Discussion thread: When did you first know how bad it was?

[BusynMember]

I don't know if anyone wants to talk about it, but I have been thinking about it lately because my daughter brought up something that I swear must have been a repressed memory. As soon as she reminded me, I kind of went into shock mode and started shaking. I've been thinking about it a lot since then.

Certainly I had many signs that this was going to be a "different" type of child when 36 was 18 months, 2, 6, 8, etc., but I don't even remember how old he was when this happened. It scared me terribly for the first time and I told his therapist and I remember his therapist blew it off. He talked to 36 about it, but told me not to make too much of a big deal about it. So here is the story.

I was talking to my daughter, who is Korean-adopted, and told her I'd like to buy an Asian doll dressed in Korean clothes for my soon-to-be-born granddaughter. She said, "Just don't get a rice paddy kid." A rice paddy kid was the Asian versian of Cabbage Patch kids and I'd had to send overseas for it and it was her special doll, big and chubby and dressed in a Koeran Han-bok (Dress). She carried it with her everywhere.

One day she came home from school and she skipped off to her room while I was in the kitchen cooking. I heard a scream and saw 36 dart from behind a wall, smiling and I ran to my six year old daughter who was hysterical. When I got into her room I hugged her and she pushed at me, pointing and then I looked.

On her wall, with a knife through the head and ketchup spread on it was her rice paddy kid doll. The head had been separated from the body and it was lying on her beautiful bed spread. She could not stop screaming. I wanted to scream. I was so horrified, I couldn't believe it. I have no memory of how I calmed her down or what even happened next or what I said to her or 36 or to my then husband, their father. Trust me, the way it was staged was not just "brother teasing sister." It was ripped. The knife was sharp. The ketchup looked like real blood. It was sick!!!!

Another day, almost as bad, was the day he had mooned a passing car in junior high school and it had turned out to be his sixth grade teacher in the car. He had liked to show his body parts a lot. This came to haunt me as well because in no way was 36 normal when it came to sex. You'll have to take my word on that one.

Anyhow...if you're up to it, when did you know? Was the child small? Older? In college? Did it take you by surprise? 36 had always been a chld obsssed with the gory, t he bloody, etc.

 

[Albatross]

MWM, that sounds terrifying. My difficult child was never really into gore. He was pretty much a easy child until early adolescence, then it kind of went downhill for him from there with extreme moodiness and risky and self-destructive behavior. The moments that stick out for me are what I call his *dead eyes* moments, when he was not getting something to go the way he wanted and he would look at me with an expression that still creeps me out. The first time I saw it was maybe a year or so ago, when he and I were in the middle of the woods on a long walk and I told him he was going to have to do something he didn't want to do. It is hard to describe, it's not the typical "I hate you" adolescent look of anger, more like a stone cold realization that he has absolutely no use for me anymore, as if any connection between us has just been a mirage. I saw the look a few times after that, always followed up with some pretty carefully planned ways to exact revenge for the "wrong" he perceived.

husband didn't know what I was talking about until 1 day he got the *dead eyes* look and said he felt as if we don't really know who difficult child is at all. We chalked it up to substance use, until he was clean for several months and was still that way when he didn't get what he wanted.

I SO hope he grows out of it or regrows those "connection with other people even when I'm angry" neurons that he must have fried when he was a teenager.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

MWM, I am sending so much strength and healing your way. You are strong enough, MWM. You will get through this part. Post-traumatic stress responses only come to us when we are well enough, are strong enough, to see them clearly and are ready to heal the hurt of it.

How awful of 36 to have done that.

I saw that you have posted 36 was verbally abusing you, again. It is so hard to stand up in the face of that. Please read Patricia Evans' Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out, MWM. I am in a verbally abusive relationship, too. This book has helped me through the years to recognize and to heal from, the hurtful things the abuser says.

I am so sorry this happened to you, or the either of the children you loved. But here is the thing, MWM. As bad as 36 is now...who might he have become, without someone like you to cherish and teach and hold him close? We always think we are seeing the worst, we always blame ourselves...but who might our troubled kids have been without mothers who loved them beyond thought or reason?

We only have proof of the bad things, though. The goodness we put in them, the bad things that never happened...we have to take that part on faith.

It is hard, to do that, to know and believe that.

I think it is true though, MWM.

Cedar

The moments that stick out for me are what I call his *dead eyes* moments, when he was not getting
something to go the way he wanted and he would
look at me with an expression that still creeps me
out.

I have seen that look, too.

