It's Hard to Grow Up

It is amazing the way a mind works. I know that when it comes to being a teenager that anything they feel is about 10 times what you feel as an adult, partly because they don't have the experience to put life's triumphs and disappointments in perspective, but also because their brains aren't fully developed.  The part that deals with being reasonable hasn't kicked in yet.  I know when I was a kid I was afraid of about everything.  I worried about things that were unlikely to happen as well.  It did, however, keep me out of a lot of trouble. The one thing I remember very clearly was that I didn't want to do anything or be anywhere that would make me lose control of myself or my circumstances.  I had a lot of respect that was tempered with fear of my parents.  Oh, there were things that I would change about my growing up, and there where things that I didn't do because my parents did.  One thing I wish for now in raising my own kids, is that I would have made them a little more afraid of me.  It helps them keep on the straight and narrow.
Anyway, we are living with a situation that I never thought  I would have to.  This situation of having a child leave home in less than ideal circumstances, and with the thought that my child is out there telling people that we are bad people, is rather hard to take.  And he isn't being very nice to us either.
I know I let the kids manipulate me more than they should have.   I guess I wasn't smart enough or confident enough to know what was going on, and after the fact, it is hard to go back and fix it.  I'm not sure if he is going to battle with a plan or if it is just a product of a mind that is trying very hard to get what he wants by working on other people and us.  He is telling other people untruths about how he left home and they are believing him.  I don't have much respect for the people he is with.  I wonder about people who are willing to take in a teenager on the strength of his word alone.  I think that he as well as his champions are just trying to intimidate us.  If they really thought something should be done, wouldn't they call social services?
Anyway, I am being very careful what I say to anyone, what I text to him or anyone wanting to know about him.  I have written down what happened on that fateful night.
I just wonder where his mind is.  Does he really believe what he says about us, what the facts are, what really happened?  I know that when one looks back on events, children especially get a twisted view that is all tangles up in their feelings. I can't really explain what I am thinking.  He is a very proud, stubborn kid.  If he is waiting for us to beg him to come home, it isn't going to happen.  I've told him several times that he can come home. I am limiting contact, because I'm not going to let him be rude to me. I feel very sorry for him.  All he can see is the version of events as he sees it.  I suppose it is something like he has to do that in his own mind, so he doesn't have to admit that he is wrong.  It is too bad that life is going to have to teach him what we can't.
 For awhile now, he hasn't been wanting any guidance from us, or any house rules.  You know the ones, "I want to know where you are, who you are with, and where you are going, and what you are going to do while you are there.  And come home at curfew and go to school."  I didn't realize I was such an evil person. No wonder he left.