lives for copy in a similar way.

The school that Jake Myerson went to is a HIGHLY competitive selective state school. It's even in Tory borough

A short bus ride from their home.

But it's not far from Dulwich College, also in south London.

I think we have found the source of the problem. The thing that state schools and the Very expensive Dulwich College have in common.

South London.

And, for all those who smoked weed etc...was it skunk?

I have read interviews with her and her son and I think she has done the unforgivable tbh.

Myerson comes across as rational and compassionate.
"I would never have published this book if I thought it would harm our relationship"
"Everything I've done has been out of love"
Ummm that's a bit disingenuous. She clearly wants to 'help' other parents by exposing her son in this way. However bad the situation I don't think this is justified.

Also if you see the Daily Mail today where JM's sister describes the family falling out with her father etc and over his will (JM was left out) JM's sister describes her as being moderately violent in throwing the sister out of the house.

IMO, this family has a lot of deeper issues, none of which are helped or healed by JM publishing this book and making out that the problem is elsewhere. She writes/speaks as if cannabis was the cause of all this trouble in her middle class paradise. If you read about JM's childhood, it looks to me like the trouble was there long before her son was born and he's just part of the bigger picture. She shouldn't just blame cannabis imo, that's a symptom not a cause ime.

Which school was it, Blu? Did it begin with G?

Jonathan Myerson gives his take on events in the Guardian today.

Not at ALL relevant but check out Jonathan M's drippy long hair!!!

Just read this.

"This is cannabis" not in my experience, I think this is a family with old, dark issues that have not been dealt with and are just coming out in the next generation. It's no less painful but simply blaming the cannabis won't help them in the end.

Blu is right. I have a son at private school, just about to become a teenager.

While there are lots of things the school can provide, I doubt that it or any other private school can offer much more reassurance than any of the state schools in the same town that drugs are not being traded by pupils, and that some pupils are not being hooked on skunk. It may not be happening on the premises but it will be happening.

You buy lots of things when you sign the termly cheques, but guaranteed lack of contact with drug-peddling teenagers isn't one of them.

Myerson denies writing LWT column

Agree with ipanemagirl about the deeper problems.

Also JM did say at one point, we agreed with him smoking dope as long as he didn't become addicted.

Well, how can you say that to a 14/15 year old!!!!! Who knows who is going to become addicted or not?? He might do, he might not. He cannot possibly make an informed decision like that.It's like giving a toddler a bar of chocolate and saying don't eat it all, you will feel sick.

I can see where they are coming from in the 'writing it down to help other people' stance but I seriously wonder whether it is to help themselves really come to terms with the fact that their son has turned out like he has, which is NOT all down to him but down to their parenting too.

I do sympathise with them. It must be an absolutely horrible, ghastly situation.. all kinds of things going on, denial from grandparents that he is 'addicted' etc. But in all these outpourings neither of them seem to have actually come to terms with the fact that THEY might have made some mistakes along the way (apart from the rather weak, we should have taken control earlier).

If she was the author of LWT (and even if she wasn't Jake has said she's been writing about him since he was 2), then I am wondering what effect her public writings have had on his development - his personality, sense of self, and perhaps a latent paranoia that everyone knows all the horrible bits about him.
She has done an unforgivable thing and I am worried how the story will end.
It's not cannabis that does this to families, it's a whole bag of problematic relationship issues that run deep, and to just tip them into one child because they take drugs is hideous, cruel and can only cause more harm.

NOne of us have read this book - unless you're in the publishing industry and manage to get a proof. We don't know if she is the LWT Mum. OP just suspects that. her son was 18 when she threw him out and he had been violent towards her. Her other 2 children are younger. In other circs, people may well be applauding her stance against abuse. i'm going to read it when it comes out in paperback. i work with teenagers and I'd be interested. Skunk isn't like the kind of cannabis Clinton inhaled at college.

God yes, it puts uncool-tie-wearing-at-parents-evening, or painful-displays-of-your-baby-photos-to-first-boyfriend in another league, doesn't it?

I really think the parents are avoiding the family's deeper problems by projecting it all on external causes.

It's simply deluded. They're justifying betraying the son's privacy by saying it's all the fault of cannabis. That is just so simplistic it is eye-watering! She makes no acknowledgement of the family group's issues. Given her own family's background she is remarkable defended against admitting her own issues.

Not all drug addicts come from families with 'deep problems'. Many (and alcoholics too) are people with a genetic pre-disposition to be badly affected by addictive substances.

Abraid, that is true. The genetic predisposition usually goes back a few generations and therefore you are usually even more on the look out for addictive behaviour (may be that is why the Myersons are so concerned about it) and try to stop it before it starts at an early age.

Encouraging someone to try smoking dope 'as long as they don't get addicted' is just plain stupid IMO. It's just such a ridiculous statement to make. Completely non sensical, especially if there is a history of addictive behaviour in the family.

abraid I can only speak from experience and in my experience substances tend to be abused most when there is something that is not being addressed by someone in the group.
I suppose there are a percentage of substance/drug/alcohol abusers who simply have a genetic disposition but ime there is usually more to it than just that, there's an emotional context which adds to the vulnerability of individuals. We all come from a very complex genetic/emotional background.
J Myerson's family (if you see her sister's artcle too) has dysfunction going on in it and it seems to me to be partly responsible for what's going on now. She clearly thinks it's just cannabis! I think that's far too simplistic. A situation this bad isn't going to be one thing, nor are addicts going to be only influenced by genetics, it's a whole complex picture of many factors imo and ime.

I'm sure that if your family emotional life is chaotic you're more likely to become hooked. But were the Mysersons THAT emotionally disasterous?

More than many other families?

I don't know, perhaps I'm just feeling terribly sorry for all of them now. I look at my own son and wonder if things could slide so violently into the darkness for us and it makes me want to lock him up with his Stephanie Meyer books and his stuffed toy tiger in his bedroom until he's 30. ;)

But, of course, you can't.