Empty.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Huh. I got so involved with responding to you, MWM, that I forgot all about the initial question!

:O)

I did not get how bad it was until a year or two ago. I never let myself see anything wrong that was not my fault. It is only lately, during this second time I found it necessary to come back to the site, that I am truly understanding there was something different with both my children, almost from the start.

I only have two kids.

There is alcoholism, there is brilliant accomplishment, and there is mental illness in my family. I think my kids come by what is happening to them through the genetic mix, especially, of husband and I.

difficult child daughter displayed the symptoms of what would become full blown problems as an adult even as a child. This was very surprising to me. I read about it here on the site. I said, "Huh. That is what difficult child daughter did. That and that, too."

We did receive some very nasty diagnoses on difficult child daughter when she was a teenager. I ignored them and never did believe them.

I think I never will.

Denial, as they say...aint just a river in Egypt.

I still feel angry when I think of those times, of those diagnoses.

difficult child son was angry from the minute he was born, it seemed. difficult child daughter had been such a different child. I assumed difficult child son's behaviors were the far range of normal for a boy.

It wasn't until your post about abused parents that I ever once considered myself to have been abused by my son. I couldn't believe it.

I concluded that was my fault too, in a way. I had taught him it was okay to do that to me because I did not see him as a real, live human being who is responsible for what comes out of his mouth, who is responsible for himself and for everything he does.

I am working really hard on trying to let go of judgment and denial and mothering and see both my children as human beings with the skills and the strength they need to live their lives beautifully ~ whatever that looks like, to me.

It came down to honoring my kids, really.

I hadn't been doing that.

I had been judging them, instead. Fixing them. Trying to make them fit into the way I brought them up to be.

I am still working my way through this part. I am sorry I could not be more clear.

This is a valuable thread. Thanks, MWM, for posting.

Cedar

 

[Signorina]

January, 2012 - difficult child moved back home, then left in fury one Friday "for good" and then showed back up with all his stuff 2 days later (Sunday) only to move out again in fury less than a day later... (I was posting most of that night, clinging to the board's support)

It was that Sunday night, H and I had gone to bed when we heard difficult child moving about. He was getting ready to walk out the back door - dressed in a dark hoody and jeans etc with his backpack. It was a frigid, very windy sleeting/icy/snow evening and it was close to or after midnight. He wasn't wearing a coat or boots or gloves, had no transportation, he was dressed in dark clothing and we live in an area without streetlights or sidewalks. His pupils were so dilated that his eyes seemed like two black holes (his eyes are blue fwiw) He was pacing with balled fists and was so unfamiliar to me; he wasn't verbally threatening and yet I was so very afraid of him. I managed somehow to calm him down enough to convince him to go to bed and leave first thing in the morning when he was rested and it was light. All I could think about was him freezing to death or getting hit by a car.

I took every knife we owned out of the kitchen, H switched our bedroom doorknob with a locking handset meant for an exterior door and we locked ourselves in our bedroom. I wrapped my rosary around my hands and never even dozed and H stayed in his clothes and sat up in bed all night just in case. We were both scared - difficult children demeanor and the awful look in his eyes were something I had never seen before. Really, his eyes were like two black holes. Not only was I afraid of him - I was also afraid of the risk he posed to himself.

So that's when I knew. The night when my beloved boy became unrecognizable and I was afraid of him.

I cry just thinking about it. We've had better moments since then - but my beloved boy never returned.

It's funny, I look back at old pictures from his HS days and I can pinpoint almost exactly when the light went out of his eyes. I wish I could explain it better. Some point in his 18th year, the joy and light just vanished.

I always thought difficult child must have been having a major tripp or coming down from something; but I later learned his symptoms were classic fight or flight. I still don't know what triggered it at that moment. I am not saying that he wasn't on something - but the huge pupils may not have been drug related.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

difficult child daughter has always had huge pupils.

Cedar

 

[nlj]

When I noticed a tramp shuffling along the pavement towards me, filthy clothes layered on top of each other, holding his arm as though it had some deep pain, head bent over inside a hat and hood, beard covering most of his face.

And then the tramp said "Hi Mum".

