My mom has changed since my dad died...

And things are worse than people might think. It's hard for me to explain everything.

It's even funny to be in this situation, I mean it's hard to believe that such things happens in a country like Poland.

Would boarding with another family be such a bad thing? Maybe some arrangement could be made for you to live with a foster family during the week, during term times, and return to your mother at weekends and during the holidays.

But in any case, even if it is full-time for the next couple of years or nothing, it's not like they wouldn't let you see or speak to your mother. Again, you're sixteen - you know how to use phones and the internet, you're not helpless. If it didn't work, you're old enough to leave and return to your mother's home if you want to. They couldn't stop you if they wanted to (and they wouldn't want to!).

You need some structure to your life, some training, some progress, a chance to make friends and gain qualifications. This is crazy!

Besides. Maybe the prospect that things are happening and change is going to come whether she takes charge or not might wake your mother up a bit, no?

I called them several times, they keep saying the same things.

If my mom don't go with me then they won't help us. They can't just let me go to school knowing that my mom is drinking and keeping me in a house where you can't even live. They would probably say to go in some family house, and, that's fine I can go, but only if my mom comes with me. As I said she don't care about me, never happened to see some of my old friends in this situation. What I will do is to wait until things changes, seems to be a bad idea but like I said, if my mom don't do something then nothing will ever change.

No. You won't learn Polish if you don't go to school...

And if nobody knows that you want to go to school...

They can't very well help you get a place at school, can they?

You can ring social services and check before you say anything that the call will be confidential. After all, you don't have to give your name until you're sure about that. If you know enough Polish to ask if they can offer you an Italian interpreter, do that.

Are you near any big towns or cities?

Your mother may be afraid that she will be in serious trouble for not placing your brother and you in schools over the last years. Normally, I'd say so she should be! But given that she was widowed, made homeless, and everything else that has happened then no. She won't be in trouble. They may shake their heads and say she should have got help earlier, but they're not going to make things worse for her now. Anyway - how much worse could they be?

By the way yes, I'm a native Italian speaker, and no, I don't speak Polish if I don't go to a school and learn it.

Countrymouse, you are right I'm frozen. And yeah, I wish I could leave but at the same time I'm afraid of a big change. I know her, and if she don't needs to change she won't do it just for me. Talking would make her feel a bad mom, it means she will drink more. I know we can't just sit hoping someone will notice us, but I know too that it's impossible for me to do it. I need to go to school and live my life, what I will do when it comes to my life? No education means no work. And here we are stuck, the problem is to seek for help when my mom don't want to, and where I can't just go asking for it to strangers.
I just need to think about that, in order to find an answer to my question, anyway thanks for your help, it means a lot to me.

Tablebutable.

1. I repeat. That is NOT TRUE. Social workers do not set out to break up families or punish anybody or make people unhappy. In any case, you are sixteen - you're not a small child in immediate danger, they're not going to take you away to a foster home. You are a young person, becoming an adult, who is entitled to advice, information and help.

2. Think this through. You say you wish you could leave. Then you recognise that you are afraid of being taken away from your mother. What does this mean? What does it add up to?

3. It means that you are in a situation where you are just *afraid* all the time. You are hating what is happening around you, but you are afraid of what might happen if you try to change it.

4. That leaves you completely frozen and stuck. It also means, when I look at it from the outside, that a young man of sixteen is living in fear and grief when what he needs is help and opportunities.

Your mother needs help too. I've already said that I can't blame her, I dread to think what she has been through. But the one thing that will definitely NOT help any of you is to sit there and do nothing.

Your English is extremely good. Are you a native Italian speaker? But how do you get on with Polish, are you bi-lingual or is it difficult for you?

It didn't worked, she always sais that if I tell someone what is happening then they will take me away from her. I'm afraid of that cause I love her and I don't want to cause her more problems.

Countrymouse I'm not worried, I'm a Polish citizen born in Italy. What it says on my ID is that I'm a a polish citizen. I need to be 18 to become an Italian citizen.

No. You lost three important years of childhood because of terrible things that have happened to all of you.

I mean, you can if you like blame your mother, and you can try to force her to wake up and get a job - how's that been working for you, by the way? - but neither of these things is likely to produce any good effect.

What schools are there in your area? Have you thought of going on your own to register with one?

