Is it ever ok to just be "done?"

[Tired Mom]

But, it is possible for an addict to have an actual personality disorder. In which case, the problem doesn't go away with sobriety.

The above is my son. When we brought my son back from rehab/sober living rehab he was really a very ugly person the first two or three weeks. On his very first day I don't think my husband and I thought he would last a week. Once he got a job and started working he became more bearable. Also he has had two girlfriends and at those times we have had to watch ourselves to not getting our hopes up because in those times he has acted so much more like the son we wish we had.

I too do have that ability to be just do done with people and just have apathy. It is sad I am there with both of my parents. Sometimes I cry because I can see that is where I am slowly heading with my son. I think what is wrong with me that I can just be done with my parents and child when everyone seems to just talk about how wonderful and perfect their parents and children are. I cry because I think that once he finally pushes me to be done that I think that I will be permanently done. They play the James Bay song let it go on the radio a lot right now. Not all of the verses fit because he is singing about a couple and not the parent child relationship but some of them I listen to and think I need to listen to this advice to let my son be him and me be me.

 

[BusynMember]

I have the same ability to say good bye if I'm treated like dirt for years. After trying until my heart broke to connect with my mother, and having that fail, I stopped caring. She died after SHE had chosen not to see me for 10-15 years, the exact time eludes me. I did not mourn her. It felt like a total stranger had passed.

Goneboy was harder but I moved on from him too and stopped needing him in my life. Enough is enough.

I think it is helpful if one can let go of people who are cruel to them after we have tried and tried. The other option is to live a tortured life over people we can't change or control.

I would rather be able to move on.

 

[rebelson]

Walrus,

I wish I had more of your anger & 'doneness'. Ha. Our Difficult Child's are similar in lots of ways, not all though. But, I can tell that your dtr really gets under your skin.

As for the verbal abuse from my son, I seem mostly unfazed by it, in the 'anger' aspect. Now, when he calls me in rages and saying awful, wretched, crazzzzy things to and about me, I get 'a sick and terrified' feeling. Not anger so much. If I do feel anger the next day, it's because I am totally pissed that he put me through that terror. I could see THOSE kinds of calls pushing me to near 'doneness', but not the things he says so much.

Actually, it's kind of interesting, this is. That I do not really reach the point of anger when he calls me demeaning me, cutting me down. You know what I think it is? I am able to step back and take what he says for what it is. Untrue BS, coming from an addict with real issues. I apparently seem really able to separate myself from the insults. One factor that could be different, is that my verbally abusive d_c is a male and yours is a female. Would I get more ticked if my d_c were a dtr? Good question!

Now, if a sober friend of mine did this to me, I think I'd be pissed and DONE.

Reacting as I do might seem tempting. But, there are drawbacks, I see this now. Because I do not really feel a true anger reaction to him in these rants, my reaction is just to hang up and then when he calls me again (next hour, day or week), like nothing occurred? I seem to be happy and normal just like he is. I say nothing of the ranting, raging, vitriol-filled phone call. In other words, he is never 'held accountable' by me, for the things he said. Or, for the sick feeling, terror he put me through.

This has been sending him a bad, bad message. A message that it is OK to do so to me. This is very untrue. But, that is the message that my lack of a reaction, conveys to him.

It seems that you and I are at opposite extremes and we both need to move closer in.

I don't believe for one second that you are done with her. I believe that if/when one day, she wished to make amends, you'd give it consideration.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am learning so much from this thread.

Cedar

 

[DarkwingPsyduck]

Apathy is perfectly understandable. We can only take so much before we just give up trying. It is like a defense mechanism. Something causes you enough pain, for long enough, the mind will just kind of shut down in regards to whatever is causing the pain. Hard to be hurt when you simply don't give a . In my experience, it is subconscious. It is more bearable to feel nothing than to feel constant pain.

Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional.

 

[DarkwingPsyduck]

The question then is, was she slways this divided and difficult. If she was ,well, borderlines self destruct. They cut. They break the law . They use people. They like drugs.

