He was fired today
- Thread starter in a daze
- Start date
TryAgain, I hope she continues on this positive trajectory! That's wonderful!
RE and Cedar, I will check out the videos on You Tube, and the books.
Acceptance. Living with difficult emotions. Letting go of expectations. Detachment. These are such difficult things to master.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
I have such a hard time with it too, Daze. It goes against the grain of what it is to be a mother. Then, one day after posting here like mad, I could begin to see that after such a long time of helping, my children and I were in this place where I knew them, not as the strong, capable people I had raised them to be...but as people who were going to mess up. What happened, I wondered, to those dreams I had for them and for myself? What happened to the way I looked at and believed in them, once?
How had I become the person who would fix it, who would commiserate with them, who would believe for them when they were so far from where they were meant to be in life?
How had that happened?
It wasn't until I got it Daze, that maybe part of why we got where we got to had to do with my fixing, had to do with my believing they were better than what they were doing instead of letting them see and feel the pain of what they were doing.
It was so easy to fix everything, to dish out the money, to pronounce the stern warnings and dire consequences.
Another piece of the detachment picture is that, somewhere during those years, I began to resent having to fix it. I began, in my most secret heart, to resent the fear of everyday life with kids who routinely did things I found shocking and shaming and pointless. MWM did a post a few months back about abusive adult kids. It so bothered me to read that post! I would go back and back Daze, to read MWM's post.
And then, one day, I could hear the abuse in the way my own son interacted with me. Once I could see it? It was clear as day. I dealt with it appropriately. But the point here is that I had lost so much respect for my own child, for my own son, that I allowed/encouraged the bullying, the verbally abusive behaviors. I turned my own son into someone with so little respect for himself that he routinely verbally abused his own mother.
There were others of us posting about both verbal and physical abuse from our kids, at that time. More than one of us had been hospitalized as a result of things that happened with her grown child.
And I realized these were moms like me, Daze. Moms who had done too much for their children without demanding respect ~ respect for themselves and, more importantly, self respect from their grown man children.
Who could respect himself if he didn't love and respect and hold his own mother in a high place?
I began to feel like I was trapped in a Willy Wonka segment. All those spoiled children, coddled and destroyed by their own loving parents.
At the same time, there were other moms here who were giving detachment serious thought. They reported small changes in the natures of the interactions with their troubled kids...but things were getting better, for them and for their kids.
Over time, I am coming to see so clearly that, for me, a big piece of this puzzle has to do with being too kind, too understanding, too lenient, too forgiving, too willing to leap in...making my child someone who is believed, by his own mother, to be capable of nothing more than messing up. Being disrespectful, taking drugs, quitting school? No problem. Mom can fix that. Somewhere in all this, the reward system became one of being rewarded for problems. Not for his strength or resilience or courage or accomplishments. Was there a little mommy fix for me in that system?
Yes.
I wonder whether our abusive adult kids come to resent us as they do because they sense that the patterns we've set up are destroying them.
But it is so easy to take the money.
And if the story is good enough, if the situation is bad enough...there is always money.
So...the stories get worse. The situations get more and more dire. By the time we finally see what is really happening, not just to us, but to those beautiful, perfect children we pictured such stellar futures for, the only way out is to say what we see. And what we really see is that our children, however far we have taken them down the enabler's path, are strong, independent, capable people who have everything they need to take control of their lives.
But it's so easy to give the money, to fall into the old patterns, to complain the old complaints.
To me, it seems that I am addicted too, in a way. I am a little addicted to being the savior, a little addicted to being better than the addict.
Maybe, a little addicted to being the martyr, the perfect mom who just has had such a terrible thing happen to her because her kids turned out to be poops of one variety or another.
So, that is what I look at and work with every day, here on the site. How do I become strong enough to stop with the money, already? How do I learn to change the emotional tone of my interactions with my children from the ever-understanding, supposedly "perfect" mom to the kinds of interactions that will give my children back their independence?
I didn't know.
So, I just started to say that.
You are not a beggar. I want you strong. I want you independent. I don't know what will happen next, but I know you will be fine.
Things like that.
I would post like mad about it, because it felt so wrong.
But you know what, Daze?
It's working.
Maybe this is true only for me, only for the dynamic I somehow set up in my family. Each of us will know her own situation. But Daze, I could not see my part in this for the life of me.
Healing involved, for me, realizing that I was viewing my kids as poor, inept little beings who needed me. They do not need me. They are strong, scary smart, healthy individuals who are living their lives the way they want to. I need to let them do that. That means they will have to experience the consequences of their actions.
It would have been easier for them if I had let them experience their consequences when they first began going a wrong way.
The consequences are pretty stiff, now.
But you know, Daze?
They are doing just fine.
I am doing much better, am taking a look at other areas in my life where I should have stood up and demanded better.
It is good, to believe in our strength. It is good to refuse to be a victim.
Somewhere along the line, I allowed the problems to become who we all were.
Well, that's what happened to me.
The healthier I become Daze, the more my outlook changes, the more clearly I see where and how this all got started. I don't even waste a minute feeling guilty about it. I am intent, determined, certain this is what needs to happen next for all of us.
You are here with us now, Daze. I think the first healing thing for me was realizing how similar our stories are. It takes time to see differently, Daze. But it will happen. Your solution, your detachment, may look different than mine. The most valuable change I made was to say: You are not a beggar. You are strong enough. I want you independent and strong. I don't want you to have to depend on your parents for anything. You are strong enough.
That was the beginning, for me. Even when I didn't believe it, I said it.
Things are better for us, Daze.
Cedar
How had I become the person who would fix it, who would commiserate with them, who would believe for them when they were so far from where they were meant to be in life?
