Hey, Cedar, or anyone interested in FOO (Family of Origin) issues. Cedar, WHY NOW???

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
If your daughter were on a prescribed treatment would she not have come with sufficient medication?

We were told that a large quantity of her prescribed pain medication (dilaudid) was stolen before she left to come North. The situation awakened all kinds of questions and suspicions.

Thank you, Copa, for researching naloxone.

That was kind of you.

:O)

Cedar, can you and D H handle opiate withdrawal? Should you?

No parent would be equipped to deal with this. Have you and D H thought about ending the visit? The children know the reality of their lives. They may not like it or be served by it but they know it. To tell the truth and to name the reality of things, and to act accordingly can sometimes be the way to go

We were all over the map last night before she got home. It is one thing to take everything day by day and another thing altogether to think she was back in the City where she was homeless.

She didn't do that, though.

She had been talking about suboxone since she arrived; she was forever talking about pain, pain medications, addiction. She called her doctor in the state she is from and was told that if she went to an Emergency Room or Free Clinic here, or made any effort to obtain legal help regarding withdrawal, she would be labeled as drug seeking and booted from whatever program she is on.

She did the right thing...but it was impossible to trust that she would. All the shades of PTSD rocketed through all of us (the kids, too) last night. When she came home and was fine, the grands and D H and I hardly knew what to do with ourselves or how to act or whether to be happy or what to believe.

But she was still alright this morning. Physically alright, too ~ which she hasn't been for some time, now.

Daughter seems clearer, stronger, more centered than I have seen her since this started three years ago. She said she is in pain, but nothing she can't handle. We can't figure out why this isn't offered to everyone suffering chronic pain and sucked into dependence/elevating pain levels/beggardom as they try to balance what they feel they need to control pain with what they are or are not being given. Daughter said it is a powerless feeling and that no one hears you when your pain is not controlled and you are labeled drug seeking.

We were all a little off balance this morning.

Cedar
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Daughter seems clearer, stronger, more centered than I have seen her since this started three years ago. She said she is in pain, but nothing she can't handle. We can't figure out why this isn't offered to everyone suffering chronic pain and sucked into dependence/elevating pain levels/beggardom as they try to balance what they feel they need to control pain with what they are or are not being given. Daughter said it is a powerless feeling and that no one hears you when your pain is not controlled and you are labeled drug seeking.
I'm not sure why it's not used more. Maybe it doesn't work for all drug addictions?? I'm glad she is taking it. I really have heard good things about it. It stops the cravings right away. And, yes, it is a drug, but a less serious, life-destructive one. Pick your poison, so to speak.

I think there needs to be something given to those in chronic pain...is this good at stopping the pain? It beats oxycotin. Very terrible dilemma to be in...chronic pain and all the medications are addictive. I feel for those people in chronic pain.

I hope your daughter is really getting tired of her old life and seriously wants to put in the effort to change it. It's never too late to start over. She's still pretty young.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
We can't figure out why this isn't offered to everyone suffering chronic pain and sucked into dependence/elevating pain levels/beggardom as they try to balance what they feel they need to control pain with what they are or are not being given.
Cedar, you may not be getting the whole truth. The medical establishment is not in the business of denying essential medications, even controlled substances, to those who need them. Nor would somebody who is in treatment for addiction, be forced to secure drugs illegally, in order to cope.

Think about it. Your daughter when the medications were stolen, could have contacted her physician, to arrange a solution. She may not have wanted to. Because to tell her physician or counselor that her medication was missing, or stolen, or used, contrary to prescription would have called forth a result that she did not want.

I fear there may be something sketchy going on.

I can understand the impossibility of your situation. You do not want to do anything that puts your daughter or the kids into a worse situation than that which already exists.

On the other hand, to let pass even day by day, or hour by hour possible obfuscating or distortion, or deception, is to enable.

I for one do not know the right thing to do or what I would do. She is an adult and she is making the decisions about her life that are hers to make.

The thing is that we are responsible to ourselves both in terms of protecting our own welfare, and as parents. Our responses to our adult children need to be proactive and affirmative. Not defensive and fearful reactions based upon manipulations that our children set up. Because they manipulate to achieve short-term goals and needs that are likely not in their best interests.
Daughter said it is a powerless feeling and that no one hears you when your pain is not controlled and you are labeled drug seeking.
If this is happening to her, indeed that would be a painful and frustrating circumstance. The thing is, do we know if this interpretation of things is a self-serving and subjective portrayal and that it may not take into account, your daughter's actions, decisions, and meeting of responsibilities, or lack thereof, that might have contributed to it?

If somebody is drug seeking they will be labeled as such. That is a reality.

Of course it would be painful and frustrating to want drugs you need, and not be given all of them you want, when you want them.

But I do not believe that physicians want their patient to endure pain just to be controlling, uncaring or withholding. There may be some physicians that care not if their patients suffer. I believe your daughter is astute, experienced and savvy enough to avoid these bad apples.

Medication will be limited, however, if it is believed that the patient is using it for secondary gain, abusing it, and to prescribe it puts the patient at risk. To prescribe a medication with the knowledge or even suspicion, that the patient may be abusing it, is unethical. An alternative would be prescribed, not as readily abused, or without the properties that would lend to abuse. You know all of this.

There may be more to the story, Cedar.

I recognize that to put your daughter on the spot now, could lead to more chaos, fear and suffering.

I guess what I am saying here is that we need to force ourselves to accept the most likely reality of things. I think you and D H need to decide together what is likely going on. Your best guess. It sounds like your daughter now, may not be in a condition to fully represent her true circumstances.

Even if your best guess, which may be the worst case, is not true, you will be operating based upon what you believe to be true, not having to fear every possible, horrible outcome. Not dependent upon your daughter for facts and explanations that she cannot at this time readily give. And trying to make sense of a bunch of representations which do not fit together coherently.

Could you try to piece together a diagnostic picture based upon clinical signs (not blood pressure, etc. I mean behaviors), as if she were your patient? You would proceed on firm ground. As you gather facts, you can then refine your understanding of things. But you would be proceeding based upon your gut, not based upon all kinds of scattered information that you cannot evaluate or verify.

I hope I am making some sense here. We are all stretched beyond our capacity by the situations we find ourselves in. Even trying to put myself in your shoes...I find myself...in a place where I cannot be sure what I would do.

I wonder how I function so well in my work, and from where that trust in my judgment comes? All I know is that I must feel confidence in myself in my work, or I could not do it effectively. And you too.

