difficult child's current upward swing will soon turn 5 months - that is a long time for him

[SuZir]

My difficult child is an expert rider of seesaw and has been in upswing uncharacteristically long time now. In fact after his half-arsed suicide attempt in January things have been going gradually better.

He seems to be over of his old girlfriend and even has a new one. They seem to have some issues with overcoming the stereotypes and 'are you ashamed of me?'-type of issues, but those are age appropriate. After giving me silent treatment for couple months and being in very bad terms with his dad, things have calmed down also at home. It also helped that my own health scare has been dealt with, it really made husband and Joy very nervous and they had trouble understanding difficult child's attitude to it.

husband and difficult child even have found something they are both happy about to do together now that difficult child has been home couple months. There has been these loosely husband's work related father-son golf meetings (a networking tool in reality) that husband had been dying to take a part to. But easy child really don't like golf and is too young to appreciate the networking opportunities. However difficult child's Mentor taught him to like golf, even though difficult child really doesn't care about networking opportunities and feels himself bit misplaced among the super achieving sons of others (or at least difficult child feels they are super achieving and he is an odd man out. difficult child, while understanding very well, what advantages being a pro athlete tends to get you in night club just before the closing time compared to other guys, haven't really grasped totally that what he does tends to get quite a lot of attention and even admiring also from other men. husband however has no trouble using that in bragging purposes. Well, they are doing something together that they both enjoy. It is a positive.)

difficult child's work with his sport psychiatric seems to be paying of. His interpersonal relationship skills are really getting better and it is especially evident with his relationship with his friends and acquaintances. Especially his peer relationship skills have clearly improved, so has quality of his relationships with them. As a younger teen he really didn't have real friends, few years ago he started to form good relationships with smart and very socially skilled guys at least few years his senior while still having huge troubles with guys his own age. Now he has been hanging out with former team mates and other guys of his own age more than ever. Right now he and Joy are in fact in our summer cottage with friends for the weekend. All (except Joy who is still couple weeks short from 18) are between 18 and 23 and while there are more Joy's friends or their common friends than difficult child's friends, there are few that are in fact more his friends than Joy's. And oddly I'm only lightly worried about that bunch of boys, the amount of beer they have with them and large amount of open water right next to them. Of course anything can always happen, but most likely they will be just okay.

However his job situation is worrying. There haven't been really good offers that would combine what he wants and what we (and his agent) wants. He wants lots of playing time, his agent wants him to have more a developmental position under very good coach even with less playing time, but difficult child is not inclined to be patient. We want him to have more stable situation (preferably at least two years in some good size city in the country he speaks the local language at and has several professional therapists experted to trauma centric/exposure CBT to choose from) so that he could really go back to working with his mental health issues (even though in upswing and stable with his medications, he really, really needs that.) Unfortunately difficult child puts his sport over his mental health needs and still seems to harbour a misconception that he can handle it. Even though he is far from dissociation and anxiety free even now that he is not stressed at all.

He is totally ready to go on as a hired gun also next season even though that will likely make continuing his therapy impossible. And even though his agent is worried about his reputation and him learning to actually attached himself into the team. Being a hired gun is okay for older, established players. With someone in difficult child's age, it tends to be a red flag for commitment issues. And he is indeed developing some commitment issues that are not an attractive feature in young team athlete. He kind of is supposed to give a crap about his team and how they do, not just his own performance. He even went through the trouble of mediating process for one team (though process itself was very good for him, I think, may be an important step to help him heal), but their offer ended up being lousy compared to some others he has. He hasn't signed yet, but preferably he decides sooner this year than last.

But it is of course his life and his career. Though I predict a steep down swing again in future if he doesn't really deal with issues under it all. In some ways he is a tough kid and has a will of steel and is able to admirably keep his nose above the water by will alone. But he really would need to get out from that water or at least learn to actually swim. And he needs therapy for that.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

In
some ways he is a tough kid and has a will of steel
and is able to admirably keep his nose above the
water by will alone.

This is such a nice post, SuZir. I am happy to hear that difficult child son is doing well, and that he is home and getting along with husband and brother.

Keeping a good thought for him as he decides, in the coming weeks, which way to take his career.

How are you feeling, SuZir? Has it been a good recovery for you?

Cedar

 

[Childofmine]

Good news suzir and I hope it keeps moving that way.

Have fun for you today.


Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app

 

[Albatross]

What an exciting time for him, Suzir! Hoping the upswing continues!

 

[pasajes4]

We take the good when we can. It sometimes gives us a cushion of time to get ourselves out of the hole the bad times throw us in.

 

[SuZir]

Thank you for the well and good luck wishes. These upswings are nice, even though we have been through too many of them to believe they would last.

This is such a nice post, SuZir. I am happy to hear that difficult child son is doing well, and that he is home and getting along with husband and brother.