How had that happened?
It wasn't until I got it Daze, that maybe part of why we got where we got to had to do with my fixing, had to do with my believing they were better than what they were doing instead of letting them see and feel the pain of what they were doing.
It was so easy to fix everything, to dish out the money, to pronounce the stern warnings and dire consequences.
Another piece of the detachment picture is that, somewhere during those years, I began to resent having to fix it. I began, in my most secret heart, to resent the fear of everyday life with kids who routinely did things I found shocking and shaming and pointless. MWM did a post a few months back about abusive adult kids. It so bothered me to read that post! I would go back and back Daze, to read MWM's post.
And then, one day, I could hear the abuse in the way my own son interacted with me. Once I could see it? It was clear as day. I dealt with it appropriately. But the point here is that I had lost so much respect for my own child, for my own son, that I allowed/encouraged the bullying, the verbally abusive behaviors. I turned my own son into someone with so little respect for himself that he routinely verbally abused his own mother.
There were others of us posting about both verbal and physical abuse from our kids, at that time. More than one of us had been hospitalized as a result of things that happened with her grown child.
And I realized these were moms like me, Daze. Moms who had done too much for their children without demanding respect ~ respect for themselves and, more importantly, self respect from their grown man children.
Who could respect himself if he didn't love and respect and hold his own mother in a high place?
I began to feel like I was trapped in a Willy Wonka segment. All those spoiled children, coddled and destroyed by their own loving parents.
At the same time, there were other moms here who were giving detachment serious thought. They reported small changes in the natures of the interactions with their troubled kids...but things were getting better, for them and for their kids.
Over time, I am coming to see so clearly that, for me, a big piece of this puzzle has to do with being too kind, too understanding, too lenient, too forgiving, too willing to leap in...making my child someone who is believed, by his own mother, to be capable of nothing more than messing up. Being disrespectful, taking drugs, quitting school? No problem. Mom can fix that. Somewhere in all this, the reward system became one of being rewarded for problems. Not for his strength or resilience or courage or accomplishments. Was there a little mommy fix for me in that system?
Yes.
I wonder whether our abusive adult kids come to resent us as they do because they sense that the patterns we've set up are destroying them.
But it is so easy to take the money.
And if the story is good enough, if the situation is bad enough...there is always money.
So...the stories get worse. The situations get more and more dire. By the time we finally see what is really happening, not just to us, but to those beautiful, perfect children we pictured such stellar futures for, the only way out is to say what we see. And what we really see is that our children, however far we have taken them down the enabler's path, are strong, independent, capable people who have everything they need to take control of their lives.
But it's so easy to give the money, to fall into the old patterns, to complain the old complaints.
To me, it seems that I am addicted too, in a way. I am a little addicted to being the savior, a little addicted to being better than the addict.
Maybe, a little addicted to being the martyr, the perfect mom who just has had such a terrible thing happen to her because her kids turned out to be poops of one variety or another.
So, that is what I look at and work with every day, here on the site. How do I become strong enough to stop with the money, already? How do I learn to change the emotional tone of my interactions with my children from the ever-understanding, supposedly "perfect" mom to the kinds of interactions that will give my children back their independence?
I didn't know.
So, I just started to say that.
You are not a beggar. I want you strong. I want you independent. I don't know what will happen next, but I know you will be fine.
Things like that.
I would post like mad about it, because it felt so wrong.
But you know what, Daze?
It's working.
Maybe this is true only for me, only for the dynamic I somehow set up in my family. Each of us will know her own situation. But Daze, I could not see my part in this for the life of me.
Healing involved, for me, realizing that I was viewing my kids as poor, inept little beings who needed me. They do not need me. They are strong, scary smart, healthy individuals who are living their lives the way they want to. I need to let them do that. That means they will have to experience the consequences of their actions.
It would have been easier for them if I had let them experience their consequences when they first began going a wrong way.
The consequences are pretty stiff, now.
But you know, Daze?
They are doing just fine.
I am doing much better, am taking a look at other areas in my life where I should have stood up and demanded better.
It is good, to believe in our strength. It is good to refuse to be a victim.
Somewhere along the line, I allowed the problems to become who we all were.
Well, that's what happened to me.
The healthier I become Daze, the more my outlook changes, the more clearly I see where and how this all got started. I don't even waste a minute feeling guilty about it. I am intent, determined, certain this is what needs to happen next for all of us.
You are here with us now, Daze. I think the first healing thing for me was realizing how similar our stories are. It takes time to see differently, Daze. But it will happen. Your solution, your detachment, may look different than mine. The most valuable change I made was to say: You are not a beggar. You are strong enough. I want you independent and strong. I don't want you to have to depend on your parents for anything. You are strong enough.
That was the beginning, for me. Even when I didn't believe it, I said it.
Things are better for us, Daze.
Cedar
Cedar, I am struggling with this. He is struggling at work. His learning disabilities are becoming apparent. He says he has trouble with multistep directions and needs to be shown, not just told. Poor memory and verbal comprenhension of directions, so he says. He said supervisor said she'd work with him as it seemed he wanted to learn. He writes stuff down, which is good. But he stands around a lot and is afraid to bother her in her office (not good).
I tend to see him as a lost little boy, lately, because of his depression, his ADD, his Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), his nonverbal learning disability. People with his disability get fired a lot...just ask Midwest Mom. I feel terrible when he has a meltdown.
But I just listen to him, and try not to fix stuff, although I did regress. (I called Vocational Rehab for him, and got an appointment. Cancelled it because he got the job back the next day.)
I accept him as what he is, but he doesn't accept himself. He says he feels so stupid at times. But he is trying hard...harder than I've ever seen him try.
