I still don't feel good about not offering anything at all.
And it doesn't feel right
I hated telling him no. I hated having to choose between doing what I wanted, just feed him, and what Jabber wanted me to do. I didn't help him. But I didn't do it because it was best for him or because it was best for me, I did it because I my husband didn't want me to.
Oh, Lil, I am sorry. I understand the horrible fight you have inside yourself about what to do/what not to do. First, I see a lot of progress in you since you first came on this board. And this time, you allowed yourself to do what your husband suggested, instead of what you wanted so badly to do. More progress.
You are getting more and more sick and tired, Lil. And as you get more and more sick and tired, you are able to stop enabling more and more.
See your words about. They are about your feelings. If you rely on your feelings to guide your actions, you will still be enabling him when he is 60 and you are 80. We all, here on this board, had to find a way to disconnect our feelings from our actions. And it was agony at first. Once we saw that, ourselves, that disconnecting---some call it detachment---was the necessary step, we started learning to feel our feelings but not to act on them.
It is a huge job and a wholly different way of living. Just so you know, one time I took one of those personality type tests, and it said my empathy level was at 98%. For all of my life, I have been a person who lived by feelings. My feelings were paramount and they drove so many of my decisions. Now, I am a different person, because of what I have been through with difficult child over the past five years. My feelings are still a very big part of me, but they don't drive my decisions like they used to.
You have to be consistent for a long time before he will realize that he has to fix this himself.
That is so true. For a while, I could not offer difficult child one single thing. If I did, the floodgates were opened. I have often said my difficult child is the MOST PERSISTENT PERSON IN THE WORLD and if he would only turn that persistence in the right direction he could be President of these United States. Or whatever he wanted to be.
I also don't agree with the red cross basket.
I understand Lucy here, and why she takes her difficult child care packages, but I think that situation is different and if you continue to do that, he will keep on and on.
Having said that, it is so incredibly painful to listen to our difficult children on the phone crying because they are hungry. It is awful. It is the worst FEELING to have to listen to that. There was a time when I just had to stop communicating with me, because it was too hard for me. That was a transition time for me---one of so many---when I started caring more about myself than I did him. A huge shift, again one of so many huge shifts.
My son's really bad times began when he was about your son's age.
"You're working harder than she is" was the phrase that really turned on the lightbulb for me. Why would I (or should I) put more work into fixing my kid's problems than she would? What was her incentive if I did that? Zilch.
Yes, that is a huge learning that is often talked about in Al-Anon. When I am more worried about _________, fill in the blank, his place to stay, next meal, legal record, lack of money, how cold he is, whatever, than he is, things are upside down.
Well, we say, they are young, their brains aren't developed yet, they are foolish, somebody has to do the thinking for them...Lil, I know, I have been down all of those roads in the middle of the night, the Parade of the Terribles, I call it, it marches on and on and on, and I can rationalize anything. I love him. He is my son, for God's sake. I birthed him, I nurtured him, he always needed more, blah blah blah. I have said it all, too, Lil, just like I am sure you have.
We aren't different, here on this forum. We are just at different points in the awful journey.
And again...we can only do what we can live with. I believe that is a true statement.
You are changing. This journey is not about being perfect. Not about making the "right" decision each time. This journey is about your metamorphasis as a person, just as much as it is about his.
In time, unless he turns in a new direction, you WILL get to sick and tired of this, that you will stop. If you want to.
Along the way, you will have a chance to take up all sorts of tools to help you. Believe me when I say this: There is nothing you are going to do/not do that is going to change him.
Another huge learning for me---that phrase. It's not like when they were babies, and what we did/didn't do DID have an effect on whether they lived or died.
They are grown people now. Rough, not-quite-ready, dumber-than-dirt in what they do, how they think and what depths they are willing to sink---and sick, that's the addiction---but they are grown people now, rough as they are.
We can't life another person's life for them, as much as we want to.
This whole thing is a journey. Warm hugs, and best wishes and prayers for a great day for you and your husband today. We get it. We care.