It indeed is nice to have him home especially after he spent most of the last season abroad. And when we all know it is temporary. At the end of July he is out again. Knowing that help a lot when we have to stand all those small irritations that come from too adult and too independent child living at home, and I mean both sides. He is also good at taking off regularly, so it doesn't get too much. He spends a weekend there, few days or week here, comes and goes and so on. Friends summer cottages or flats, new girlfriend college town, or visiting her parents or her summer internship town, fishing with his mentor or just visiting him and training with him and so on. Gives us all room to breath.

And having extra pair of hands around can be useful. Like when sister in law got really, really ill the worst time, middle of busiest spring work and few days before the week long heavy rains were forecasted to come. It would had been at least two weeks delay and organic farmer t6his north really can't afford that. Our summer is so short. father in law was already helping as much as he could, husband was busy at work and I really don't handle farming machinery that well. difficult child worked with father in law three 16 to 20 hour days and they got everything sowed 3.30 a.m. when rains started around 9 a.m. that morning. Huge deal for sister in law.

And it is also good to see how difficult child's and Joy's relationship evolves. They are in that point where their age differences is quickly disappearing. Three years is a lot when you are one and four or even 12 and 15, but when you are around 20 it starts to lose it's meaning and will basically disappear when they hit their thirties. We have been lucky that their relationship has never been bad really. And during last few years what problems they have had, have been more about Joy having difficulty to adjust his views after being so used to be the golden boy of the family and difficult child always being the screw-up. There has been slight changes in that dynamic when they have grown older and instead of being judged solely by behaviour, hard work, niceness or 'sportmanship', focus has moved to take into an account also the actual skills and achievements. With that Joy has learned there are some things both in school and in sports were difficult child outshines him and that was a tough adjustment for him and he took some of it out to G FG . But they are getting over also those issues and I have to say I'm happy what kind of brothers they are.

So it really is nice to have him here.

How are you feeling, SuZir? Has it been a good recovery for you?

Surgery went well and that is the main thing. And that they got whole tumour out and it is not malign. There has been some issues with the wound and I was given antibiotics that wreck the havoc with my stomach. And you don't want to know anything more However I'm recovering and I will be fine. That is enough. Getting frustrated with still having to wait some while before I get back to running though. Since the original accident I have mostly just deep water run, ridden exercise bike and done some gym. And while excellent exercise, I really, really miss running. My body may well get what it needs from those other exercise methods, but my mind certainly isn't. Running is the most important anxiety management tool and not having that simply sucks.

We take the good when we can. It sometimes gives us a cushion of time to get ourselves out of the hole the bad times throw us in.

And not just cushion for me, but these good times give difficult child opportunity to actually work with his lacking skills. I doubt much can be achieved when he is having tough time in learning new. And maybe some day those new skills will be enough to prevent or at least make those downward swings less steep.

Last three down points have been bad. Not sleeping, anxiety escalating to breakdowns and panic attacks after games year and half ago; then those awful, awful weeks little over year ago, when he didn't speak nor looked at anyone and I wasn't sure if he could still find his will to go on; and this latest, though with less warning beforehand, a suicide attempt, even though he decided mid fly he didn't want to die nor can he still explain, how he decided to fall from that bridge in the first place (he says he was playing with an idea of how it could all end there while standing on that rail and then somehow the next thing he remembers was that he was falling.)

I'm not sure if I can take the next one, if they don't get better.

And I'm realist enough to know, there will be a new down swing. Summer is easy, but when the sress starts to accumulate and things start to fall on him... He really needs to learn to handle it. His dumb luck will not last forever.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Runningis the most important anxiety management tool and
not having that simply sucks.

I have a friend who walks five miles every morning. she fell this Fall, and broke her leg badly. It was months and months until she could walk with a walker. More time, until she could go to a cane.

Finally, only recently, she has been able to walk again.

She too said the worst thing about it was the anxiety she felt at the lack of intense physical activity.

Like her, Suzir, you will be back up and running, soon.

Cedar

There has been some issues with the wound and I was given antibiotics that wreck the havoc with my styomach. And you don't want to know anything more

Know what you mean.

Got to be thankful they took care of the infection, right?

Have you been using probiotics?

 

[SuZir]

Got to be thankful they took care of the infection, right?
Have you been using probiotics?

Yes, getting rid of the infection is important. Stomach upset is just small, if unpleasant, side effect.

I'm generally using sour milk products with both natural and added probiotics every day, several times a day (not because of the probiotics but because the taste, our food culture is very sour milk heavy around here, I doubt half of the different type of sour milk products we use even have English names) and I have now also added one different probiotic in capsules. But of course they don't help much before the antibiotics are out. You can take in good bacteria all you want, but when you also take antibiotic that kills the bacteria the same time, those good bacteria are also dead soon and don't help. But tomorrow is my last day with the antibiotic and after that probiotics hopefully will get the work done.