Still trying to get to that place where, if he is unhappy, I am still ok. It's so hard.
BusynMember
Well-Known Member
They do. I always tried very hard, but I must have been fired from fifty jobs. I wish I were exaggerating. Some were "easy" jobs like McDonalds, which was not easy for me because of the multi-tasking, pace, memory work, and my face blindness.
I think perhaps Son may do best working with the Dept. of Vocational Rehab where he will have a counselor who will help him find suitable work. Getting fired used to make me feel worthless and suicidal. When I married, although my husband was far from rich, we decided on a simple lifestyle and I did not have to work. That took a lot of stress off of me, although I felt a little inferior for not being able to hold a simple job. Still, not going to work helped my self-esteem A LOT. I could just be Mom and, although I was not an organized mom, I was a loving mom and that felt better than getting confused about what page I was on while stapling papers together. Yes, that happened to me many times too (sequencing issues).
Eventually I got Disability which I hadn't even known I qualified for because my disabilities were all invisible (although if you know me well, you can't help but notice that something is not wired right...such as I don't recognize who anybody is, no matter how well I know them). When I am comfortable and explaining issues I am very familiar with, others think I am incredibly bright. I am a paradox. I am not the only paradox in this world. Unfortunately, my superior verbal skills will not get me a job...you also have to be able to perform tasks well. There is no job where you just speak, unless you are an actor and I'm not (although I did well in drama as a kid. That was one thing even the kids who hated me admitted I excelled at).
But it's hard to become a professional actor/actress especially when you are too uncoordinated to dance and lack of coordination is very common with these particular neurological differences. So I sand and acted well, but I could not learn how to dance even with my mother being a dancing teacher. To go along with it, I could never learn to knit or sew or do anything that required eye/hand coordination. It's all part of the same...garbage. Too confusing to knit, sew, dance, etc.
Now that I am at Goodwill, which is made for disabled people, I am starting to feel badly about myself again. The tasks given to me are one step and not difficult, yet it is a real mental struggle every single day to do what I am told to do, even though they are hardly rocket science. The stress stems from my visual and auditory deficits and my non-verbal Learning Disability (LD). Here's a few examples of how simple work can become a struggle.
It is hard for me to do a simp;le task such as pull pink ticketed items off of racks. First of all, I miss some. Secondly, it is hard for me to tell a faded pink tag from a faded purple tag and I make mistakes due to not being sure which color is which and, no, I am not color blind. I just have poor visual discrimination skills and often also troubke keeping my midn on what I am doing (thus missing some obviously pink tags). I also do not have good auditory discrimination skills so I have trouble following instructions sometimes unless they are given to me one at a time and I can take notes, which works sometimes and sometimes does not work. I have been like this since childhood.
Again, if I wrote a book about my life it would be called "Confused." I have always been and still am, in spite of being taught various coping mechanisms, often really confused by life. I can not navigate visually or auditorily in the workforce. Yet I can easily have a long, detailed philosophical or political discussion that makes sense and I think very well in the abstract. I have also authored a few books that sold well. My verbal skills are excellent when I'm not nervous and I know my topic well.
I really feel for this particular young man. I can't even begin to describe how my heart hurts for him and how much I am pulling for him. I am pretty sure I would not be able to work well, without geting confused, at a Subway.
I think perhaps Son may do best working with the Dept. of Vocational Rehab where he will have a counselor who will help him find suitable work. Getting fired used to make me feel worthless and suicidal. When I married, although my husband was far from rich, we decided on a simple lifestyle and I did not have to work. That took a lot of stress off of me, although I felt a little inferior for not being able to hold a simple job. Still, not going to work helped my self-esteem A LOT. I could just be Mom and, although I was not an organized mom, I was a loving mom and that felt better than getting confused about what page I was on while stapling papers together. Yes, that happened to me many times too (sequencing issues).
Eventually I got Disability which I hadn't even known I qualified for because my disabilities were all invisible (although if you know me well, you can't help but notice that something is not wired right...such as I don't recognize who anybody is, no matter how well I know them). When I am comfortable and explaining issues I am very familiar with, others think I am incredibly bright. I am a paradox. I am not the only paradox in this world. Unfortunately, my superior verbal skills will not get me a job...you also have to be able to perform tasks well. There is no job where you just speak, unless you are an actor and I'm not (although I did well in drama as a kid. That was one thing even the kids who hated me admitted I excelled at).
But it's hard to become a professional actor/actress especially when you are too uncoordinated to dance and lack of coordination is very common with these particular neurological differences. So I sand and acted well, but I could not learn how to dance even with my mother being a dancing teacher. To go along with it, I could never learn to knit or sew or do anything that required eye/hand coordination. It's all part of the same...garbage. Too confusing to knit, sew, dance, etc.
Now that I am at Goodwill, which is made for disabled people, I am starting to feel badly about myself again. The tasks given to me are one step and not difficult, yet it is a real mental struggle every single day to do what I am told to do, even though they are hardly rocket science. The stress stems from my visual and auditory deficits and my non-verbal Learning Disability (LD). Here's a few examples of how simple work can become a struggle.
It is hard for me to do a simp;le task such as pull pink ticketed items off of racks. First of all, I miss some. Secondly, it is hard for me to tell a faded pink tag from a faded purple tag and I make mistakes due to not being sure which color is which and, no, I am not color blind. I just have poor visual discrimination skills and often also troubke keeping my midn on what I am doing (thus missing some obviously pink tags). I also do not have good auditory discrimination skills so I have trouble following instructions sometimes unless they are given to me one at a time and I can take notes, which works sometimes and sometimes does not work. I have been like this since childhood.