In my case the true thing that I resist knowing is that my son cannot do better than he is doing now. He could, but he has not yet decided to. Which is to say, he may never decide, because it is not in his personality to do so. That he will always want or need my support. And that he will keep acting in all of the ways that push my buttons. And that I am the one that needs to do the changing because to expect it from him is unrealistic, and beyond my control. I do not like this scenario, but if I were to accept it, I would have a course of action in front of me, over which I have control.

And the other true thing that I fear, is that I may never be able to detach fully, because it is not in my personality makeup to do so. And just as my son cannot do what he cannot do, neither can I.

I think that is what SWOT has been trying to tell me. She is probably right.

Whatever happens, you know you do not have to ask your daughter to leave. It is one option but not the only one. I felt bad afterwards about mentioning that.

Please keep posting. It will not help to neglect yourself. You know you do not have to read our posts. Let us know what is going on.

With affection and great care,

COPA
 
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Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Please keep posting. It will not help to neglect yourself. You know you do not have to read our posts. Let us know what is going on.

I love reading our posts. True things are harder things to say. I appreciate, Copa.

I hope your daughter is really getting tired of her old life and seriously wants to put in the effort to change it. It's never too late to start over. She's still pretty young.

We aren't certain how to think about this either, SWOT. Really, there isn't anything we can do for her but encourage and love her and tell her true things and wish her well. She will be leaving with the kids this week.

Copa, we did intend to ask her to leave. We did the thing we are forever telling one another not to do ~ when she left that night, we catastrophized and told ourselves we knew the end of the story; we were miserable and angry and hurt disbelieving and etc. But when daughter came home that night, she was like a different person. So, we waited. The next morning, she was still fine. Yesterday was great. Last night was great. We are doing the best we know, and are taking things one little portion of time at a time. It feels right to believe and to celebrate just being together while we can and let the rest go since there isn't a thing in the world we can do about any of it.

It is such a nice feeling to come here in the morning and see your responses. Thanks, you two. Lioness, welcome!

:hugs:

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
It must have something to do with permitting her to ascend, of holding myself back because my strength or success robs or damages others. There must be some of this.

I believe I am closer to understanding. I feel more energy with my son here, despite all of the conflict. I feel more complete. More peace. Less despair.

It has to be guilt and the sense of responsibility for others. I am permitting my sister to win, by holding myself back. And I do not know why. Yet

Copa, when our kids were young and troubled, I became vulnerable. Because my kids were in pain and we were in pain and I couldn't change anything, I lost my sense of efficacy. I think what happened next is that I lost ~ I don't know. A kind of legitimacy Copa. Some internal something that had made me strong enough to mount and believe in myself and to disregard my family of origin ~ to not take them seriously in any meaningful sense. I could see them without feeling vulnerable to their judgments, or to anything about them, because my life was going well. I had the childhood I had, but believed myself to have moved beyond it and rarely thought of it at all. Over the years when I lost faith in myself as the family D H and I had created fell apart like it did, I lost that sense of efficacy, that sense that I had made it and that though my family of origin was a mess, there was no reason to condemn or fear or even, to judge them.

That has all changed.

I don't know how to describe it. It has to do with seeing a child in pain and blaming myself. (I just went through this yesterday morning with our daughter, Copa. It is a new thing, to think like this ~ to see the genesis of a kind of breakdown, maybe.) It has to do with not being able to stand above my rotten family of origin and declare myself free. I was able to do that, for awhile there. When the kids fell, I lost that legitimacy.

I wonder whether this kind of thinking is happening for you regarding your sister too, Copa?


Everyone is waking up. (At my house, I mean.)

Daughter seems very well this morning.

:O)

Cedar
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Hi all. Since this is a place we confess our sins, I have to confess I half cheated.

Yes, I did.

I checked her site just to see if she was still posting about me and found three posts. I did not read their titles or the posts, just the dates. They didn't upset me because I have no idea what she said. I guess she is still angsting over how to deal with a borderline sister who she will never see again. Since she's been reading this (although maybe sh e quit) you think she'd get it that her angst should be over. We are totally done.

I don't think it was health of me to look, even though I did have the good sense not to look at the content.

Is this just more proof t hat you can keep your FOO out of your life, but never really leave them in your mind? I

Well, my day off and I have to run. Hope to see some posts. It's been slow lately.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
Since she's been reading this (although maybe she quit) you think she'd get it that her angst should be over. We are totally done.
SWOT, I would not expect that she would accept easily your bowing out. I would expect that she be angry, confused and desperate. After all, she needed to pigeon hole you in a diagnosis where you were the one who carries the pathology, not her. To be strong enough, as you are, to take control and choose your role, to leave the game, leaves her holding all of the toxic feelings. She will have to continue to bad mouth you to expel the bad feelings inside of her.

Do not cheat. You gain nothing.

But when daughter came home that night, she was like a different person.
It seems she obtained the substance she needs. Hopefully she will have enough of it to remain stable throughout the rest of the visit and for the trip home.
It feels right to believe and to celebrate just being together while we can and let the rest go since there isn't a thing in the world we can do about any of it.
As I read your post I felt that you and D H did exactly the right thing, the thing I would have done if I was my strongest and wisest self.

You let your daughter solve her problem and she did so in the way she could. You accepted you have no control what so ever. And enjoyed the visit, as best you can.

The only thing is, there may be illegally obtained substances in her possession in your house. Like I did you may have to come to some understanding and take a stand to face the future.

I was so reassured to find your post this morning and glad for you that events at home are going along in a way that is manageable.

We had a meltdown here. My son was here for a 2 or 3 nights. He gets his foot in the door and wants to move in. He manipulates and whether intentionally or not, for a few minutes confused M and I so we got mad at each other. If you have a minute look at my thread about 24 hours.

My son is telling people I am a friend he met in the Big City. That his parents are dead. It feels awful as does the fact that he is now in the Big City, and we expected him back. I feel bad that I was rejecting and angry. It was not what I would have chosen had I not overreacted due to his manipulation. I understand on some level the reasons he may act as he does. It still hurts.

