Liar, Liar

Ask anyone who knows me, I have a very difficult seventeen-year-old son. He was an adorable baby, and little boy -- most children are. His teachers started to suspect learning issues early in school, but he is very bright, and an auditory learner, and hid things until 4th grade. He was diagnosed then with severe learning disabilities -- dyslexia and dysgraphia to name a few -- and the odyssey began. He has moved from school to school, started acting out at home and in school, become violent and depressed, separately and at the same time, and learned to survive any way he could.

Now, he is a senior in high school -- on his 5th school since kindergarten, probably bipolar, taking a cocktail of medications, with two suicidal gestures and 4 hospitalizations behind him, and a chronic and habitual liar. Over the summer, he added smoking to the mix.

His father has vascilated between draconia punishments, blaming everyone in sight, depression, over-indulgence, and running away. I have tried believing everything he tells me until I am forced to see the light, then I get depressed and disappointed, and it spills over into the rest of my life. I give punishments that I try hard to make "fit the crime" but then sometimes I lift them earlier because he promises never to do it again. Today, I finally saw that once again, my son had lied to me to do what he wanted, and only confessed when he knew he was caught red-handed. I ended up taking away his credit card. I don't know what I do about the spending money issue, but I do know I won't support or pay for smoking. So what do I do when he lies to me the next time?

How do I manage this out of control child. How do I deal with life the way it is, not the way I wish it were. Don't ask me, I don't have any solutions. If I were really 25, or even 30, I wouldn't be dealing with these issues yet. All those movies about being 13 and waking up 25? I wish I were 45 and waking up 23....