Again, if I wrote a book about my life it would be called "Confused." I have always been and still am, in spite of being taught various coping mechanisms, often really confused by life. I can not navigate visually or auditorily in the workforce. Yet I can easily have a long, detailed philosophical or political discussion that makes sense and I think very well in the abstract. I have also authored a few books that sold well. My verbal skills are excellent when I'm not nervous and I know my topic well.
I really feel for this particular young man. I can't even begin to describe how my heart hurts for him and how much I am pulling for him. I am pretty sure I would not be able to work well, without geting confused, at a Subway.
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I don't know the ins and outs of your son's disabilities IAD, but I feel as MWM does, he is trying so hard and from MWM's description of her disabilities, it is easier to see how difficult it is for him to deal with this job. My heart is touched too by his willingness to show up, that says a lot about him. (And, by the way, MWM, you did an excellent job of explaining how it feels.)
It's so hard when our kids have these kinds of challenges. Finding that line between being there for him and detaching to a point where you can have your own life is such a fine line.
It is hard to be okay when our kids are suffering...........for me it is a practice............I'm not sure there is mastery in it, just a moment to moment choice we make over and over again.
I'm reading all those Chodron books as I've mentioned and it's helping me to recognize that trait we humans share where we want pleasure and we want pain to go away............she maintains a stance of non resistance to the pain, accepting it as what is and being with it. I have been practicing that along with breathing in the pain which is an exercise she teaches and breathing out some comfort for all of those suffering in the same way. As I was writing this, I realize that in many ways we do that here................we may not actually breathe in the pain and breathe out comfort, but we do it with our responses to each other, in our sharing of our pain. It eases it a little to be a part of a larger picture, to know that others understand and relate to the very particular pain we all feel here.
I can't take your sadness and your pain away IAD, if I could, I certainly would. But I can tell you I know exactly how you feel. And reading your post, brings up my empathy and compassion for you and for your son...........so, I am breathing in our collective pain and breathing out our collective comfort.........for you.........for me.............for all of us..........
It's so hard when our kids have these kinds of challenges. Finding that line between being there for him and detaching to a point where you can have your own life is such a fine line.
It is hard to be okay when our kids are suffering...........for me it is a practice............I'm not sure there is mastery in it, just a moment to moment choice we make over and over again.
I'm reading all those Chodron books as I've mentioned and it's helping me to recognize that trait we humans share where we want pleasure and we want pain to go away............she maintains a stance of non resistance to the pain, accepting it as what is and being with it. I have been practicing that along with breathing in the pain which is an exercise she teaches and breathing out some comfort for all of those suffering in the same way. As I was writing this, I realize that in many ways we do that here................we may not actually breathe in the pain and breathe out comfort, but we do it with our responses to each other, in our sharing of our pain. It eases it a little to be a part of a larger picture, to know that others understand and relate to the very particular pain we all feel here.
I can't take your sadness and your pain away IAD, if I could, I certainly would. But I can tell you I know exactly how you feel. And reading your post, brings up my empathy and compassion for you and for your son...........so, I am breathing in our collective pain and breathing out our collective comfort.........for you.........for me.............for all of us..........
Childofmine
one day at a time
Yes. You get tired of it all. Just sick and tired. And once that happens, you start to look for a way to change. That is a very good day, when that happens. I started feeling that way when my son went to college. He was still living at home for that first semester. He sang a good song. I had no idea he was flunking out. When we got his grades, which he tried to hide for a while. I was shell-shocked. They were beyond mediocre. They were terrible. Ds and Fs. Oh, he had a good story to tell, but I believe for the first time, I took a close hard look at him. In high school, I had somehow allowed my contempt for the weakness of the instruction, and the over-focus on sports, to contribute to the "free pass" I gave him and they gave him. The school just didn't focus enough on academics. He was bored. A bunch of bs, I told myself. College was different. It was him. And I was ready to stop being the helicopter parent. He was 19. Time for him to launch. But he was so far from launching.
Yes. I was ready to stop being his everyday mom. I say it that way because I wanted to be his mom, but not to the point of getting him up for school, asking every single question in an attempt to make sure he was doing the right things, and that I knew what was going on, to overwatch, overcorrect, overfix, and overinstruct. I had been doing that for years! I was ready to be done. So grow up, already! I remember my mother telling me that, well, he just wasn't there yet and some people grow up later. I said hogwash! I'm ready, so get to it! I had no idea he was an addict. And truly, what that would come to mean. This, just six years ago.
I'm just now---over the past year, getting this. Abuse is texting me nearly 265+ times in one day, in a relentless attempt to get Mommy to react. It's insidious abuse. It's not hitting me and even cursing me out, although this last time when I dropped him off at the laundromat at 3 a.m. after he pounded on my door after getting out from jail, he said F___ Y___ when he got out of the car. I didn't care at that point. I was furious and I had just told him off. Just the coming to the door after I had asked him to, pounding on the door in the middle of the night, that is abuse.
And it is a desperate attempt to get somebody to do it for him. That's what I taught him. I would do it for him, save him from the consequences of his own making. Just sit in it long enough and Mommy will try to fix it. At the very least, she will give you lots of attention for it. It's negative attention, but it's still attention.
This is a very good statement. A very good question. When we act the worst, we know it. And we lose a piece of ourselves. Even in the depths of his addiction, he is doing things and saying things that demean himself even more. The life he has led is at some of the lowest levels. The things he has done and the things he has said. Not just to me, but also to me, his own mother.
