“It Felt Like I Was Losing Him to Everything at Once”

A mother’s story of navigating extremism, addiction, and trauma.

My son dropped out of one of the best universities in the country. Then he started carrying machetes and chains.

I wish I were exaggerating. But by the time I called Parents for Peace, he’d already been arrested five times and charged with two felonies. He talked about revenge against corporations.

He thought he was at war with the world.

At first, I thought it was just the drugs. He had started self-medicating after a suicide attempt, and things just kept spiraling. But when I looked closer, I saw something else—a deep wound he didn’t know how to name.

He had been accused of something serious back in high school. It was never proven, but he was expelled. Everything unraveled after that. The shame. The isolation. The rage. And that’s when he found his ideology. Something that made him feel righteous, even while he was falling apart.

I didn’t understand how any of it connected. But Parents for Peace did.

They didn’t tell me to cut him off or shut him down. They helped me see the pain underneath the behavior—the real reason he clung so tightly to an extreme identity. They showed me how to stay connected without enabling him. How to hold boundaries without letting go.

For a long time, it felt like I was parenting in the dark. But suddenly I had light.

They helped me communicate in ways that opened doors instead of closing them. We stopped yelling. We started talking. And over time, he started listening. He started showing up.

Today, he’s still in recovery. But it’s real. He’s connected to a therapist. He’s off the hard drugs. He’s joined a mainstream environmental group—not a radical one. And he’s thinking about going back to school.

We’re not just surviving. We’re rebuilding.

And I don’t feel alone anymore.