 

[BackintheSaddle]

wow, MWM...that sounds horrible...how old was gfg36 at the time? I think it's even worse that the psychiatrist just shrugged it off...wow...that's exactly the kind of thing I needed to think about today though because I keep going into these phases where I doubt myself and where I am with difficult child...he started having noticable problems in kindergarten...by that time, he was already having a hard time finding friends to play with him, they would distance themselves from him and were usually older so I chalked it off to just being 'off' in their age differences...then in kindergarten, he had minor issues (I thought) with other kids (socializing has ALWAYS been an issue for him) and the teacher talked to us about his impulsivity but we came up with some strategies we were trying and also moved right after, just across town to a better school district, thinking we'd get a fresh start in a neighborhood with more kids his age...he had some friends but they would never last and he'd always be the one gonig to their houses, they never came looking to play with him...oftentimes, they'd say they were leaving or whatever and I remember one time, witnessing that that child was at home that day so I knew something wasn't right but couldn't see what it was...1st grade he had a teacher who was just out of school so any problems he had then (which were all social or attention deficit related by then), I chalked up to her lack of experience...then in 2nd grade, it got markedly worse...he was increasingly isolating himself at home, didn't go out to play as much, more depressed acting but I didn't know a 2nd grader could even be clinically depressed and we had things going on with his stepsister that I thought might be the cause...but then he went to school one day and one of his classmates had had a terrible even in her family-- her father had shot and killed himself and the teacher had the kids make cards for her...my difficult child's card had a picture of him holding a gun to his head and he wrote 'I wish it had been me'....the teacher went immediately to the principal and they called me in for one of many meetings...he started with a psychologist right after and it was clear he was clinically depressed and maybe ADHD so we went to a psychiatrist too...at that age, he was EXTREMELY dependent and attached to me so I could really influence him on things...it was scary to what degree he was so intensely attached to me-- I worried so much about what would happen to him if something happened to me...ha!...over the next 2 years, we were trying different medications and he was doing things like peeing in the closet of his room (something that apparently depressed kids do, even if the bathroom is right outside his door), he would have temper tantrums where he'd throw things, once he piled up all the furniture in his room up against the wall so we couldn't get to him...by 4th grade, he was becoming increasingly violent...and he felt as though he was always bullied...I don't know at what point it was him being the victim or the bully but I know in the past few years, he has been the bully at home at least and he's continued to have very few friends...I would keep thorough journals of what I was observing with him because I just wanted to try and help the doctors figure out what was wrong with him...he was hospitalized in 4th grade when he got mad at a little girl in his class and reached over, grabbed her arm, and twisted it til she cried...we tried to calm things down after that day but he was just bizarre starting that day...he got that look in his eyes that you all described at a 4th grader!...and a day during that same time he came home, and I made him sit and do his homework (which was always a fight with him)...and went in the other room...came back and he was gone...could not find him anywhere so after a good 20-30 minutes of looking, called the police...they happened by him on their way to our house-- he was already at least 3-4 miles away, walking intently down a busy road and said later he was just planning on walking until he couldn't walk anymore (he was very very mad at me for making him do his homework)...he was about 1 mile from some very thick woods and I don't know if we'd ever found him had that cop not driven by when he did...that was a bad day...he was 7 at the time and had to be in the hospital!! and we couldn't figure out what was wrong with him other than depression...it's still not for certain, which makes the journey all the more difficult, but we had more years of him threatening to jump out of windows, out of moving cars, and then ultimately turning all of his anger mostly on me (the therapist kept reassuring me that was because he knew I'd love him no matter what)...he is now 6'2", 175 pounds, was a football player and when he gets mad and directs all that at my 5'6" 53 yo self, I'm scared...in the past year, we've had nights when we feared for our lives...all through those years, I've had him seeing the same psychiatrist who is great and have tried so so so many different ways to help him...it was clear to me when I saw that picture in 2nd grade that he was different but in all honesty, if I was brutally honest with myself, given how friendly and bubbly I am, it was when he first started having trouble making and keeping friends...which was at the age of 4 or 5....he's now 19 so that's a lot of years of trying to fix something that he doesn't think is broken (at least hasn't for the last 3-4 years)...
thanks for asking that quesiton....I don't feel so down on myself anymore!...;-)...I have done a lot for him, put up with a lot, and stuck it out with him more than a lot of parents would have...I did right by him and only want him to do the same for me...seems less and less likely to ever happen though

 

[Albatross]

It's funny, I look back at old pictures from his HS days and I can pinpoint almost exactly when the light went out of his eyes. I wish I could explain it better. Some point in his 18th year, the joy and light just vanished.

Yes, exactly, just a little different timetable for my difficult child.

