If anyone is near a Codapendents Ananymous group, they are REALLY into talking out loud and sharing shame and the shame we feel. I think we critiqued almost every book mentioned here (not all...I have a few to read). It was a brand new thought..."I didn't cause this; I don't deserve to feel so ashamed." It was hard to unlearn it. I still feel it at times.
It is so hard not to take it personally and to feel it is not our faults when our children don't turn out to have the values we tried to teach them and when our families do not have that white picket fence that we wanted so badly. I know it first hand. I have learned significant things from CODA so that I am in a better place than I would have been without it, however I am still glad my most problematic child, 35, lives so far away so that I don't have to explain him to anybody. Nobody knows what he is doing...nobody except you and Al-Anon. He is a secret.
My ex and I spent YEARS keeping him afloat, before I ever heard of this board so the worst of it was over by the time I found you and he was married and leaving us alone. But I made him leave the house after he almost slapped me and he walked around that night homeless. And he found refuge with his "friend" who he mistreated, but who had a liking for him and the family took him in and called to yell at me for kicking my son out in the cold. Tears ran down my face. The mother asked me, in a really nasty way, if I didn't want to speak to my son and ask him to come home. I told her I did not. I was afraid of him. She laughed meanly and hung up on me. I felt about one inch high. The fact that sh e ended up kicking him out about two months later didn't make me feel any sick sort of "ha,ha, told you so" victory. He was on the streets again. I and my ex felt we had to at least make sure he did not wander the streets aimlessly.
Eventually, my ex, another enabler, bought a condo in the area JUST TO HOUSE difficult child who did not appreciate the generous, amazing gesture. But he was no longer homeless and living in hotel rooms that ex paid for. He lived in a Super 8 hotel for a few months until the condo happened and certainly he had no money to pay for it. I felt horrible for having kicked him out too, although he had gotten very scary, and I'd bring him food and keep him company. Nothing was expected of him. We just wanted to keep him warm and safe.
Until CODA, years later, shame was my middle name. I have learned I'm not responsible for his spurning our values. He is, after all, a separate person and made his own choices and created his own values.
Barbara, you have tried so hard to help everyone here with your wonderful responses to us when we are in pain. I don't know if this helped, but I felt the need to reach out to you and, if you were here, I'd give you a big hug. I understand everything you said.
