I did not make him turn out right. I failed and I failed at the one thing that everyone else seems to have done perfectly and easily.
No Marie, you did not fail. You are a victim of not only your own guilt and sense of mother responsibility but of a culture that blames parents, especially mothers for what their kids do. It is almost inevitable that we will suffer the agonies of the damned on this path, beat ourselves to a pulp wondering what we did wrong and how we can fix it.
The other part of that is that many of us measure our worth as people by how well or how badly our kids have done. To take a bow for our kids accomplishments or hide in shame for our kids failures although common, in my opinion, is inappropriate and not the truth. Once an adult, any accomplishment or failure is the sole responsibility of that person, not his/her parents. We guide, support and cherish our kids and what they do with that guidance, support and love is entirely on them.
It was very helpful to me to have therapists and this board continually tell me that I was not responsible for my daughters behaviors and choices. I thought I was. It took a village to convince me otherwise. But as I started seeing the big picture in a completely different way, with my daughter at the helm of her ship and me on the sidelines setting boundaries and staying separate, my own life began to flourish.
Presuming you are at fault, that your sons life choices are your responsibility and that his choices reflect on who you are as a person and a parent is what will keep you very stuck in the merry-go-round of enabling. It becomes a vicious cycle within which you are a hapless victim because you believe it is all somehow your fault. It is most assuredly not your fault. Even if you made mistakes, even if you were a bad parent, once a person becomes an adult, they then launch into their own lives and whatever happened to them will be their task to figure out. As it has been for you and me and most people.
Unless your son is psychotic, unable to know right from wrong, unable to care for himself because of a severe mental illness, he is responsible for his choices. Not you. I have a schizophrenic brother and a bi-polar sister, both of whom have a constellation of diagnoses along with those, and both of them are cognizant of right and wrong and neither of them manipulate anyone else to get their needs met. A wise person on this board, who actually has a number of diagnosable mental disorders told me once, "Mental illness doesn't give you a pass on personal responsibility." That sentence changed a lot for me. My daughters obvious "disorder" whatever that is, kept me hooked into continually helping her. And nothing ever changed. I just got older with emptier pockets and more and more depleted in every possible way. We cannot endlessly give without any return without that causing a severe deficit in our lives.
You will need to be the one who changes this dynamic. You will need to learn a different way to respond. Often that way is to not respond. Step back. Wait. Give it time. Our difficult child's often require instant gratification, if you aren't going to get on that bus on his time table, he will up the ante with you, make it seem as if only you can save him from whatever terrible fate is presently
your doing. But if you step out, wait, leave it alone, he will have to figure out another plan. Over time, you will re-train him. But, it will take time and it usually isn't easy on us. All our mother guilt buttons get pushed over and over again, until we stop reacting to them.
You're at a crossroad here Marie.
It's time to choose you.