I am so sorry this happened to you, or the either of the children you loved. But here is the thing, MWM. As bad as 36 is now...who might he have become, without someone like you to cherish and teach and hold him close? We always think we are seeing the worst, we always blame ourselves...but who might our troubled kids have been without mothers who loved them beyond thought or reason?
We only have proof of the bad things, though. The goodness we put in them, the bad things that never happened...we have to take that part on faith.

I love this. There are some very strong, courageous parents around here.

 

[BusynMember]

Bits, wow. It's been quite a trip for all of us, hasn't it?

36 had A LOT of friends. Kids tended to follow him, although in later years others took over as leader. So when 36 hurt another kid, which he often did, they were horrified and he would always have a big smile on his face as if he was really enjoying it! I brought it up to his pediatrician and he told me to keep an eye on him, but that he was so bright and seemed normal to him. Haha. The teachers had trouble with him distracting his friends on purpose and giving them the same stink-eye smile he used to get when he hurt somebody. He didn't talk back to them, but they felt disrespected. And at first I told them off when they dared to criticize my angel, whom I had wanted to have so badly and whom was the prince of my world.

Cedar, I was absolutely shocked when the memory that I had forgotten came flooding back at me as if it had ALWAYS been there, but just blocked from my consciousness. No wonder poor Julie had such a hard adolescence. 36 picked on her and in ways I can't detail but use your imagination. That was later though. If I had known all he'd done, he would have been gone from the house in his teens, even if it had been foster care. But my daughter, a very sweet kid, said she was afraid to destroy the family so she kept it inside. It wasn't quite as bad as being raped. I *will* say that much. However, he was very inappropriate with her and could never have lived with her if I had known. This was after Julie had been assaulted at eight years old by a stranger in her friend's house. She had plenty to use drugs over yet she quit at 19 and has built a good life for herself and I am so very proud of her. I love her more than I can say. I admire her strength.

Poor baby. Her best pal, her doll, with a knife through the head.

Now, yeah, let's go back to the therapist. I could not get him to get as riled up about it as I was. And my ex husband was, and still is, in la-la land. His only reaction? He shook his head and asked what was for dinner. I know I am all over the place with this...but I am seeing this vision as if it just happened and hearing my maybe six year old Julie screaming while I try to hold her, but she pushes me away so that she can point and show me. And I'm trying not to scream too. And 36 is in the next room laughing his a** off. I can hear him. And then it goes blank. I don't recall my reaction or what happened with 36, but I am guessing I called his therapist STAT. It is not like me to scream and slap so I'm sure I didn't do that. I concentrated, I'm sure, more on soothing my baby girl.

Cedar, thank you for your kindness after all you have been going through. I relate to you and feel for you and hurt for you and of course you know now that this was not your fault. If you don't know it, please share that with us so that we can validate that it is not your fault/was not your fault/will never be your fault.

BITS, I do not know what was wrong with 36. He had no useful diagnosis. ODD was it. If I look back, I think he had antisocial personality traits way back in toddlerhood...traits usually reserved for kids with attachment disorder except that he was very attached to me. That wasn't faked. He still is. Maybe too attached. I do think he has traits of an antisocial and a narcissistic. He also has severe anxiety disorder and possibly an alcohol problem, but I don't know about the last part. His anxiety is separate from the personality disorders. One can have anxiety badly (like me) and not hurt other people and think it's a joke. The funny thing? He refuses to admit he did anything bad to his sister. But, of course, he is lying. He always lies. My daughter doesn't lie. She may keep things from me that she feels may upset me, but she doesn't lie, now that she is sober. She only lied during the drug days.

What is REALLY scary is that...well, most of you know the horrific nightmare of the adoption of Psychokid. If you don't, you'll have to look in the archives if you're interested. I don't want to go there again. Psychokid was dangerous and hurt my animals and, most importantly, my two youngest kids so sexual abuse abounds amongst my children. I think finding out while Sonic and Jumper were still young, the extreme help from social servicses with extreme therapy and all sorts of compassion and help and the fact that they saw that psycghokid was tossed out on his ear helped them heal. They are not angry, bitter kids today. They are both thriving, sweet souls. I don't think that would have been the case if Psychokid hadn't been tossed to do his stuff to others, not us. Back to what is scary. 36 is a lot like he is and he grew up in a two parent loving home. I do think personality disorders run in my family and my father is a prime example. I am so glad I decided to have no more biological children after 36. And I am grateful to my Higher Power that his son is a good kid who has appropriate behavior...because with HIS parents the odds were that he'd inherit something hideous.