Countrymouse thank you for your help, but its too hard to explain how the things are going.

I can't ask for help, not now. I can just try to force my mom to wake up and to find a work.

There's no Caritas where I live, I can ask for food in the city hall, but they would give me nothing cause you need to be a resident and we are not.

She could have an heart bigger than the sun, but I've been waiting for her to change a lot of times, she don't want help, she says that no one can help us. She don't listen me, so it's even harder to change her point of view.

Thank for googling but I searched a lot of times and I did not found anything. I even tried to call them but they said that if my mom don't talk with someone then they can't do anything.

I wish I could stand up and go, but how I said, I don't speak very well and I can't just go to someone and tell them I need help because my mom is acting like she is the only one in this situation.
I lost 3 years of childhood because of her.

Just thinking it through...

Are you worried about your citizenship status? What does it say on your passport, assuming you have your own?

You're sixteen. You haven't been to school since you were 13, and living in Italy, and in the process of losing your Dad, tragically young, whom you loved very much.

Look. You ARE being neglected. You ARE undergoing abuse, even if it is unintentional. Something has to change.

I don't know Poland well, obviously, I'm UK born and bred. But I do know that it is a well-established fully-developed Roman Catholic EU country, not some mediaeval backwater. You are an EU citizen. You have the rights and entitlements that that implies. Exercise them!

Among those entitlements is access to education and access to physical and mental health services and access to support for families when things have gone badly wrong, as they clearly have.

What definitely is not going to help is sitting there and blaming your mother for not coping better. Yes, it is wrong that she is drinking to escape. Maybe it isn't impressive that she isn't fighting harder for you and your brother. But have a heart! Everything you are going through, she is going through too - with the added pain and fear of knowing what impact it is having on her lovely sons. Poor lady, I feel very, very sorry for her.

I've tried to research young people's helplines and it's absolutely hopeless - Google knows I'm in the UK and just keeps sending me to UK sites for Polish people living here. But as a start, Caritas (it's a Catholic charity) has branches all over Poland and they may be able to give you ideas of who you can talk to.

But I say it again - TALK TO SOMEBODY. Do not just sit there waiting for things to change, because they won't, or at least not for the better.

Ahmijoy, I feel a bit better thank you. Yes, there's something like a help for children In Poland. I'm afraid to go there alone, I can't talk face to face about this. There's to much to say, I just can't. And I know them, you go right in a foster house if your mom drinks that much. That's why I'm stuck, I think is better if I wait till my 18th birthday. Then I will leave this state to start a new life in another one. Italians Embassy can't help me cause I am not a citizen yet, my dad was from Tunisi. I wish he was here, he would never change his sons for a bit of alcoholics. I'm stuck with her, with her problems.

Table, instead of sitting in that awful house day after day, is there any way you can get out and find help for yourself and maybe along the way for your mother and brother as well? The US has agencies that help children in need. One is called “Child Protective Services”. Is there such an organization in Poland? Is there an Italian Embassy nearby that you could go to? I think that, as young as you are, your life has come to the point that you will have to seek help for yourself. Your mother is not well. Her boyfriend is not responsible for you or your brother. I know you have feelings for your mother, but you need to think of the rest of your life. Put an effort into finding out what help is available for young adults in your situation. Good luck to you and please come back to let us know how you are.

@Countrymouse, I had rough times too, but I'm not trying to forget drinking all the day. She needs to change or she will spend the rest oh her days alone. I can't be a parent to her. I need to go to school and live my life as everyone do. She drinks, and she acts like everyone must give her money. If I talk with someone about what's happening in my house they would probably call the police. I don't know In the UK/US but in Poland if you don't go to School, police takes you then they put you in some foster house. It's 3 years since I haven't been in a school. I wish my dad was here. I don't to live with her anymore. ;(

"If I go in the city hall asking for help they will probably take me away from my mom to place me in some foster house with strangers."

No, they won't. But they will make sure that you are not left vulnerable to abuse or exploitation; and they will help you access education, training and work opportunities so that you can build your own life and be free.

They might also be able to help your mother. I'm having to guess, it's fine if there are things you don't want to talk about, but this lady has had rough times and deserves better. Don't you think?

