u/Withthealiens

Location: Oregon

Today my kid was arrested for grape in the first degree and coercion by his girlfriend (or her parents). This came as a surprise because I have been in constant contact with his girlfriend’s parents and they never mentioned this happening but only alluded to her needing to go to the hospital for trying to harm herself. The incident is alleged to have happened when he was staying at a friends house and she snuck out of her house and snuck in to be with him when she was having a mental health crisis. According to him everything that happened was consensual and she initiated it. They have been sexually active before this and myself and her parents were aware. They also have both been struggling with mental health issues and feeding into each others issues so me and the parents were both on board with trying to separate them. (He just got out of a month long mental health inpatient treatment for suicidal tendencies two months prior to this.)

Anyway I went into the juvenile holding and spoke with him and he gave me his passcode to his phone so I could go through everything. He’s scared and confused and thought he was only helping her by being there for her when she was wanting to harm herself that night. I went through his phone and since that night which only happened last weekend, his girlfriend has gone out of her way to make secret accounts and reach out to him and tell him how much she’s loves him and trying to stay in contact with him, she has expressed confusion on what her parents are doing and doesn’t know what’s going on. She never expressed anything that would suggest he harmed her that night. My kid had also been in communication with her parents through text wanting to check on her and make sure she was okay, and they were reciprocating that communication as well.

To me it sounds like based on her messages sent to him, it is her parents who are pressing the charges. Will bringing this evidence of her being in constant contact with him, help his case? I believe tomorrow is just deciding whether they will hold him until his next court date or release him and set a court date. I’m really worried for him. He is a punk teenager but he’s not a grapist.

Some background, I’m 26 years old and up until a few weeks ago, I have raised my 16 year old brother pretty much his entire life but he didn’t start living with me full time until almost 4 years ago when he was 12 after our mom passed from an OD.
When he started living with me and my husband full time he struggled a lot with his behavior, getting sent home from school weekly, daily calls from the school, arguing with my husband nonstop, he was a lot to handle but after about a year of living with us and doing therapy, he got so much better and things were peaceful. He started doing really well in school, made friends, things were really looking up until this most recent school year. He started getting into fights at school and was suspended multiple times, experimenting with weed and shrooms, and having horrible angry outbursts and disrespect toward others. Now I was a crazy rebellious teen myself so I’ve been super lenient with him and just trying to build trust, and put boundaries up so he doesn’t go to far off the deep end, well he ended up getting put into a mental health facility for a month because he blew up one night and said he wanted to kill me and my husband, and it was in front of my 2 year old daughter and I am currently pregnant. He took off and ended up at our mom’s old house and was taken to the hospital by police. After the month in the mental health facility things seemed to be getting better, he was opening up more, getting back into interests, taking medication, but then things plummeted. He went back to his old ways but worst, he snuck out and had a pregnancy scare with his girlfriend, started failing school, got suspended twice, snuck out to a bar and stole alcohol and I had to pick him up while he was blacked out drunk. things were spiraling out of control so me and my husband decided to sit down with him and set rules and goals for him. They were simple stuff, do well in school, stay out of trouble, respect others, set goals for yourself like get a job and license, otherwise he would have to live with his dad or find somewhere else to live because we don’t want to stand by while he throws his life away. He lost his mind and left to his friends house claiming we kicked him out and that he wanted to kill himself. His friends mom said she would let him stay there a few days so he could calm down. But after a couple days he blocked us and stopped communicating because she decided to tell him he could live there indefinitely. Ever since he has stopped going to school, has isolated himself completely from us and our family, and any attempt to communicate with him causes him to be beligerante in telling me he doesn’t want me in his life and he says the most hurtful horrible things. I have never experienced this with anyone. It is as if we are complete strangers and he’s decided our family means nothing to him. I’m scared for him and his future, his friends mom enables him and won’t help facilitate a repare in our relationship, instead encourages him to continue doing whatever he likes. It’s really hard and hurtful. I don’t know if we can come back from this. Should I keep pushing to be in his life or step back?