If we keep on doing this, we are killing them. We have to learn to stop. We are smothering them as surely as we put a pillow to their faces. Doing it in the name of love, but still doing it. It is wrong to do this to any human being. Knowing we can do something is at the base of our own self-respect. When we take that away from someone, we are doing the most harm. We didn't cause this mental illness, but we are contributing to the helplessness and creating more of it.
Yes, my difficult child likes attention of any kind. Even negative attention. He can keep you twisted up for hours with his circular conversation (a hallmark of addiction). He dodges and weaves and turns any conversation into something you don't even recognize. My ex-husband used to do that to the point that I basically stopped talking to him about anything of substance. It turned into a boxing match. Yard work or fixing something around the house was a nightmare, just to talk about it. I started fixing it myself, doing it myself or paying to have it done. I no longer allowed him to be a man. I couldn't take it anymore. I started doing that years before I realized he was an alcoholic and all that came after that. I lost all respect for this person who couldn't not only handle, but even discuss, the smallest problem without flying off the handle and making it about a million other things.
You just get tired.
I believe they do. But like a moth drawn to a flame, they can't let go. They both hate us for it and they are addicted to our doing it for them. It is ugly. We draw them to us by our enabling behavior.
And we have to break the link. We have to snap it. We have to say, no more. It's so painful for us and for them, but it is the greatest love. You're a grown man. It's way past time you start doing for yourself. Start now. And guess what? It's going to be ugly. It's not going to be anything pretty or on a logical path. They don't know how to do it. They have to learn things other people learned a long time ago. So get ready for ugly.
Childofmine
one day at a time
I am just starting to do this, Cedar. I have been so full of anger and resentment, I have been like an atom bomb with all of the energy tamped down and pushed down and submerged for so long. If I opened my mouth, what would I say? I didn't even know. I had and still have so much to say. I can destroy him even more with my words. And I didn't want to do that---so I continued destroying myself inside.
And then I started telling the truth to my sponsor. I started writing it down. Here and on my computer. I talked here about the one time I typed for over an hour as fast as I could type. I poured it all out and down on paper. I cried the entire time I was typing. It was a huge step forward for me. I read it later, all of it, to my sponsor. After I stopped, after I finished, she just sat there and looked at me for a few minutes, it seemed like. I had cried the whole time I was reading it to her, again.
It was healing and took me a huge way forward in my own recovery. I am doing that again now. After this latest letter from difficult child from jail, I was shaking with the anger and resentment and despair and hopelessness and fear I was feeling. Yesterday I sat down and wrote very quickly on the computer for a while, pouring it all out.
Oh yes. I'm the strong one. I can do it for everybody. Just let me help. Let me help you solve your problems. I'll tell you what to do. Me, the all-knowing one. I don't need any help myself, thank you very much. I've not only got my own life, I've got yours.
I used to see that as helping. My intentions were good, but beneath those good intentions was a person who didn't want to look at her own self. In her arrogance, she just knew what you needed to do. Let's all be perfect and I can tell you just how to do it.
What arrogance that was. How ridiculous. I am not that person anymore, and I am very grateful for this hard, hard lesson I have learned. I don't have to rescue people anymore. Me is a full-time job and there is still lots of work to be done.
Please feel sorry for me. I have to deal with this awful alcoholic. I need attention from you. When I look back on the drama of the ending of my marriage, I am ashamed at my attempts to get sympathy from friends. I didn't know any better and I was in mortal pain, but I was such a martyr. Me, the good one, living all of these years, with him, the bad one. Let me tell you how bad it's been. Ugh. Today, I no longer have to tell my friends every single thing difficult child is doing. Suffice it to say, it's boring at this point. Who wants to keep on hearing this stuff? I am grateful I can write here about some of the things, and write to myself the other ugliness that goes on and on.
I have choked out these words. "You have what it takes to do whatever you need to do." Does he really right now? I don't know if he does or not, but he's not ever going to do anything if we don't start talking the talk and then hoping some actions will follow. There is merit in this, even if we can't fully believe all of it.
Oh, Cedar, thanks for your post. You have helped me. I am not where you are, but you are showing me the way. I'm working on it.
Albatross
Well-Known Member
Daze, I'm so happy to hear that your son is putting it out there the way he is. MWM, thank you for shedding light on the struggles of those kinds of disabilities. It makes me root even more for your son, Daze. It can't be easy for him but he is working through it. Whether it's this job or something he finds thru vocational rehab, I so hope he finds his niche.
COM, I was wondering if you were writing about MY difficult child in some of your post. I had such a similar experience with HS, college, the texts, more or less ALL of your post is strikingly similar to my journey with my difficult child over the past 8 years or so.
I keep a journal and take the time to write in it each morning. I got a new one recently, actually right after I read through my last few journals. In my old journals, the entries were usually written at 2 or 3 a.m., because I couldn't sleep. On and on the pages went, always the same trajectory of emotions tracking the same basic plot points over and over and over, hope over promise made, excusing away followed by self-blame followed by anger for promises broken, followed by devastation. Over and over again, page after page, year after year. Reading through those, I wondered how in the world I could ever wonder if I hadn't tried enough, hadn't cared enough? I cried and cried and practically all but bled out in those pages. Who was this person, who kept coming back for more?
So I packed all those journals away and got myself a new one. It's nice, with a black leather cover. Inside I put a picture of a frail-looking lady holding onto a rope. The other end of the rope is tied around the neck of a giant albatross. She's struggling to try to corral this albatross around the neck, and it is quite obvious that her struggle is fruitless.
I see myself as that lady and my relationship with difficult child as that giant albatross. In a lot of ways it has become like the albatross in the poem, a burden of guilt and pain that I sentenced myself to carry always. The rope is my illusion of control. What might happen if she lets go of the rope? The albatross might stay where it is, might wander off for awhile, might even soar to new heights, but that rope isn't going to matter. The only thing the rope does is ensure that the frail little lady gets helplessly dragged behind.