COPA
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
SWOT, I would not expect that she would accept easily your bowing out. I would expect that she be angry, confused and desperate. After all, she needed to pigeon hole you in a diagnosis where you were the one who carries the pathology, not you. To be strong enough, as you are, to take control and choose your role, to leave the game, leaves her holding all of the toxic feelings, particularly her own. She will have to continue to bad mouth you so to expel the bad feeling from her.
LOL, I'm not sure who bowed out the last time, but I think SHE did. I don't think she expected me to be good with it though. I really don't know how her head works. She thinks I'm awful (or writes it that way) yet does horrible immoral things.
Happily messing with married men (it wasn't just one that she flirted around with but the only one I know of who actually had the affair with her), but other worse deeds that I won't even put here. I mean...what's the point?

I won't cheat again. This was a half-cheat anyway. Kind of like my brother's letter that I never read, I didn't read anything so I still don't know what kind of stuff she thinks or wants other anons to think. As long as I didn't read it, it did not influence my mood.

Just, for somebody who is so sick of me...so disgusted with me...etc...I rent a lot of space in her head.
My son is telling people I am a friend he met in the Big City. That his parents are dead. It feels awful as does the fact that he is now in the Big City, and we expected him back. I feel bad that I was rejecting and angry. It was not what I would have chosen. And I understand on some level how he acts. It still hurts.
I'm really sorry that he is acting this way and saying these things. It is meant to get back to you and hurt you. Try not to take it personally. He is angry right now because he couldn't do what he wanted to do.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Ugh. I sure won't cheat anymore. Although I'm not upset because I didn't see the content, cheating just makes me want to read it. I won't do it and I do usually have a lot of willpower. But I see that it's best for me not to even tease myself.

Well, lesson well learned.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Nor would somebody who is in treatment for addiction, be forced to secure drugs illegally, in order to cope.

Copa, daughter is not being treated for addiction. The dilaudid is for pain. We have questions too (boy, do we), about why such strong medications are still being prescribed when the beating happened over a year and a half ago. There are rational explanations. At a point though, we remind ourselves of everything we all have been through; we remind ourselves that we knew lots of old issues would come up. (This is the first time we have been all together since the ~ since what happened.) We really are happy to have this time together; we did not know how difficult parts of it would be. Which sounds sappy but what I mean is that we are doing our best to keep a positive attitude and do the right thing. Time is short. The kids are little now, and will be growing quickly.

Here is something so whacky it is hard to believe.

So, when Baklava grand was here, the kitchen sink plugged up so tight. We think it was the loose tea from the hippie tea blending person Baklava grand had spent those weeks with. So...D H rents the Ram Power air blowing pipe blasting machine, right? And it blasted something loose and all at once the water was draining like magic! We ran water down that drain like nobody's business until we realized the clog was still there and it was a pipe fitting which had broken loose. The water drained under the sink and then...through the kitchen and into the carpeting in the living room!!!

So, we brought the Ram Power whatever back and got a snake.

That worked. The kitchen sink has drained beautifully since and I was able to host my Book Club after all.

This morning?

The washing machine drained into the bathtub.

That means the drain connecting to both is plugged.

All of us have long hair. One of us has braids of artificial hair.

roar

Calm dominant.

We are snaking that line, tomorrow.

D H actually took it very well when I told him.

The good thing here is that, with six of us here now (one a 16 year old girl and two little boys plus the three adults) all the laundry was finished before the pipe clogged. It was this morning's last load that drained into the tub.

Ahem.

Little bright spot, there. That the laundry is done, I mean.

:O)

Tonight? We are doing a pizza party and watching movies. (Last night, we watched the Brad Pitt movie about the baby born as an old man and aging backwards. We had such a nice time and ate popcorn and enjoyed it very much. We actually had lots of popcorn. We made baby back ribs for dinner last night. As it turns out, the kids do not enjoy baby back ribs. They have mashed potato texture issues.

And had cheeseburgers just before they got home.

Calm dominant.

We had a meltdown here

I am sorry things are not working out better for you two, Copa. Better a meltdown than for your son to override or trick you or M, though. Good for the two of you that

Since this is a place we confess our sins, I have to confess I half cheated.

I would want to know when the sister had stopped stalking me, too.

So, it's an understandable cheat, SWOT. Like Copa, I think your sister will never let you go.

I checked her site just to see if she was still posting about me and found three posts. I did not read their titles or the posts, just the dates.

Recent, SWOT?

I feel bad that I was rejecting and angry.

That's the thing. Whatever we do, however hard we try, nothing works the way it should. We blame ourselves, when what we should do (I am coming so firmly to believe) is admire ourselves. There is no way all these things could go so completely wrong every single time unless our kids really are working at cross purposes to us.

Copa, you and I both need to look at how well we are handling impossibly difficult things where nothing is clear and no one even knows anymore what any of us are working toward.

How dare your son treat either you or M this way.

My son is telling people I am a friend he met in the Big City. That his parents are dead.

I'm sorry, Copa.

We need to stand in that place where what they do is wrong, not in that place where we wonder what wrong thing we did to "make" them treat us disrespectfully.

Just a change of perspective.

Calm dominant, right Copa?

I feel bad that I was rejecting and angry. It was not what I would have chosen had I not overreacted due to his manipulation. I understand on some level the reasons he may act as he does. It still hurts.

It does hurt, Copa. Your son is wrong to hurt his mother this way. If your son had behaved well, you would not have been angry. You have nothing to feel badly about Copa. Like D H and I currently, you and M are acting in good faith.

That needs to be the guideline by which we measure ourselves and our choices and behaviors. Not outcome, but intent.

It is Happy Hour here. Have a good night, everybody!

Cedar
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Cedar, good to hear from you. It sounds like, in spite of the rough times, you're having a pretty good time. I'm so glad.

I checked today, Cedar, but I didn't read anything so it really didn't affect my mood. Because I didn't read, I don't know if she's stalking me or not. I don't believe she can stop herself from doing it though. She doesn't have much willpower.

Copa, your son is angry. He is saying what all of our kids say when they are angry. If they are adopted, they just have another angle to use...not my "real" parent. How silly is that? His bio. parents died and never before that wiped one tear or fed him one meal. You are his parent no matter how mad he is or what he says.
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
We blame ourselves, when what we should do (I am coming so firmly to believe) is admire ourselves.
It is all so complicated.

We live in a society where the focus is on results, not on intent.There is cruelty in the world. Others seem too ready to judge us. I love my son. He seems not to be able to love me.

M said something lovely today. He told me this: My mother said that I should try to love you like a mother. I don't mean carnal love. That I should try to replace the love you miss from your mother, and more. He smiled so sweetly and sincerely as he told me. Like, he really wanted to try.

