Myerson family feud over book deepens
'Drug addict' son fights back over mother's revelations
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Independent Minds
David Sandison
Julie Myerson with her elder son Jake in 2005, before she and her husband locked him out of the family home
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The novelist Julie Myerson once promised her son Jake that no matter what he did – even commit murder – she would not "cut him off" in the way her father had apparently disowned her. This was because "we think a parent's relationship with their child is the parent's responsibility – however old or bad the child is", she told him.
Myerson related the above conversation with her then 12-year-old son in a newspaper column in 2001, while discussing how her relationship with her sister Debbie had disintegrated over their very different views of their father.
The next column by this Booker Prize-nominated writer, who has made a career out of semi-biographical writing, may have to be about her explanations to her daughter Chloe, 18, and son Raphael, 16, for the breakdown of her relationship with their brother.
Her forthcoming book, The Lost Child – "a personal and moving account of two children: a girl living in Regency England and Julie's own troubled son", according to the publisher, Bloomsbury – describes how she and her partner, Jonathan Myerson, decided to lock Jake out of their home when he was 17, portraying him as a violent, out-of-control drug addict.
After Myerson revealed its content to a Sunday paper last weekend, Jake, now 20 and a student at a London music college, hit back in newspaper articles, describing his mother as a "pseudo New Labour socialist" who had over-reacted to his cannabis use by instituting an oppressive "tough-love regime". He admitted to physical violence, but said both his mother and father had a temper and "it was 50-50 all the way".
After three years of living in seedy bedsits, busking for money and surviving on very little, he described his mother's decision to make public the "very worst years of my life, cleverly blended into a work of art" as "obscene". "I was only 17, I was a confused teenager... What she describes... are a series of incidents, it's not who I am and I find it very sad that she feels the need to tar me with the 'drug addict' brush," he told the Daily Mail yesterday.
He has proved eloquent in his defence and appears to be winning the battle for public opinion.
There were signs yesterday that the fractured Myerson family was starting to wilt in the spotlight of publicity created by the book. Jonathan Myerson said on Friday that Julie was "devastated at what she'd done to the people we love", and had not realised the book would result in the tabloid press camped outside their home.
Dr Cynthia McVey, head of psychology at Glasgow Caledonian University, said an attempt at "tough love" by parents at least showed they were concerned about an errant child and were trying to help. But, she added: "It's rather uncomfortable to think of a mother exposing behaviour that could be criticised by others."
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In many ways I blame the government and mainstream taboidish/right wing media for creating this phobia around cannabis and pyscotropics. You are so f'ing paranoid that you are in essense programmed by something that seeks to create mentall illness at its most extreme out of something that ideally catalyses auspicious consciousness change. Expansion of consciousness, in the right setting, to that of awareness of the the evil hypocritical games and blags of western societies poitics and system; and the other side of the coin, the positive life afirming values of RESPECT for Mother Earth, living in balance on Mother Earth, non consumeristic way of being and the like. Perhaps you just MIGHT be able to see how the mainstream system might be hostile to such a mechanism...I would say that it wants the cannabis expereince to be shallow or worthless, going nowhere...rather than being a positive catalyst for full brain consciousness. Instead of being the zombie collaborators with war criminals, liars, blagger and abusers of the current British State system drugs such as these really do have positive benefit, in the context, as I said, of waking up people so they start to behave like a real human beings, living lightly on Mother Earth, as the Native Americans say, rather than being abusers. Yes abusers. Thats what you are. Abusers. No you either will change NOW and have some respect for Mother Earth, or you will die. THIS, the way I am behaving now, is what psycotropic drugs taken in the right setting does to one. AND THIS IS WHY the system, the state, see such drugs as a serious threat. BECAUSE it is an abuse mechanism - an abuser and expoliter of Mother Earth. You have no idea do you Tory weirdos? Havn't got a clue have you Labour zombies? No idea whatsoever. You'd better learn fast. I tell you I'm sick of the sight of you. Half witted sickos, egoising all over the place. If it isn't plumy voiced weirdos talking ****, its dumbed down cretins talking just as much ****. Worthless ****. Wake the **** up. Stop falling for the blags and plays of a system based on abuse and lies.
Heck I was a real bad boy, I mean anti-social would not cover it, for me it wasn't cannabis as I am thankfully allergic to it but glue sniffing, I was involved heavily in the football hooligan scene, the punk scene and refused point blank to be educated, to top it because of an incident a couple years before I had declared a kind of war against the police for a brutal beating they gave me for no reason and was continually fighting against them.