It's a silly thing, but the picture reminds me sometimes, to let go of the rope.
COM, I was wondering if you were writing about MY difficult child in some of your post. I had such a similar experience with HS, college, the texts, more or less ALL of your post is strikingly similar to my journey with my difficult child over the past 8 years or so.
I keep a journal and take the time to write in it each morning. I got a new one recently, actually right after I read through my last few journals. In my old journals, the entries were usually written at 2 or 3 a.m., because I couldn't sleep. On and on the pages went, always the same trajectory of emotions tracking the same basic plot points over and over and over, hope over promise made, excusing away followed by self-blame followed by anger for promises broken, followed by devastation. Over and over again, page after page, year after year. Reading through those, I wondered how in the world I could ever wonder if I hadn't tried enough, hadn't cared enough? I cried and cried and practically all but bled out in those pages. Who was this person, who kept coming back for more?
So I packed all those journals away and got myself a new one. It's nice, with a black leather cover. Inside I put a picture of a frail-looking lady holding onto a rope. The other end of the rope is tied around the neck of a giant albatross. She's struggling to try to corral this albatross around the neck, and it is quite obvious that her struggle is fruitless.
I see myself as that lady and my relationship with difficult child as that giant albatross. In a lot of ways it has become like the albatross in the poem, a burden of guilt and pain that I sentenced myself to carry always. The rope is my illusion of control. What might happen if she lets go of the rope? The albatross might stay where it is, might wander off for awhile, might even soar to new heights, but that rope isn't going to matter. The only thing the rope does is ensure that the frail little lady gets helplessly dragged behind.
It's a silly thing, but the picture reminds me sometimes, to let go of the rope.
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Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Could you post the poem for us here, Albatross?
I did much the same thing. I was too embarrassed at the journals to keep them. As you noted happened in your own journals, mine circled through negative, damning emotion after negative, damning emotion. I too wrote my pages in the morning. Instead of Morning Pages, I began calling them Morning Rages.
As it went on and on, as I continued that desperate search for what the wrong thing was that I had done in my parenting...my journaling somehow turned into a condemnation of myself. I had incorporated those feelings of ineptness, of fear and guilt and rage into who I was. So much so that there have been years in my life when that was the only truth I knew about who I was. Fear became the biggest part of me. Afraid to drive, afraid to move, so certain that I would destroy whatever I touched. I could not figure out where I went wrong. Mothering was who I was. It was my highest aspiration. I did work after the kids were in their teens, but before that, I was a mom at home and I loved it. Loved everything about it.
What happened to my family was like having the wind knocked out of me.
You know that feeling, that shocking feeling when you can't get your breath?
That is where I lived, who I was, for so many years.
I had failed at my chosen profession.
And I didn't know how I managed not to see it coming. How could something have been so wrong in the home I'd created that this happened to my children and I not know what it was?
That still drives me crazy. Even now, when I know what happened, I can touch that grinding, whirling FOG feeling I lived in for so many years.
When mine were in their twenties, this turning hostility, this blaming myself for the hellish outcome of my mothering took strong root. Though I would go back to school myself (and graduate cum laude ~ which meant nothing to me so much as that, well, it hadn't been that I was too stupid to parent properly; or too evil. As I've posted here before, I chose a small, private Catholic college to complete the requirements for my degree. The way I saw it? If there was something really bad with me? They would find it, there ~ and then, I would know.) Though I would work and function in ways that may have looked just fine from the outside, there was nothing but guilt, blame, horror, pain on the inside of me.
I grieved for years.
Much of that time, I was here on this site. It was for my son, during those years. I came back a little over a year ago for my daughter. With our daughter's latest crash and burn, we would learn that the problem there was and had always been, a hereditary mental illness.
Nothing I could have done to prevent what happened.
Shortly after that, we put the pieces together where our son's addiction was concerned. That it was not a poor home life that led to using drugs, but that he had been caught in addiction. Some people are. Some can drink and some become alcoholics. Some people experiment with drugs and some become addicts.
Physiologic truths.
And that is what happened to my children.
Given their genetic tendencies, what they needed was a strong, healthy mother demanding better of them than they were doing for themselves. What they had instead was a destroyed mother eating herself alive over where she had gone wrong. All too willing to take the blame, to help steer them in a better direction, to believe and etc. and blah, blah. Phffft....
That is where I went wrong.
And so sorry to say so, but I learned that there must have been something wrong in our home from psychiatrists and treatment centers which, while absolutely positive there was SOMETHING WRONG AT HOME...could not identify what it was.
WTF?
Then how dare they, given their positions of trust and authority, have made such pronouncements?
Looking back now, I can see the arrogance, the horrible destructiveness of those interactions. I remember sitting through counseling session after counseling session, feeling guilty and dirty and so wrong but not knowing what I had done.
God, I can still feel that desperateness, that dirtiness, that distrust of myself for what I must not be remembering, for what I must be hiding, for what I must know but not be telling....
Don't let that happen to you.
As horrible as it was to accept our daughter's (multiple, continuing, myriad) diagnoses...we learned, at last, what IT, what the bad thing, was.
And it was a prescribed antidepressant (Cymbalta) that pushed her over the edge and into flat out mania.
I don't have so much faith in a system like ours, where the patient is both victim and villain. Where medical "professionals" dispense wisdom with such arrogance and wash their hands of the mess they've made of our lives when the money runs out or the child is finally old enough to refuse further "treatment".
It's been a rough ride. Cathartic, to review it here, with you. Perhaps not much to be learned from our story.