His Mom is back in Mx. And he spoke to her tonight. Somebody in M's family told her that we were fighting. We have fought in the past, but for a year or so have lived tranquilly. So, M's mother asked him about it, and he assured her that we were fine.

I thought to myself. He already loves me more than my mother was able. Whether he leaves now or later. Or stays. Already, I feel more loved.
Copa, you and I both need to look at how well we are handling impossibly difficult things where nothing is clear and no one even knows anymore what any of us are working toward.
It is so difficult to not be able to love ones child in the way that one needs to. To feel disrespected and mistreated. And to know that your child feels they do not get from you what they need.

And to have the sense that things will never change. That he will never have the insight to value what he did receive from me, to understand that I withhold what he wants for his own welfare, as much as my own, and that he will never attain the functioning where I feel that I did right by him, to feel that by adopting him there really was the redemption story that I hoped for, for either of us.

I know SWOT is right, that my son came into our relationship with limits that had nothing to do with me. And that my needs to feel good about myself, are not the important thing. But there is something in us as mothers, that needs to feel a sense of completion. I cannot explain it. Perhaps that is what you are trying to say about intent. To value myself for the intention I brought to being a mother, and to let go of the result.
How dare your son treat either you or M this way.
What if this is him, Cedar? What if he has some limitation of personality, whereby he will not and cannot see that he is responsible for these manipulations, lies, distortions....and will never see the necessity to change..and will always make it the fault and responsibility of others....and that I will never come to grips with it...or be able to be easy with him...no longer angry.
Your son is wrong to hurt his mother this way. If your son had behaved well, you would not have been angry.
This is true. Except if he will never change, I cannot be angry forever. Because it seems I cannot not be close to him. I must find a way to change.
That needs to be the guideline by which we measure ourselves and our choices and behaviors. Not outcome, but intent.
I have never seen M's mother judge herself harshly. At the same time I have never known anybody with such purity of intent. Her expectations of herself are very, very high. Yet her expectations are of herself, not of any outcome. While her children love and respect her, she does not need their favor or expect it. I do not know how to be like this.

I need the love and favor of my child, and I do not know how to win it, and at the same time be true to myself.

I called the Big City, to the motel where my son stays sometimes, free. He was there Mon and Tues night but left today said the owner. My son has infinite respect for this man. And none for us, neither M nor me. I do not know how this happened that I am not respected or valued by my son. I asked M, just now, if he thinks it is racism. He answered, It isn't important to me. It is to me.

It feels like the Groucho Marx line: I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member.

I feel like throwing him out of my club, just to show him. If you don't want me, I don't want you. Punish him for how much he hurts me. Except SWOT would get mad at me.

M says I should ask my son the next time he calls who he is calling for, his mother or his friend from the Big City.

The woman said she would call me if and when he showed up there. I wish he would come here. Isn't that nutty?

I cannot live without him or with him.

I want him to love me. And I want to love him. Both of these are problematic of late.

Too bad about the pipes. I am always kind of scared about water damage. Years ago we stripped the carpet and the tile in the house down to the concrete because I wanted a white floor. M flushed the floor with a hose, and the water gushed throughout the house even into the walls. He was sanguine. I was freaked. Now I could care less. The white concrete floor is more practical than one would think. We can mop it.

Glad you are back, Cedar.

COPA
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Punish him for how much he hurts me. Except SWOT would get mad at me.
Not really. I should have thrown many people out of my club because of the way they treated me and I'm sorry that I let them in to play with my emotions for so long. However, when it's your child, there's a lot more to it and it could end up hurting you more than him.
It is not easy to throw anybody who is supposed to love us out of our club. I actually had to be forced to do it by them. Looking back I could kick myself for not letting my mother go as soon as the $5000 bit started, let my sister go after her second cut off and the cops and let my brother go after the letter.
Did they have some good points? YES! I'm not perfect. I have neurological differences and a mood disorder and I also sometimes can be hurtful, just like they can. We all learned from the Queen of Mean (oh, I like that!) Ouru mother taught us the way to be the absolute most hurtful; how to deliberately push buttons. But it tends to happen ONLY WITH THEM...FOO. I should have figured that out and left way early. It doesn't matter whose fault it was or wasn't. It probably isn't anyone's fault or it's all of our faults. I was the one who had the insight and I should have detached because...it was best for me and for them too for the scapegoat to be taken out of the dysfunctional family picture. I have done it now, in so far as they will NEVER be allowed back, and that matters because at some point in time Sis will come back, unless she is still reading this and realizes it would be futile...
But I have no idea how I'd leave a child of mine. Or if I could. No matter how much I hurt. So I can not judge since I didn't do it.
It is human to feel anger at anyone who tries to hurt us.

Copa, you are good and kind and way too hard on yourself for having normal human feelings.
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
M said something lovely today. He told me this: My mother said that I should try to love you like a mother. I don't mean carnal love. That I should try to replace the love you miss from your mother, and more. He smiled so sweetly and sincerely as he told me. Like, he really wanted to try.

I am in love with M's mother.

:O)

It is so difficult to not be able to love ones child in the way that one needs to. To feel disrespected and mistreated. And to know that your child feels they do not get from you what they need.

It is. With all my heart Copa, I agree. It kills to see them fall. It kills, to know they hate us. It kills, to learn they see us as fools, or as a potential inheritance, or as frauds.

I have a son. I am none of the things he names me; yet, those are the words that describe my relationship to this child. Beneath the shame of it?

Is rage.

That is where we need to take this, Copa. It started for me with SWOT's posts about abusive adult children. That is where I began to see. I don't want to see it; don't want to see the truth in the heart of this son of mine. As I learn to negate and refute FOO shame I am becoming angrier about the words my son uses to describe me.

You are going there too, Copa.

That is why we are doing this thread. To heal and to be strong and whole. To turn our kids around or to survive leaving them behind us. To lay claim to the rest of our lives, to lay claim to the women that we are and to the men that we love.

I am so ready to lay that wounded mother persona to rest. It is what it is.

Time to stand alone.

that he will never attain the functioning where I feel that I did right by him, to feel that by adopting him there really was the redemption story that I hoped for, for either of us.

That is where we fall apart. Right there in that place where we feel we have not done well by them or our situations with them would not exist. Regarding the redemption, Copa...the failure there is your son's.

You did your part ~ and more ~ with generosity and determination and love.

The only thing missing, for you and for me too, is public recognition of the wonderful mothers we were. We will go easily without that public affirmation, once we stop accusing ourselves.

