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Do you throw them out? What are YOUR feelings ? Explain your detachment.
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<blockquote data-quote="rlsnights" data-source="post: 410045" data-attributes="member: 7948"><p>Having your 2-days-til-he's-18 year old try to run you down with his power wheel chair in front of his 5 year old twin sibs after you take the plastic bag off his head in his 5th "suicide" attempt of the week didn't exactly make it easy but for us to "detach". It did make it very, very clear that we could not keep him in our home and maintain any delusions about it being "safe".</p><p></p><p>I say delusions deliberately because I think that it is not always only our children who are struggling with mental illness. I think we became entangled in our son's delusional thinking and it was difficult to even realize we had lost touch with reality. I think if you go through enough trauma with your difficult child may also be experiencing PTSD or other reactions that are typical among people who have endured abuse and/or trauma.</p><p></p><p>This is why it is so important for parents to have a forum like this to come to when they are struggling with these kinds of decisions. I know we had become terribly isolated by the struggles of parenting a difficult child, especially one who was dual diagnosed. We had no one to turn to who really knew what it was like to walk in our shoes. Or that could be trusted to hear the unvarnished version. Even the mental health professionals didn't believe us until he was in foster care and threatened other children and caregivers.</p><p></p><p>I wish I had had a place like this to turn to then. It is hard to maintain the delusional thinking about appropriate boundaries with adult children when other parents who have been on the same path and come out the other end are offering advice and a different vision based on painful personal experience.</p><p></p><p>I believe that it will always hurt to separate from our children. Even if they are easy child's it hurts. We must, for our children's sake, not indulge our longing for the baby we once held so close to our heart. We must find a way to come to peace with the fact that this child has not grown in the way we had hoped. But if they are to become independent adults we must release them to the world of adults. To do any less is to undermine their sense of themselves as adults and sabotage their efforts, however messed up they may be, to grow up and take their place in the world.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I have come to believe that it is my job to treat my difficult child's as much like easy child's as possible. To do any less is to send them the message that I expect them to fail, that I believe them to be less capable than other young adults, that their past is their future. How can we expect them to meet the expectation of a "normal" standard of behavior if we do not hold them accountable? How will they ever KNOW what is normal behavior if they have always been able to push the boundaries back and sideways and upside down? Unless your difficult child is severely impaired by mental/physical illness or developmental disabilities, is cooperating with treatment and is not a safety risk to you and your family members, then I believe he/she should be going about the same tasks as other young adults his/her age. And experiencing the same consequences for their behavior as other young adults would experience.</p><p></p><p>I know this is a simplistic answer. There are times when with difficult child 2 that we have not applied that standard due to his physical illness issues or because we were tired or because we just weren't sure of our ground. </p><p></p><p>But the question then becomes - how often are we discarding "normal" expectations? Once in a blue moon? or every single day, all day long? When does making an exception to the rule become the rule?</p><p></p><p></p><p>Life is often hard and painful. I think we are making it more painful for our children if we do not hold them accountable for their actions and inactions. Yes, disaster may follow when you make them leave. Disaster may follow anyways. If you need an example of resilience in the face of disaster I can tell you about our difficult child 1 who has survived 9 years - much of it on the street by his choice - despite multiple severe physical handicaps and mental illness. We see him now more often than we ever did before. Those visits are short but good. We are able to spend time together having fun if only for the length of a movie and dinner. If you had asked us 9 years ago if we thought that would ever happen we would have told you no. We bought his grave site when he was 17 because we were afraid he wouldn't live to see 19. He will be 27 this month.</p><p></p><p>If we had continued to let our difficult child 1 destroy his relationship with us, destroy our home, finances, marriage and threaten his siblings well-being we would almost certainly not be where we are today.</p><p></p><p>There is nothing like the feeling you get when you achieve what once seemed impossible. Do not rob your child of that victory. To soar they must first fly. We must let them go.</p><p></p><p>Peace,</p><p></p><p>Patricia</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="rlsnights, post: 410045, member: 7948"] Having your 2-days-til-he's-18 year old try to run you down with his power wheel chair in front of his 5 year old twin sibs after you take the plastic bag off his head in his 5th "suicide" attempt of the week didn't exactly make it easy but for us to "detach". It did make it very, very clear that we could not keep him in our home and maintain any delusions about it being "safe". I say delusions deliberately because I think that it is not always only our children who are struggling with mental illness. I think we became entangled in our son's delusional thinking and it was difficult to even realize we had lost touch with reality. I think if you go through enough trauma with your difficult child may also be experiencing PTSD or other reactions that are typical among people who have endured abuse and/or trauma. This is why it is so important for parents to have a forum like this to come to when they are struggling with these kinds of decisions. I know we had become terribly isolated by the struggles of parenting a difficult child, especially one who was dual diagnosed. We had no one to turn to who really knew what it was like to walk in our shoes. Or that could be trusted to hear the unvarnished version. Even the mental health professionals didn't believe us until he was in foster care and threatened other children and caregivers. I wish I had had a place like this to turn to then. It is hard to maintain the delusional thinking about appropriate boundaries with adult children when other parents who have been on the same path and come out the other end are offering advice and a different vision based on painful personal experience. I believe that it will always hurt to separate from our children. Even if they are easy child's it hurts. We must, for our children's sake, not indulge our longing for the baby we once held so close to our heart. We must find a way to come to peace with the fact that this child has not grown in the way we had hoped. But if they are to become independent adults we must release them to the world of adults. To do any less is to undermine their sense of themselves as adults and sabotage their efforts, however messed up they may be, to grow up and take their place in the world. I have come to believe that it is my job to treat my difficult child's as much like easy child's as possible. To do any less is to send them the message that I expect them to fail, that I believe them to be less capable than other young adults, that their past is their future. How can we expect them to meet the expectation of a "normal" standard of behavior if we do not hold them accountable? How will they ever KNOW what is normal behavior if they have always been able to push the boundaries back and sideways and upside down? Unless your difficult child is severely impaired by mental/physical illness or developmental disabilities, is cooperating with treatment and is not a safety risk to you and your family members, then I believe he/she should be going about the same tasks as other young adults his/her age. And experiencing the same consequences for their behavior as other young adults would experience. I know this is a simplistic answer. There are times when with difficult child 2 that we have not applied that standard due to his physical illness issues or because we were tired or because we just weren't sure of our ground. But the question then becomes - how often are we discarding "normal" expectations? Once in a blue moon? or every single day, all day long? When does making an exception to the rule become the rule? Life is often hard and painful. I think we are making it more painful for our children if we do not hold them accountable for their actions and inactions. Yes, disaster may follow when you make them leave. Disaster may follow anyways. If you need an example of resilience in the face of disaster I can tell you about our difficult child 1 who has survived 9 years - much of it on the street by his choice - despite multiple severe physical handicaps and mental illness. We see him now more often than we ever did before. Those visits are short but good. We are able to spend time together having fun if only for the length of a movie and dinner. If you had asked us 9 years ago if we thought that would ever happen we would have told you no. We bought his grave site when he was 17 because we were afraid he wouldn't live to see 19. He will be 27 this month. If we had continued to let our difficult child 1 destroy his relationship with us, destroy our home, finances, marriage and threaten his siblings well-being we would almost certainly not be where we are today. There is nothing like the feeling you get when you achieve what once seemed impossible. Do not rob your child of that victory. To soar they must first fly. We must let them go. Peace, Patricia [/QUOTE]
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Do you throw them out? What are YOUR feelings ? Explain your detachment.
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