When the state had enough of me, they placed me in one of the last "special" schools known as the Philanthropic and to be very fair to them, they sorted me out, well nearly sorted as I still was at war with the old bill for quite some years after as many sought to repay in kind my freely given "gifts" to them, at the time my mother was still at the Times working in the News Desk there and somehow or other Channel 4 approached her to make a documentary about little ol' me.
A warning to any subject in one of these programmes is that they very very rarely hold their promises...
Channel 4 promised me that I would have veto on certain items, I never got paid either even though I was promised several hundred pounds, this never appeared, my father who is chronically mentally ill made some outrageous (and impossible) false statements on film and I alongside my mother wished them cut as they were the ramblings of a mentally ill person going through a nervous breakdown, Channel 4 left them in humiliating me utterly.
So those out there thinking it might be a good idea, it is not... a half hour programme or a short book cannot convey the minutiae of the situation that is there at the time, it wrecks lives and divides families, my father apologised for the things he said but that apology would never be aired, thankfully Channel 4 have lost that programme yet I lost a lot of good friends that day it was aired, also because of this I ended up entering a very dangerous circle in London and look back and shudder at how lucky I am to be alive too...
It took a long time to forgive my mother for what she did, I felt tricked and beguiled into making a rather false film about me by Channel 4 too, my father I never forgave and I hope he rots in hell...
One wonders just how much consultation Ms. Myerson undertook with her son before committing her partial view to print. As a writer, writing on a subject as delicate as this with any other member of the public, Myerson would almost certainly have taken great care in ensuring that the rights of that individual were adequately protected, & that the extent of the exposure in the written text would have been previously agreed upon with the client. I find even the title of her book disquieting; "The Lost Child" suggests that the onus for this "lostness" lies with the child, that Myerson can somehow be exonerated from any "blame" for her son Jake's apparent deliquency due to some innate "lostness" that prevented his mother from reaching him, even when she applied methods described in Ian Johnston's article as "tough love".
Ms. Myerson appears to have completely overlooked the extent to which Jake might feel disempowered before his mother, how much of his apparent disorderliness might be related to difficulties he has experienced in communicating with her on a level that leaves "the writer" outside. Jake might feel that when he is attempting to relate to his mother he is, in fact, "being interviewed" rather than engaging in secure parental intimacy. We will never know Jake's side of this story, unless one day he writes it himself. As it stands, this single book, written from an overwhelmingly weighted position, speaks more to the exercise of self-pity than self-examination. Ms. Myerson doesn't even own her son in her choice for a title: "THE Lost Child". Jake might have felt less enraged had the title read: MY Lost Child.
Why should the reading/paying public be expected to dry Ms. Myerson's tears?
Indded, what about the future impacts of climate change and the current impact of the world financial crisis? This trul is fiddling while Rome burns...
Not what one expects from a 'serious' newspaper like 'The Independent'
Given this ultra feminist views I always thought 'Gold help any sons she might have'. I doubt if the girl displayed the same behaviour she would ever be excluded from the family.
I find her son's comments that describe her as 'New Labour....' as plainly ignorant. Clearly while the son maybe eloquent it is style not substance.
Come 'round to my place, I'll show you some tough love, you old bitch!
I'll wait for a womans view of her son written from a working class, deprived area.
Some of us have more important and urgent things to be thinking about.
So DON'T buy this woman's book. That's what this story is really all about. Kind of "Jade Goody for the more posh end of the market".
Hacks, meeja types, journos and writers are all opportunist expolitative parasites and most would happily sell their own grandmothers to boost their egos and careers. People like this woman do what they do for reasons of vanity, ego, money and fame - and sadly their friends in the media do them the favour of free publicity. Also this woman is giving a subjective point of view, not a balanced analysis, so she will look wonderful in it.
I feel sorry for her son - who has been betrayed. Perhaps he shoudl cut his mother out of his life. She deserves it.
Having said that, cannabis is an awful drug which does a lot of damage if smoked or injected regularly (the first post on this thread just shows the incoherent rambling it causes). It demotivates people but can sometimes cause paranoid delusions - as I have witnessed in a family member - who thinks the SAS and nazis are after her and going to kill her. That's what prolonged exposure rto cannabis does - as well as funding organised criminals responsible for people-ptraffiking, child porn, gun-running, murder and getting kids hooked on hard drugs. If you think cannabis is a lovely drug, then you should just try and grow up and face the real world for once.
Anyone who buys and reads this book is really a sucker.