But there is something in us as mothers, that needs to feel a sense of completion.

I believe there is a genetic imperative in a mother to be the mother, to see her child as a child and to devote her life to keeping her "child" safe, until the child is successfully separated from the mom.

I do believe it is a genetic thing. There are too many of us here on the site who just cannot let go of children in their twenties and thirties and forties.

Oh, wait.

That was just me. With the children in their forties, I mean.

That was a joke.

Because it seems I cannot not be close to him. I must find a way to change.

I have been trying to be better and better. I think that does not help the kids. But here is the secret thing I think I know this morning: It could be that nothing is going to help the kids. It could be that what happened to the kids never had a thing to do with us, any more than kids who do well have been motivated by their mothers.

I am going to remember that the next time one of my friends brags about her kids. (Actually, I was just talking to the professor at the Ivy League school mom. She says she was a terrible, crazy, wild mom. Her child did what he did in spite of her and loves her like crazy to this day.)

So, there you go.

If we had been worse moms, our kids may have chosen a different direction and even, may have had a gratitude bone in their bodies.

roar

(I must be getting healthier this morning. Good.)

I have never seen M's mother judge herself harshly. At the same time I have never known anybody with such purity of intent. Her expectations of herself are very, very high. Yet her expectations are of herself, not of any outcome. While her children love and respect her, she does not need their favor or expect it. I do not know how to be like this.

M's mother is a good mother to you.

For those raised as we were Copa, we are our own worst enemies because of the words we use to describe ourselves and our situations to ourselves. That is what we are changing through the work we are doing on this thread: The words we use to create and validate self concept. Even if it doesn't feel right ~ maybe especially when it doesn't feel right to describe ourselves to ourselves in healthy ways ~ that is what we need to do. It is hard to know what is real. It is easy to fall into the trap of describing ourselves so glowingly in our internal worlds that we experience dissonance when confronted with the challenges of the external world. This is where Brene Brown's concept of "leaning in" comes in.

Sit with the discomfort of teaching yourself your son's behaviors are not only his responsibility but that they are wrong and he is being less the man than you raised him to be in treating you the way that he does.

I am doing that too Copa. It's a very different look at the world which puts responsibility for the action taken on the person who took the action. We are not responsible for the bad behaviors of others. We are not the root cause of someone else's disparagement or judgment. Everyone is looking for someone to blame. Let them.


I need the love and favor of my child, and I do not know how to win it, and at the same time be true to myself.

Every parent needs the love and favor of their child. For the vast majority of parents, the positive regard their children hold for them is never in question.

We do not have that.

The reason is because we take the blame for the things the kids knowingly do ~ things they know, and we know, that are opposite to the correct thoughts, actions, and values we taught them. The other ugliness to our situations is that if the kids can blame us and if we will take the blame for the things they knowingly do that are wrong, that are in direct opposition to the ways they were raised, they will come to hate us because they hate themselves once the consequences of their bad choices kick in.

That is how I see it this morning. The first step in making our ways out of the trap is to expect respect ~ from ourselves, in our own thinking about ourselves, and then, once we stop wobbling, from our kids and the others in our lives.

Including sisters.

Small steps are okay.

My son has infinite respect for this man. And none for us, neither M nor me. I do not know how this happened that I am not respected or valued by my son. I asked M, just now, if he thinks it is racism.

Does the man require loyalty, does he expect a strict code of behavior, does he demand that your son be the best he can be?

Maybe that is the answer.

I think that is the reason behind much of what we see in our young men in this time. They want to be heroes. That is the male's role, to be a hero. A strong, moral, upstanding hero of a man. Our society no longer allows men to be heroes.

I think that could be the underlying attraction.

That is what my son tells me. When he is talking to me, that is. Which he isn't, right now.

For heaven's sake!

roar

Good. I don't want to hear from him until he is a hero in his own eyes. That is when he will respect and cherish his own mother ~ when he can respect himself as a man.

It feels like the Groucho Marx line: I wouldn't join a club that would have me as a member.

I am a very white woman. I cannot speak to the racism issue with any authority because I get it that I don't get it. But this hurts me. I am sorry for this happening to you, Copa. My granddaughters talk to me about what it is like to be not white, not blue eyed.

If you don't want me, I don't want you. Punish him for how much he hurts me.

You could do that, Copa. Or, you could address the hurt little girl inside. Can you hear her, Copa? She doesn't know a different truth than the one someone told her when she was little.

And they lied. They lied to that little girl about that like they lied to her about everything.

It isn't that he doesn't want you, Copa. Your son is too young to know what a mother is. What he doesn't want is what he had. He wants to be a man, now.

Wish him well, gird your loins, and let go, Copa.

If he wanted what you want for him, none of this would be happening. He has to walk a different path. Love him enough to let him do it without letting it destroy you.

Expect him to become the man you raised him to be.

M says I should ask my son the next time he calls who he is calling for, his mother or his friend from the Big City.

You absolutely should do that, Copa. With a vengeance.

I wish he would come here. Isn't that nutty?

No. I think that for both you and me Copa, our sons will come home only when they are men.

Good.

We don't want these whiny, blaming sons. A man is what I want my son to be, too.

I cannot live without him or with him.

This time is a gift in a way, Copa. Now you have every tool, every reason, and all the time in the world to relearn Copa. It is impossible for us to remother ourselves in healthy ways when we are beating ourselves up for being bad moms to our rebel sons and daughters. We need to stop listening to those negative tapes planted in our brains by parents or other predatory opportunists so worthless they abused their own and other people's children. We have to fight to erase their influences and nurture ourselves properly.

You cannot live with or without him as you are now, Copa.

:O)

I want him to love me. And I want to love him. Both of these are problematic of late.

Copa, you are so funny! "...problematic of late."

I love that.

But I think the truth about love is that we don't get to choose it. We don't get to turn it on or turn it off. "Those we love are simply those we love." That is Anne Rice.

You do love him.

He does love you.

It just doesn't look like what you thought it would.

My son loves me, too. His heart is filled with love for me. He just doesn't name it that way. He thinks it is hate he feels, or blame, or rage.

But I know different, because I am old now and have loved and hated a million times over.

My son feels a great deal for me. However this works out in the real world, he does love me or he would be indifferent to me. I do love him or I would be indifferent to him. Whether we name it love or we name it hate, we are deeply, irrevocably, connected.

This is true, Copa.

