I am not The OOP, OOP is u/No-Idea4550 on Reddit
AITA for taking my agoraphobic son out of the house?
Originally posted to r/AmItheAsshole
TRIGGER WARNING: controlling behavior
Original Post June 22, 2023
I have seen some people post some stories here so I decided to make an account and look for an outside perspective:
I(31F) have a son(15M) that I gave birth to at 16. It was a dumb mistake and it gave me a bunch of struggles but I don’t regret it now.
My son is agoraphobc and only gets out of the house to go to school. He has been on summer break for the past week but he didn’t go to school in his last week so he had been insiide for the past about 2 weeks.
I made a habbit that whenever I walk my dog I ask him if he wants to come and he has denied me for the past 2 weeks. He doesn’t come most of the time but usualy does so about once a week.
Today when I was getting ready he came up to me and asked if he could come with us and of course I said yes.
On the other hand, my boyfriend(34M) has a big problem with this for whatever reason.
Sometimes my son get overstimulated and decides that he doesn’t was to go a few minutes into our walk so we just cut it short and today was 1 of these days.
My boyfriend asked why we were back so early and I said that son didn’t feel comfortable so we came back and he flipped out on me, saying that is my fault and that I told him to get out so much that he felt pressed to come with me when he clearly didn’t want to.
I don’t know what to think. I don’t see what I did as wrong, I only asked if he wanted to come with me, never told him to. Did I do something wrong here?
EDIT: for the people asking/telling me to put my son in therapy: he is and has been for the past few months.
VERDICT: NOT THE ASSHOLE
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Travelcat67
Info: is your son being treated for his agoraphobia?
OOP replied
Yes, he goes to a terapist about it and I’m also trying to get him more comfortable with coming out of the house by trying to take him with me.
StAlvis
INFO What strategies has your son’s psychologist advised for dealing with this disorder?
OOP replied
I had to ask him to make sure I get everything right bet here you go:
- going on walks and trying to make all of them a bit longer than the last one.
- breathing exercises to help with his panick attacks and learning how to control them.
- playing outside/ on the balcony(context: plays guitar and his room has a balcony).
Along a few other things that I don’t know over the top of my head.
Update Aug 20, 2023
Hello everyone, I will start off by thanking you for all the comments on my last post, due to some problems in the relationship with my boyfriend I sometimes had a hard time realising when I was in the wrong or when I didn’t do anything bad, as for the case in my previous post.
I broke up with him over a month ago, partially thanks to the comments that made me pay more attention to him and realize how manipulative he was and a heated argument he had with my son while I was walking the dog. I could stand a lot from him and regret how many times I told myself to suck it up when he’d say something to me but always drew the line at my kid. It didn’t happen before but it does not need to happen more than once for him to make a habit out of it so I put it to a stop as I felt like it was the safest way.
Regarding my son, he is doing good now and thanks to his therapist he has been getting better. He got his diagnosis in January and this Thursday he broke his record for our longest walk since, almost three hours. He also started getting out without me, thanks to one of his friends whom he met on a game about a year ago who recently moved to our city, I met him and his parents and they seem like amazing people so we did hand out at each other’s houses since.
We do still have a lot to work on but I am happy to say that things are getting much better.
RELEVANT COMMENTS
Arcadia7235
Do you think it’s a coincidence that your son is now progressing mentally now that the boyfriend is gone?
OOP replied
Personally I think is mostly terapy, as he was progressing even with my boyfriend around but I won’t say is out of the quiestion. I didn’t catch it before and and I asked him(both then and some time later) if he’s sure it was the first time and he said yes.
Now truth is that they had arguments before but not anything very serious as far as I am aware yet the case for this post is a physical fight but I was not allowed to say it in the post due to the subs rules being zero violence and updates are checked by admins before being posted so I was told to remove it.
THIS IS A REPOST - I AM NOT THE OOP