Anyway, I was blessed with not blaming myself for 36's horrible behavior. I always figured he'd been born like that, just as I had never blamed my own parents, although they were not that great, for any problems I had...again, I felt I was born that way. Cedar, so much of what our kids do, mental-health wise, is in the genes.

Anyway, hope this ramble made some sense. Sorry for it. Thanks and keep on sharing. I think it's important to think about when we first knew. It shows us our timeline from then to now...how far we have come in our journey. In our family's case, it is how far we have come and managed to thrive in spite of both 36 and Psychokid.

 

[Signorina]

MM - I know you've mentioned that Julie was taken in by one of her brothers when she was a difficult child and that it turned her life around. I'm not sure if it was 36 or your estranged son S? You don't have to answer, I am just curious... I think I assumed it was 36 but now I am wondering if it was S...

 

[BusynMember]

That was S. Before S. dumped the family, he was fairly close to her. Julie would have preferred homelessness to 36. She is totally done with 36 and her SO hates 36.

 

[Signorina]

Thanks for clearing it up, it's sad that he is estranged from J too

 

[BusynMember]

And Jumper! She hears how he talks to me. He's not quiet. You can hear him over my cell phone even though I don't have the speaker on. Jumper has said, "I don't even know why you ever talk to him." Sonic was his buddy. 36 LOVED him when he was little, but after he had his own kid, he moved and he doesn't really try to have a relationship with Sonic anymore and Sonic is not one to make the first move. He has nobody but me and my ex, and I'm not so sure all other mothers would talk to him at all. I think some might disown him completely. If Scott had not walked out of our lives and broke my heart, maybe I could detach more, but he did and I can't.

I want to add that although S. chose his new Chinese family and dropped everyone except for ex (and that was after three silent years and probably with a lot of conditions on ex AND ex has money, which Scott likes), I don't really blame him because coming to a new family at age six (and a new country to boot) is usually not a recipe for a well attached child. However...wow...our family has been through the ringer and, when it all came out of the wash, I am basically in a place of contentment. 36 is 36. I do talk to him. I no longer take him seriously. S. will not come back. I accept that and it's ok...I just warn others not to adopt older children. It usually is not a good experience. But my great husband and my three youngest kids and me are sooooooooooooooooooo close and loving. In spite of everything we have been through, I truly feel blessed for all the good in my life. And all the lessons learned!!!

Best of all, I have a new granddaughter soon to be born, and I'm over the moon about her already. Life is very good to me and the challenges that were thrown at me made me realize I have strong shoulders and a strong mind, in spite of having some challenges that others don't have to deal with. I have turned into quite an optimist. All of my kids don't have to be perfect for my life to be great...but I do feel that three of my kids ARE perfect, even if they really aren't

 

[SuZir]

Mine has had trouble since birth, but of course I first chalked them up to all kinds of common issues with kids. Really it started to be clear he had issues when he was maybe two. It was not a one, dramatic thing, but just everything being so very difficult for him. His first neuropsychological evaluation was at five, but it was clear both to us and his pediatrician, Occupational Therapist (OT) etc. that he was going to have issues long before that.

Socially issues started to ramp up also around four or five and that of course has been a main point in this whole downhill. His strengths started to emerge bit later and changed the game more to roller-coaster than straight full speed downhill.

 

[dstc_99]

I'm sure there were earlier signs but the one I remember best is difficult child's inability to believe she did anything wrong. This started in about kindergarten with homework. She wasn't wrong I was or the teacher was. But hired grade I remember her beating her head with her fists when being made to redo a math problem. From there things just went downhill.


Sent using ConductDisorders mobile app

 

[SeekingStrength]

Interesting thread starter....and i have thought about it/discussed with husband.

Gfg32 was lovely baby and youngster. We did not see it coming....first signs were at about age 12. By age 15, he was angry, confrontational. We KNEW it was not right, but friends said, this is puberty...normal. We knew better, but wanted to believe that advice, so much!

We approached FINS (Families in need of Support) thru the courts. We were dissuaded there..."he just knows how to push your buttons". Okay. Guess what...ignoring the hatefulness (walking away) ; it did not work.

We think the eye-opener was when we moved to a "new house"...summer before his senior yr in high school. My dad and brother were putting up a fence for us. husband told difficult child he should help. difficult child took a fighting stance and challenged husband. That was probably the moment we knew things were BAD wrong.

Sigh. We lived with it another 10-12 years. I swear, it has gone on so long, we have great difficulty remembering years/dates. He is our son. We wanted it to work out so badly. Now, we look back and wonder, WHAT WERE WE THINKING?