A horrifying waste of life-time for us, for our kids.
I would not begin to heal, would not begin to believe I was worthy of healing, until I learned where it was that our lives had gone wrong.
I forgot where I was going with this.
Thank heaven for this site.
Healing, facing what we face here so we can heal, is so painful.
We're doing it, though.
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
There is no possibility of certainty for us Child, for the mothers. We so wholeheartedly do the best we know or can learn. What I do know is that, just after our daughter was beat, when it seemed the brain damage and physical deficits would be permanent, both husband and I were on the same page about bringing her home, about caring for her for the rest of her life.
There just wasn't a question. And that was appropriate, for that time. If she were truly helpless, that would be the right thing. It was funny, too, that each of us was determined to do it whatever the other guy said. We were both so surprised that we knew this was the right thing. As she healed, the worst things resolved. She could walk without falling. She could hold a conversation without lapsing into laughter or crying. As more time passed, she began to be able to remember what she had told us, to remember that she had talked to us. She learned to write everything down, so she would not miss appointments.
She was learning to cope.
So, without her ever having known that we would have taken her in, we gave ownership of her life back to her.
This is the right thing.
As long as the kids can function, it is right for us to believe in them, and to give them ownership of their lives.
That is what we would want, for ourselves.
Safe haven in dire straits, but otherwise...otherwise, we need to hold steady and strong. Whether the issue is abusive language or self destruction or repeated criminal activity, that is what the adult our child became has done to the living child in our hearts.
I just go cross eyed with anger when I think about that. When I think about what these doobeys did, about where they took my babies that I nursed and rubbed with lotion and thought the sun rose and set on.
Grrr....
That adult who now exists knows better, was raised better, was taught how to do better. In a way, their behaviors are so deep a betrayal of and to us that we would be right in turning our backs on them forever.
That is what happens, in some societies. I read somewhere that Jewish people sit shiva for a child going a wrong way. I am not Jewish, so I don't understand more than the smallest sliver of this, but what I took from my reading is that the family comes together and mourns for the lost child as though the child had died.
And the child is not welcomed back.
Or maybe, that is where the story of the prodigal son comes from. But even there, you don't read about the family running off to the pig sty to save the child from where he willingly went. They love and forgive and take him back. They restore his position.
Once he has healed himself, and not a minute sooner.
And yet, knowing those consequences? There were still children who went a wrong way. There must have been, or that story I read about sitting shiva would not have been written.
You are brave and good and strong, COM. None of us knows how to do this.
With all my heart, I wish this were not happening to you, to your son, to your family.
**********************
There are moms here who have dealt with the same issues you are coping with now, COM. Have you made a post with that title?
These feelings will only become more intense as the time for you to make your final decision regarding bail approaches. There is information here for you, COM.
How did those other moms survive it.
How do moms survive it who literally do not have the money for bail?
There is a song now about someone who makes so much money that he can bail his brother out of jail. In the past, whether the charges were bogus or not...there was nothing he could do.
There may be a purpose here that we know nothing about, COM.
*******
I am so happy if anything I post helps anyone. It's like striking a blow at the darkness we're all trying to save ourselves and our children from. That we can be here and be honest and tell what happened to us and to our kids, I mean.
I remember all the years I was alone with it.
That was worse.
I think we are standing up really well, COM.
Like the Mary, or like the Christ himself, in your Tyrants post. We are facing what we have to face. So far, we are holding strong.
Mother love is an incredible force. It's knowing which way to direct it that's the problem.
How good it is that we are all here, that this site exists, that we are not alone with everything, anymore.
Cedar
You are all a force for good. Everyone here has helped me so much. Out of the dark, terrible experiences we have had with our wayward children has come a force to be reckoned with, a group of mothers who are here to share, help, and comfort each other and any other hurting parent in need. Out of the darkness comes light. I am so grateful for you all.
Childofmine
one day at a time
Sometimes I wonder if turning my back on him forever is where I am headed. I am resisting that so much. And then I think run toward that thing you fear the most, the absolute lack of him in my life at all. Wow, that is a scary and sad thing that immediately makes me cry.
I haven't done it because it feels so final, like death. And then I think, why do you need to cut it off completely? Isn't that still trying to control the situation.
Oh, the circular thinking.
Oh yes. That story from the Bible comes to me again and again. And the story of Leaving 99. Leaving 99 sheep to find the one lost sheep. God is always searching for our difficult children. He never stops. The question is: are our difficult children listening and responding to his call? If they ever do, that is the first step to wholeness, I believe. I believe a spiritual awakening is what has to happen.
Once he responds, then we will run to him as he walks down the road toward home again, we will bring him a ring for his finger, a beautiful robe and we will order a feast to be prepared. That is what the daddy did in the story. It is a day of celebration.
I am not bailing him out Cedar.
The likely circumstances are these: he will get out in early May (not sure of the exact date because of the 30% reduction rule but I can call and find out as the time gets closer). I don't know how it works from there---do they immediately arrest him if they are sending him to prison or does he go back to the street and he's on his own to contact his PO? The last scenario seems dumb, but you know how that goes. They are so overbusy and overcrowded with drug-related crimes. I guess things don't go as it seems they would.
Strangely, the idea that he goes to prison is a sort of comfort to me. That way, he will be somewhere. He is like a "thing to be managed." He is either a storm brewing (when he is white knuckling) or a whirling tornado (when he can't white knuckle anymore). You want to tamp him down. Get him surrounded with some borders or boundaries or something.
Isn't that weird that I would even think that? I guess I am thinking maybe something good would happen there. It doesn't seem like anything good has really happened on the street? He did seem to make some progress, but then....