Don't let your son tell you who you are or how you feel.

He can feel whatever he likes. He is like, twenty. He knows nothing whatsoever of the meaning of love.

The white concrete floor is more practical than one would think. We can mop it.

We are going to tile the remaining areas. If we ever stop having company. The kitchen, entry, and dining room are the prettiest slate tiles. We should have tiled the other areas when we replaced the carpeting. Slate will be very cold so we have been reluctant to do that.

Maybe Copa, I will leave it at cement until next year when we come back.

That is an excellent idea.

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I should have thrown many people out of my club because of the way they treated me and I'm sorry that I let them in to play with my emotions for so long. However, when it's your child, there's a lot more to it and it could end up hurting you more than him.

I really like the clarity of this SWOT, and the reality it presents.

Me centric reality; not what-did-I-do-to-deserve-this reality, and not how-can-I-welcome-myself-and-those-I-love-into-the-reality-I-want-for-all-of-us reality. There are people who treat us badly because that is what they want to do. It isn't that they don't know any better. It isn't that they don't mean to do what they do.

We do not control anything about what they do or how they think.

But we do control whether we are going to play "Remnants of Toxic Family" with them. Family Freud, right, SWOT? That is the only game they want to play. They will play it whether we watch or not. Lowest common denominator, and mob rule wins out.

I am happy I see it this way now.

Daughter visited with the family of the young woman born with spina bifida the day after the 4th of July. It was a great visit. The topic of conversation was my mother and my sister and what these past years have been like for that family.

So much needless, useless, pointless pain.

roar

My mother and my sister disgust me.

Like it always is even when I am talking about myself in the present or myself in my childhood, I do not understand how they can view what they are doing as a win. What could their motivations possibly be?

It is not easy to throw anybody who is supposed to love us out of our club. I actually had to be forced to do it by them. Looking back I could kick myself for not letting my mother go as soon as

Me, too.

Which makes me quite wonderful. To believe in the good in them when this is what they wanted all along, I mean.

And which makes each of them something very much less than wonderful.

No wonder we refused to believe they could be doing what it looked like they were doing. No wonder we concluded they didn't know any better or that there was something we were missing, some magic key that would have us all coming through this successfully.

Their mindsets must be so different as to be utterly alien to us.

Cedar

I have been thinking alot about vulnerability created around the issues of what happened to all of us when my kids did what they did. I have been thinking about being so desperate to know where I had gone wrong or how to address it that I talked honestly to my sister or my mother about how scared I was, about how confused I was.

And I have been thinking about the eye rolling, and the contempt smile, and that sense of their ascendance that seemed to roll off them because I was so vulnerable.

Isn't that something.

Cedar
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
My mother and my sister disgust me.

Like it always is even when I am talking about myself in the present or myself in my childhood, I do not understand how they can view what they are doing as a win. What could their motivations possibly be?
I'm glad you are finally at "disgust." You were making excuses at first.

I can't say disgust is a word I think of when I think of "them" (and they are on my mind a lot less lately). It's more repulsion, but not because they are repulsive human beings. To others maybe they aren't. The repulsion comes for what I know I heard from them and how I allowed it for so long. That's w hat repulses me. My own behavior. And, unlike you two, I was not under any delusions that my mother and sister were intrinsically nice. I knew the things they did were over-the-top mean. I knew it just by observing other families. Even the less functional ones didn't toss this one and that one out of their lives. I have never heard of a sibling calling the cops on her sibling for trying to find out why she was angry, except for my "special" sister. I knew my mother was a whack job early on. I was very aware t hat I did not know much about my brother too. I did not engage them because I thought they were good people. My sister and I DID have fun times, but I had been burned by her so many times that thinking she was a loving sister and nice person...well, I knew better. Mother, when alive, I never liked her. She never liked me. No fiction there.

I engaged them because I wanted to end my life on t his earth on good terms with my FOO. I will now just have to deal with whatever the afterlife brings me as I won't play anymore.

Cedar, back to you. You are seeing the FOO with clear eyes now. You are not fooling yourself that you can change them. So they disgust you. So they should.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
If he wanted what you want for him, none of this would be happening. He has to walk a different path. Love him enough to let him do it without letting it destroy you.
Although I am positive Id be horrified if any of my kids took the path of drugs, no job, etc...and for selfish reason that it isn't what I raised them to be and it looks bad and feels bad to me, I do not have expectations for my adult kids (except that they do join society and do what they should do).

Sonic would be easy for somebody to reject, which is why I'm glad God gave him to us. We have always accepted his differences and the help he needs as an adult and don't want him to be different. He is himself and wonderful. Princess turned out really well...such a sweetheart; such a tremendous mom. BuddhaBaby is really reaping the benefits of having had a full time mom and dad her first four months of life (Dad was on unemployment and decided to spend as much time with the baby as he could until it ran out). I did not criticize or judge. The baby is better off having been with them rather than in daycare. Jumlper is going great both as a person and as a hard worker, certain of her career path and certain of what s he wants in life. Even Bart, after a rough start, is a loving presence for his boy, works hard, has a house and all the trimmings. None of my adult kids are setting the world on fire.They quietly do their lives.

So what?

Being successful in business doesn't make anyone happy.

And you often compromise family life for your job, if it becomes too important.

"Give th em roots to grow and wings to fly." I believe in this.

Copa, your son will find out what he wants to do and can do. And you will get used to the fact that he didn't go to college.

I was never one who felt college made you a success. Saw too many people who went a nd were not really doing any better than those who did not.

I didn't like school. Of course, school, next to my mother, was my biggest trauma both because of the elementary school bullying and my inability to focus or concentrate and, in the end, giving up without either of m y parens giving one hoot if I got all D's. They didn't exactly encourage me to try so I just went with my feelings...I didn't like school. I would have done better in a non-conventional school.

I love to learn and, when I need to, I learn. I probably know more about certain subjects than many college graduates. Psychology is one of them. How dogs tick is another. I once knew more about what was going on in the world than most people. When I want to learn, I don't let go until I've gobbled it up.

Copa, whatever your son decides to do with his life, embrace it. He will find something one day. And he will, whether he says so or not, want your approval.
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
because I was so vulnerable.
WE ALL BECAME SCAPEGOATS BECAUSE WE WERE VULNERABLE.

This is the dysfunctional family rule. Find the damaged one, the weaker one, the sensitive one and make him/her the fault of everything wrong in the family.