 

[BackintheSaddle]

we were all doing the best we could in situations we had no clue would just keep getting worse...I'm sure we've all heard friends and others tell us 'it's just how teenagers are', 'he'll grow out of it', 'I'm sure it's not as bad as that!'...they don't live inside our walls or serve as the object of all that hate and anger so they have no clue...we WANT to believe that it's just us because that's a lot easier than believing there could be something wrong with our previous child...how can that be? it MUST be something I/We did! (at least that's in my opinion)

 

[BusynMember]

SS, you remind me so much of me. Although 36 didn't live with me after he turned 19 (which, by the way, was his choice...will explain later), I lived close by and tried to get him to help himself and to learn to be more respectful and not so angry and aggressive when mad. Obviously, it did no good.

The night he left, his really nice friend, who he treated like crapola, was upstairs and he was downstairs by me, shoving me a little, getting into my face, and calling me all sorts of names. I don't really use nasty language, especially words like that wonderful four letter word that starts with a "c." My daughter always cringed when he called me that and would try to stick up for me, which I told her not to do, but she would do it anyway. So it was a three way yelling match with 36 in my face in a corner. I finally told him his friend was going home NOW.

His friend, being a good young man, started coming down the stairs and 36 ran to him and said, "Oh, no! You don't have to go home!"

I said, "Yes, he does."

The nice young man said, "I'm leaving."

36 said, in a taunting voice, "If HE leaves, *I* leave!"

I said, "That is YOUR choice, but if you leave, you are NOT coming back."

So he wasn't really thrown out, although I was afraid of him. He did leave that night, stuffing some clothing into a duffle bag. He stayed with friend's family for a while until they threw him out and then my ex funded various hotels for him. I visited him with food and to keep him company. I was far from ready to admit there was no hope. Soon his father bought a condo up in our area and 36 moved in with him and then my hopes sort of dwindled because 36 was roughing him up a bit (he was always sickly and frail) and doing the same stuff there as he'd done here.

36 married a few years after moving in with ex and I barely heard from him for the whole ten years of his marriage to another difficult child (major time). It made me delude myself that 36 was a easy child and had turned his life around. I told myself he was barely calling because he had matured and didn't need me for every little thing, which was GREAT. I went into snooze mode.

The minute his crazy wife ran off with another man, he started calling me up to ten times a day and was very abusive from the beginning and I realized that he hadn't changed at all. In fact, I'd never heard him so abusive. During the custody battle for his son, I thought I'd lose my mind so I really had to go into detachment mode and seek out a lot of help to do it. I thought he'd kill himself for sure and I had to accept that possibility too.

And here I am. He won the custody battle and is now only abusive about half the time we talk, but that is because he isn't under pressure right now.

Bottom line: I don't get my hopes up anymore. I go with the flow. I accept him with "radical acceptance." He is what he is. If I don't want to talk to somebody like him I have to never talk to him at all so I do pick up the phone...but he knows the phone rules. He yells, he cusses me out, he calls me names...I get off the phone. There is no reason for me to listen to that crapola and no reason for him to say it.

He does not think anything is wrong with him. He does say his ex has borderline personality disorder and she probably does. But he doesn't think he has any personality disorder. All he'll admit to is anxiety disorder.

I'm glad I have three great kids...one who grew up with him and knows the way he was. It helps that somebody was there to validate it.

Bits, I absolutely have learned to tune it out when others who have not lived our lives tell us all about what we should do. That includes relatives, acquaintances, good friends, and even those on the board who have not had a son like 36. They don't get it and (radically thinking here) it is what it is . I love him, but if he wasn't my son, frankly, I would not have anything to do with somebody like him. That is likely why he has no friends.

 

[BackintheSaddle]

you're right, MWM---
I absolutely have learned to tune it out when others who have not lived our lives tell us all about what we should do. That includes relatives, acquaintances, good friends, and even those on the board who have not had a son like 36

Read more: http://www.conductdisorders.com/com...irst-know-how-bad-it-was.56690/#ixzz2wkiv1eqP

it was hard not to respond to 'Tom' when he was ranting about mothers who detach since he clearly doesn't have a clue who we are or what we've been through...I'm learning that skill of tuning it out but find I tend to isolate myself too much, never bring up my difficult child, and when people ask me how he is, I lie with vague but incomplete answers ('he's still going to community college and seems to be fine') so most have no clue he's not even living here anymore...I just don't want to go into it with them