I don't know. I have no idea. What could I really know about him and his path and his thoughts and his feelings? Let it go, let it go, let it go.
I am convinced there is a purpose. I don't know what it is. I can't see it right now. There is purpose. SO says the best drug and alcohol counselors are those who have been there. They have looked into the face of hell. They have come back from that edge of the pit. I wish that would be difficult child some day.
We are, Cedar. We are warriors. We are fighting a war that must be as brutal and horrible as the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, other wars around the world. We are in the trenches for years and years. We are stripped of supplies and armor and weapons at first, completely bare and vulnerable, until we start collecting those supplies and armor and weapons----our tools. We stay there, fighting, because we have no choice. We've been assigned there by our parentage. I doubt we will ever get a deferment or completely serve our time. Until it ends, one way or the other.
I can't believe the incredible durability of the human soul and spirit. Who would predict we could do this? We can't, until we get those tools. We would die ourselves, completely without resources. But now we have them. We are still there, we are still present, but we are using our weapons.
I am so grateful for those weapons. Not against our difficult children, but against the 40-foot-tall monster.
You are a force for good as well, Daze. We all contribute here. You help me every time you write, and I believe we are helping ourselves so much as we write. I have felt myself growing stronger over these months since I found this site. I was ready for it when I found it. I am so grateful for all of you.
Have a good day today friends and new friends---people who are just coming here and reading. Keep coming back.
Albatross
Well-Known Member
Yes, exactly. I too took my mothering role very, very seriously. How could that not be reciprocated?! Must be MY fault! Yes, I felt a lot of the same things you felt.
Good grief, Cedar, what a journey you've had!
What a journey we've all had.
The poem is "The Rime of the Ancient Mariner" by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. In it the mariner kills an albatross, which was believed to bring the ship good luck. Afterward the ship suffers bad luck. The mariner is forced to wear the albatross around his neck as penance.
God save thee, ancient Mariner
From the fiends, that plague thee thus
Why look'st thou so ? - With my cross-bow
I shot the ALBATROSS.
...
Ah. well a-day. what evil looks
Had I from old and young
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.
Oh man, that forever thing. I've been there. Odds are I'll be there again. For me, forever felt SO much easier than "We'll see where it goes." I SO craved certainty, just ONE THING I could count on, in my relationship with difficult child.
SO glad I found this place. Thanks, Moms!
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
What a complex and beautiful avatar you chose, Albatross. I have looked into its eyes many times. Sometimes, it looks like a male. Other times, it seems to be female.
I am happy to know the rationale behind the choice.
Cedar
I am happy to know the rationale behind the choice.
Cedar
Hi everyone. He seems to be holding his own at work. He says he's getting used to it and it is a slower pace. He says he writes down the names and location of the different spices. He enjoys serving the customers. His supervisor, however has an attitude and gives him a hard time when he asks to go on his 15 minute break with comments like "I don't get a break". He says he seems to have an attitude about her. So who knows if this is his paranoia and hypervigilince and misinterpeting of situations, or if he really is having performance problems and she is being very passive aggressive about it towards him, or a combination.
He sets two or three alarms and texts us or we call him around 6 AM. I know, over the top, but he can't be late !
So we'll see what happens. Looking into getting him a case manager to coordinate all his care.
Oh good. Thanks so much for the update I've been wondering how he is. I like that he enjoys serving the customers and he's used to it now. Now he has success under his belt. I feel proud of him IAD no matter what happens now, he made a big effort and he "got used to it." I think that's really huge.
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Yay!!!
:O)
Because he had no problems with the other supervisor, I would suspect that this one could be a jerk. It happens, right? We have all had those kinds of people where you wonder how they even got hired, let alone rose to a supervisory position. I have worked with people who, while not in supervisory positions, just seemed to have a destructive influence on those around them. They were backbiters, gossipers ~ just bad influences on everyone, but most especially on those they were in close physical proximity to.
Whatever we find ourselves facing in our professional lives? It is our own behavior, our own thought processes regarding that person, that we need to monitor. If and when we choose, we can ask for a transfer.
Without blaming anyone, we can do that.
I have had some supervisors I so cherished, and some who were so awful, such awful people. That is how life is, right? There are good teachers and there are bad teachers...but everyone teaches us something.
Maybe, just explain to your son that this is all a learning opportunity for him.
I love it that he is setting three alarm clocks.
I am proud of him for you, and so happy for you that he is trying so hard and is making it.
:O)
Cedar
He has worked almost long enough to have earned a reference by now, hasn't he?
He can go anywhere he likes, once he has that first good reference.
:O)
Because he had no problems with the other supervisor, I would suspect that this one could be a jerk. It happens, right? We have all had those kinds of people where you wonder how they even got hired, let alone rose to a supervisory position. I have worked with people who, while not in supervisory positions, just seemed to have a destructive influence on those around them. They were backbiters, gossipers ~ just bad influences on everyone, but most especially on those they were in close physical proximity to.
Whatever we find ourselves facing in our professional lives? It is our own behavior, our own thought processes regarding that person, that we need to monitor. If and when we choose, we can ask for a transfer.
Without blaming anyone, we can do that.
I have had some supervisors I so cherished, and some who were so awful, such awful people. That is how life is, right? There are good teachers and there are bad teachers...but everyone teaches us something.
Maybe, just explain to your son that this is all a learning opportunity for him.
I love it that he is setting three alarm clocks.
I am proud of him for you, and so happy for you that he is trying so hard and is making it.
:O)
Cedar
He has worked almost long enough to have earned a reference by now, hasn't he?
He can go anywhere he likes, once he has that first good reference.