But we aren't going to let that happen anymore, Right?

As Cedar says....

**ROAR!!!*** :yess:
 

Copabanana

Well-Known Member
This is the beginning of a mission statement. Thank you Cedar and SWOT.
Why do you feel guilty for taking a stand for yourself, Copa? What are the negative tapes saying and who is speaking?
My child is in danger and it is my fault.

By this It seems as if I am taking direct responsibility for the failure of my parents to care for me. Not only is it my fault that I did not receive care and protection. It seems as if in identifying with my mother, I am taking on her failures, her crimes, as if I did them. As if I am the perpetrator.

In this sense I feel as if I am repeating the failures of my mother with my own son. Both in the sense that I cause him to fail, and also in the sense of intent, my mother's intent towards me, to deliberately choose herself, and to deliberately not choose me. None of this is conscious, of course. That is, I do not in my conscious mind believe these things to be true.
The little girl that you were when she taught you who you were needs you to save her, Copa.
the Rose, her four thorns all she has against the world, the unmuzzled sheep hungry
I am my own little flower. And I will take care of her, myself.

The way out is to re-parent myself. To go back and give that child what she needed, truer ways to see herself in the world and better ways to protect herself in it.

To take a stand to heal by declaring I am worth care. Declare my intention to care for myself. To declare false the belief I was not cared for because I was not worth being cared for.

The problem is I forget. I have it in my mind one day, and cannot hold it there.

As well as rooting out false beliefs I need what I will call a dedicated structure of self-care.

For myself, I must do all of the things that a good mother does:

Pay attention.

Monitor.

Feed.

Clean.

Clothe

Take my well dressed child outside

Sleep

Recreation.

Constantly implement routines and practices to keep her child safe.

Correct bad habits in a patient, kind of loving manner and patiently teach new ones.

Help the child as she develops to understand herself and her world.

Help the child develop strong boundaries and maintain them.

Building confidence

Identifying goals

Supporting friendships

Appropriate beliefs and expectations.

Seeking out fun and opportunities to learn.

Go places.

Our problems with our children stem from conflating what happened in our FOO and what is happening with our children.

When our children act out or fall we look for the cause, but not too long or too far.

Because immediately we raise our hand and say Me. Me. I did it. It is my fault.
Right there in that place where we feel we have not done well by them or our situations with them would not exist.
Our default is both to take the blame. (In my case, I think I may accuse myself of mal-intent. And taking the responsibility for having to fix it.

At the same time we get angry and defend ourselves from the accusations that we hurl at ourselves. This renders me useless in dealing with present time, because I am totally preoccupied by defending myself even if my son is not accusing or judging me.

I think there is a generalized arousal that happens to us when our kids are at risk. Emotions are heightened. Adrenaline flows. We become feverish and desperate to find a remedy. We may initially try to solve a problem constructively. When the solution is not immediately successful we become more desperate, and whatever internal locus of control we had, is lost. We may initially try to ward off the self-accusation that we failed them, but soon lose that fight.

Our default explanation is that our children’s problems are our fault. We caused them and we need to fix them.

Because historically we felt everything was our fault.

We came to this belief based upon how we were treated by our mothers when we were little.

We adopted their attributions about us, what we will call the internalized punitive mother. Everything is your fault. You are a bad girl.

We came to believe this about ourselves and on some level and to some degree still do.

We have introjected a punitive mother as part of our personality. We are pre-disposed to take responsibility for all that goes wrong, and to accuse ourselves that is our fault.

In reality we were such good little girls that we decided we would do exactly what our mothers seemed to want and need us to do--take responsibility for punishing ourselves for what went wrong. All by ourselves. In our mother's absence, we learned to monitor the situations we found ourselves in and to find and accept culpability and to mete out punishment. To ourselves.

Still, we know when we deserve punishment. When bad things happen to our children. We know we have caused it. Perhaps even wanted it (in my case.) We punish ourselves for the bad things we have caused.

We have been programmed to beat ourselves up.

Our built in judicial function assesses our children's condition. In accordance to how we assess their condition, good or bad, we assess ourselves as mothers and we assess our value as people.

This justice meting reflex is so conditioned, and so brutal, as to be killing of vitality, of hope, of enjoyment, and in my case, functioning.
It kills to see them fall.
Change for us comes begins with developing awareness of this punitive dynamic of self-blame and self-attack. At the same time each of us needs a toolbox, a kit of practices whereby we re-parent ourselves.

This is essential because our self-care capacity has atrophied. We have an over-developed superego, the part of the personality that looks for transgressions and punishes them. But other necessary elements of self-care involved with protecting and nourishing the self are lacking.

The role of a mother in her care of her child, broadly defined, involves 4 main roles that I can think about right now: love, care, protection, and teaching. Our mothers failed us in each of these capacities. The one thing they succeeded at was teaching us to blame ourselves for what went wrong in our environment, up to and including the fact that we needed and wanted good treatment from their, punish ourselves for transgressions, including wanting too much or perhaps, anything at all.

It is our job now in relation to the little girls we were and the adult women we grew into to correct these deficiencies of mothering. The goal will be to temper the cruel superego, that blaming and punishing mother that was introjected. I for one will seek to build a loving and protective relationships with myself and the little girl that I was.

This involves developing empathy for who we I am and who I have been.

Adopting habits of self-care and self-protection, the practices and habits that will nourish me and keep me safe.

I will learn self-defense to advocate for myself, with myself and with others.

I will call this constructing a self protective mother instead of a brutally punitive and self-blaming one.

When I become afraid for my child, my default now is aggression and anger turned inward against myself.

The goal is to learn to come to my own aid in times of doubt, fear and uncertainty. The goal is not to be mean to others. The goal is to tell the truth to myself about my relationship to myself and my child. I will learn to protect myself from self-accusation and that I perceive or receive from others by developing firm and adequate boundaries in relation to others. When I achieve the above described aims, and am accountable to myself as a good parent to myself and my son, I will be able to become an effective advocate for myself.
It is impossible for us to remother ourselves in healthy ways when we are beating ourselves up for being bad moms
As we are now, when we begin to beat ourselves up, we abandon our real, necessary adult role as mothers of adult children. We are too busy re-enacting our childhood role as guilty of everything, fereting out the ways we were bad and punishing ourselves for them; too busy beating up the bad child introject.

As we persist with this bad habit, all of our energy goes there. Energy os used that could be used to live life in the here and now, in all its potential variations and possibilities. Energy is dissapated that could be dedicated to developing as people; energy for loving ourselves and others, is lost.