Her son is 20, he should grow up and stop crying about getting kicked out of the house for something that was essentially his fault. He should responsibility for his own actions and grow the hell up! What a spoilt brat! I'm sick of all the these hypocritical newspapers who talk about the lack of discipline in british homes and then take the side of an irresponsible druggie when his parents actually discipline him. It's simple, if you dont want to follow your parents rules then dont live under their roof! They've done enough for you by bringing you up, get out there and stop sponging off them until your 25!
As for publishing her perspective of her son's story, i say good on her, writers write what they know and if she feels passionate about it than so be it. She's talking about mothers pain at losing her son, which is a good topic to right about. If he thinks its not a balanced view then bring out your own story. He doesnt realise that its for his own good, when he eventually grows up and figures out that what Mrs Myerson did was for his own good, he'll stop being such a cry baby appreciate what she did for him.
However, unlike Julie Myerson, I got written permission from my daughter and her son. I was a member of the Writers Guild and was advised to take this into consideration before going ahead with publication.
I have also coped very differently with my drug-using children, compared to the way Julie Myerson coped. I have been there to support my adopted daughter and her son (whom I brought up) but often had drew boundaries regarding contact.
I would point out, however, that in no way would I criticise Julie for the way she handled her family's problems. I firmly believe that every parent should deal with their child's drug use in a way that suits them.
I chose to do it my way and, looking back, have no regrets. I was criticised in the early days for the way I supported my daughter, when she was a crack/heroin addict, prostitute and criminal. However, I knew in my heart what I had to do, so that I could live with myself if should anything happen to her.
My books: Crackhead, Crackhead 2, Crackhead 3 and Crackhead 4 are a very intimate family story, written over the past twenty years.
My books have been used by professionals, including social services, adoption agencies, universities, medical profession, prisons and probation, the child care system, police and many other agencies. They have been used as a learning tool and have been part of the drug education programme in one school for twelve years. Many parents, and grandparents, have said how the books helped them to cope and to make them aware that they are not alone with the problem.
Crackhead has a happy ending for my daughter. After almost twenty years on drugs, (she is now 36) she has been drug-free for eighteen months. She is a lovely person with a kind and consierate personality and hopes, one day, she will be a drug worker.
Her son, now nineteen, is a drug user. I do not know where he is at the moment as he gets on with his life. However, when we do meet up, no matter how bad things are, he always hugs me and tells me that he loves me. I do likewise.
My final book is called 'Nature versus Nurture'. When my grandson was in his early teens, I recognised that he had an identical personality to my daughter: they never thought about the consequences of their actions and were totally out of control, long before they took drugs. I began to realise that they were mentally ill and were self-medicating. I have had to battle with NHS psychiatric services to get help and recognition of their illness. They have now both been diagnosed as being mentally ill.
I hope that my books will help others to understand the hell that parents go through when drugs affect their children.
Angela Harrison
www.crackhead.info (this site is due to be updated shortly)
Most normal 17 year olds would struggle to survive let alone thrive in the way he has, even without his supposed unbearable character flaws.
But this is a message board - NOT a submission of an article - or can you not see the difference? So long as writing is appropriate for context that is fine, and if one makes a typo when writing a message for a thread like this on a Sunday morning then that's fine. To be honest, I'm amazed that people didn;t assume it wwas a typo anyway - doea anyone think cannabis is injected? Maybe nuns... Bimbos are good typists - so are mediocre journalists IMHO - so maybe you are both? The best writers type two-fingered and make loads of typo mistakes in my experience, just like the best academics are scruffy and mumble and don't use powerpoint..
I'm not suprised their kids want to escape reality via the nearest emergency exit.
Cananbis is a lot of fun. If your kid hates you and wants to kill you, it probably isn't because he puffs a bit of draw. Look to yourself, lady.
How could she justify herself if she were not being brutally assailed by this monstrous child? How how how?? How does a child become a "drug addict" by the age of 17? And why the hell would one turn so violently against the ones who he or she depends on and has depended on for their very survival? It must be some kind of illness, some kind of disease. There is absolutly no other explanation. Unless it could be... aherm, the "adult"`s fault... maybe, just maybe.
As for McVey, "tough love" is no love. It`s not that children are or are not allowed to be angry with their parents. They do it all on their own and usually for very good reasons. And if as parents "tough love" is only thing they have to offer they have failed utterly and can do nothing else but walk away, shut up and send money.
How does smoking cannabis bring you closer to Mother earth and make you less hypocritical amd more ethical than NL an dthe Tories. How does cannabis become a more ethical alternative ? sO EVERYONE ON CANNABIS IS PEACE NIK/ I gues that's the crux of your message - not really connected to Mr.s meyerson's betrayl of her son,
We know what you are trying to say - but you desccend into incoherence - hope it is NOT the cannabis - an dspoli your argument