I should have known better than to call your mother "young" to you :) To me, an extremely old woman, about 1003 next birthday*, young means under fifty - but I realise it doesn't look the same when you're only 16.

Truly I don't mean to tease you, I'm just hoping to make you smile. You must feel very lost and alone at the moment, but I promise you you do not have to be.

If somebody has told you that speaking to social workers or teachers or counsellors will get you put into foster care then that IN ITSELF is a very, very good reason not to trust that person. It is not true, for one thing. And even more important, the kind of person who tells you that is often the kind of person who doesn't want other people to know what is going on.

So look up children and young people's services in your area and TALK TO SOMEONE. I wish you luck and hope you will find help very soon, but anyway please come back and tell us what's happening.


* This is just a little joke. I am not really 1002.

Ahmijoy, thank you for the support. My mom talks bad about my dad too. Her boyfriend is a d**k, he drinks all the days, so there's no way to talk to him. We live all in the same house. She likes him cause he gives her the money for the few important things she needs (cigarettes and alcoholics). She is like stuck i don't know where. I can't recognize her, I don't want to live seeing her drinking, I don't want to live with her boyfriend. I don't know why she don't want to ask for help. It's too much for me. It is almost 3 years that I left school, no one knows it cause no one know we exist. No longer I will sell this phone to buy food and things we really need. Are those the things a boy of my age do? All the days sitting in the house doing nothing. If I go in the city hall asking for help they will probably take me away from my mom to place me in some foster house with strangers. I really don't know what to do, no one to talk with. My brother thinks that things could change, but he is wrong...

Countrymouse, thank you for your time. I'm 16teen, and my mom lost my dad 3 years ago, no, she is not that young. We moved from Italy to Poland, Poland is my moms country. I don't have friends here cause I can't speak this language very well. My brother (17) lives with us. We started living with a friend of my mom, but she kicked us out after 3 months. So we decided to go in a "FAMILY HOUSE" till she could find somewhere else to live. So, when she found a house to live in we moved. We ended up to have no money after 1 month. No money no house, so we moved again, this time to our uncle. And I'm not going to tell you what happened here, but this is where my mom stopped to talk. After a long 9 months without something to eat, without contacts and living in a dark place we moved again and this time to our uncle's sister. She started to talk again, cause she had some help and a work. Then she found someone that can mantein her so she stopped to work. Slowly she stopped talk and started to drink. I don't want to live with her if she drinks, but I can't move if I don't have somewhere to go. My grandpa don't talk to us and the rest of the family is far away from us.

Do you and your mother live in the same country? If not, that could be a big reason why you have lost contact with her. Letters, emails and texts aren’t the same as face to face visits,  but if that’s all that’s possible, you will have to do the best you can. 

If she has a boyfriend, she has obviously moved on from your dad in her life. But that does not mean that she doesn’t still grieve for him. There is no time limit on grieving and the pain of loss never really goes away. My own mother handled the loss of my dad by talking bad about him whenever she could. I finally had to tell her to stop because my family loved and missed my dad and we didn’t want to hear bad about him. She admitted this was her way to cope with losing him. Your mom’s drinking could be the same thing. It makes her feel good for a while. It’s hard to quit it if she’s been doing it for a long time. Her boyfriend is not helping her by giving her money to buy it even if he thinks he is.

You do not have to “leave her 4ever”. Believe it or not, she needs you more now than ever. You are all she has to remember your father by. Keep contacting her however you can. Send photos, small gifts, notes, whatever you think will make her happier. If you can speak with the boyfriend alone, you must try your best to convince him that keeping mom drunk is not a good idea for her body’s health or her mind’s health.

Well. If that avatar is you, then you are very young. Which means your mother was widowed very young. And now you, her ?son?, have moved to another country - with her, or leaving her behind? And where is your brother living?

The point is, there have been a lot of changes in your mother's life and some of them must have been very painful and difficult for her. Unfortunately, it sounds as though she is not reaching out for the right, healthy kind of help, comfort or support.

Are you able to tell us a little more about where she is living (what country, I mean, not her address) and how she came to be on her own?

Grief can change a person. Seems Mom has lost her way. All you can do is keep in touch, even if it's just a card, and tell her u love and miss her. If there is no Dementia then she is able to live like she wants. Someone else on the forum has probably gone thru the same thing.