This changing will require making a fundamental pivot, taking a stand, what I will refer to as holding myself as valuable as worthy, living as if I am valuable, by fiat.

In deciding to hold myself as valuable I will be taking a stand for my son, for our relationship, and for myself. I will learn to stand alone for my adult child, to not need him to do or be one single thing to justify my love, my faith, my acceptance and my hope. So that he too in time will stand alone for himself.

In holding myself as valuable I will work from a conscious, non-negotiable and affirmative understanding of who we are and what our relationship is. This involves telling myself the complete, real truth about my situation and defining the situation from an adult perspective based upon who I am now, and who I want to be. I will also include here the need for an affirmative and conscious understanding of who my son is, and specifically define his responsibilities to me as well as my own, to me.

This conscious and deliberate beliefs I hold of my son value and potential and my own, as well, will be built of love, faith, respect, trust, hope, and tolerance. Of course, I will need to study and re-study these foundational building blocks, in order to practice them. Because none of these wonderful things were taught to me. Rather they were held as quite laughable and of no value what so ever by my family. I have great regret that I did not know to teach them to my son. It pains me that because of this lapse, he does not hold many of these things as valuable or useful.

I will learn to have great restraint towards, empathy for and charity of sentiment for my child, which I will act from without words.
He is like, twenty. He knows nothing whatsoever of the meaning of love.
His heart is filled with love for me. He just doesn't name it that way. He thinks it is hate he feels, or blame, or rage.
Don't let your son tell you who you are or how you feel.
I know my son loves me. I must qualify this by stating that I know that I lose touch with this reality when I regress to become the bad girl, the guilty girl, the punished little girl. When I beat myself, there is nothing that can convince me that I am loved.

Instead, I am looking to be forgiven, absolved, pardoned, and reassured. This is not the work of my child. It is not his job to take away the pains of my childhood.
A man is what I want my son to be, too.
I will respect my son, who at 26 is now chronologically a man, as the man he will be. He deserves and wants to be a responsible man. I am responsible for not getting in his way.
Regarding the redemption, Copa...the failure there is your son's.
I will hold my son responsible for himself. I will take a stand for the relationship by apportioning responsibility where it belongs. But at the same time I will be strong enough to identify ways to support and help him in a way that does not get in his way.

I will learn to listen and not react.

Did I tell you? I forgot if I did or not. My son called in the late afternoon. He voluntarily asked to be admitted for emergency treatment. He said he did so because he knows that he cannot continue as he was, living as he was. He was about to be transported to a facility for a two week stay.

He listened to me. Remember I suggested strongly that he return to treatment, as a way to respond to the struggles he was facing, being taken advantage of, flailing, lack of direction. He listened.

Whether for respite or to change or some other instrumental purpose, he chose a potentially positive influence and outcome, rather than continuing to struggle and fall behind. However he defines it to himself, he chose something better. I am grateful. I am proud.

While I hope he extends his stay (the next phase is 3 months, I think) I will respect him to identify his best option, as he sees it. M and I will leave for the new far away city, and make this our priority.

Had I protected him, had I harbored him, had I compromised my needs, had I compromised our space, he would not have independently come to the realization that he had to do something, and go ahead and do.

While I understand that this decision might have been a means to an end, other than treatment, that is a way to get more comfortable housing, the fact that he entertained and accepted treatment as a way to get his needs met, shows a level of acceptance of his situation. I am grateful for what it is.
Whether we name it love or we name it hate, we are deeply, irrevocably, connected.
"Those we love are simply those we love."
I am aware that I am limited in how I understand love and relationship. And the container in which I hold relationship has been limited by early and bitter experience.

I need to acknowledge that the way I am able to love is way bigger and stronger than how love was experienced in relationship with my FOO.

I need to change my deepest understanding of relationship, of the ties that bind, to make room for me to be angry, my son to be rejecting, and to develop a confidence in our love, and a definition of such that allows both of us the room to change and grow, to fail and flounder. And to hold every other thing whether fair or foul. Even failure or falling. Even separation:
He has to walk a different path. Love him enough to let him do it without letting it destroy you.

Love for me needs to be defined as that which can or will contain everything that will come or will not come. I love my son. Whatever comes. And there will never be a time when I will not. To be love, for us, will not need to be sweet, or gratifying, or spoken. It can feel bad. No matter what it is or says, it is love. Our love can be anything it needs to be because it is something beyond and below and above anything that can ever touch it. It precedes all of it and it will outlive it. Nothing can subordinate it or eliminate it. It is beyond conscious will to change or modify, or even to describe.

However this does not mean that our treatment of each other or ourselves, can be any of these things.
You cannot live with or without him as you are now, Copa.
And I expect growth for each of us. And there is as much time as each of us needs. But the expectation of him, of myself is responsibility for self.

This process is aspirational for both of us. Which underscores the importance of hope, trust and faith. The belief in the possibility not the guarantee that both of us can change. That there is always hope. That the loss of hope and trust and faith is the enemy of change.
Does the man require loyalty, does he expect a strict code of behavior, does he demand that your son be the best he can be?
No. He is a charming worm. He married a temperamental and strong-willed woman with family money. He has worked in the hotel his whole adult life without authority. When the mother was sick and tired of the two kids he consented to send them away to boarding school, the son to a therapeutic school. This man has shown a lot of kindness and friendship to my son, but he is no one to be admired. M is the male in my son's life who is worthy of admiration. He is the flawed hero.

Further notes on boundaries and locus of control:
We are not responsible for the bad behaviors of others. We are not the root cause of someone else's disparagement or judgment. Everyone is looking for someone to blame. Let them.

I will not let my son tell me who I am, what I feel, and what is my worth. I will not let him define me or my limits.

As I respect myself I will require and expect respect from others.

We are not responsible for bad behavior of others. Weare not responsible for their judgments of us. Let them blame us. It is there right to do so. It has nothing at all to do with us. We are not responsible for how they treat us, whether bad or good.

Final thoughts:
There is a lot of work to be done both conceptual and implementation of practices: Understanding our relationship and the nature of the commitment. Describing and understand old and new ways to see relationships.

The future is in the balance. The ability to claim our own, if theirs is in doubt. Their own future, to write.

Whether my son can ever stand alone, the expectation will be mine that I will stand alone, not requiring the admiration, devotion or reflection of my child or any other person, to feel OK.
 
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