They see everything in black and white. There is no gray in their world. You are all bad or all good and it can change day to day, but certain behaviors of not getting along with anyone or extreme moodswings etc, may have started in childhood, way before the drugs. They are beginning to study the behaviors of borderline adults as children.


My daughter lied and manipulated during her drug days (although on her worst drug day, she was never mean). She did not lie or manipulate before drugs and doesnt do it now, after drugs. She does not have a personality disorder, although drug use changed her a lot while she did it. She was moody, slept a lot cried often, argued....she was different on drugs.

They are just now discovering that, yes, borderline runs in families. This is new info. Borderlines, antisocials, narcissistics are part of our genepool, even when adopted. Interesting to study. Easygoing temperments are also often hereditary. It is why when adoptive parents meet their childs bithparents, whom neither ever knew, so many are shocked that they are more like bio.family than adoptive family.

I was never mean, either. Or violent. Even while stealing and lying to my aunt, I never ONCE so much as spoke to her with a disrespectful tone. I was always more clever. My sister is the exact opposite. She isn't too clever, or resourceful. She gets what she wants through emotional black mail. I am not saying that I am in any way better than her, just that I am different. And I was equally as wrong. I bet trying to understand me was more difficult for my aunt. At least she always knew what Amanda was up to. I was the snake in the grass. The one with the plan. I sent conflicting signals by always speaking to her with respect, while conniving. Always planning... I am so ashamed for it.... Wish I could take all of it back.

Sister, on the other hand, doesn't feel true remorse. The only regrets she has are getting caught doing what she does. At times, I envy that. Wishing I didn't have to feel the weight of my actions. Then I realize that I SHOULD feel shame. I did shameful things, and I have no right to avoid feeling it. It wouldn't be fair if I didn't. And there would be nothing to stop me from doing it again without it. Amanda feels none, and continues to do what she does.

 

[BusynMember]

I want to check in on forgiveness too. Unless it is something religious and I don't get it, how can you forgive somebody who isn't sorry? I have tried to do it, because it is often recommended but for me it doesn't work. I can certainly do radical acceptance and, say, I admit and accept that my mother did not love me, but she was never sorry for how she treated me and I could never think "I forgive you although you nearly destroyed my heart." Instead, I say "my mother did not love mr. This caused problems for me, but I have/had no control of her. I can let that destroy me or not. I choose to move on."
That is useful to me
Forgiving somebody with no remorse just doesn't do it for me. I forgive anyone for almost anything if they are sorry and I wholeheartedly step up when I am wrong

Forgiveness to me means you have remorse. Or you forgive me because I have remorse
Otherwise, I picture a helium balloon and let go. I let go without malice but I don't see it as forgiveness
Just my boring speel.

 

[Copabanana]

I for one discount the importance of diagnosis because I know how subjective it can be. Now, I understand this flies in the face of certain illnesses that are considered to be genetically based. But the reality is we really do not know enough.

For example in a certain Scandinavian nation, Finland, I believe, it has been said that there is scarcely Schizophrenia, because it requires 6 months duration of psychosis. And because there seems to be a highly effective community based response to both afflicted individual and family--the psychosis does not continue long enough to meet the 6 month criteria.

Well, drug addiction itself often presents as personality disorders.

This is true. And so does adolescence itself!!

I also think that sometimes people change...even the most unlikely ones...so it doesn't have to be forever...but it might be.

Both my mother and my sister had/have personality disorders in my book. But the reality is that I too have a different personality structure that exerts strong influence over how I see the world and how I respond.

Everybody has a personality, and it really does have a subjective component, whether or not you think I am disordered or not. Did everybody think Richard Nixon was a narcissist before Watergate? Or Donald Trump, before he decided to run for president--and everybody got mad at him?

Even those with mental health issues can get better if they try. If we put up with the behavior, what is their incentive to try?

I agree with this.

how can you forgive somebody who isn't sorry?

Well, they say forgiveness is for the person herself, and has nothing to do with the forgiven at all.

I believe that the work I did on FOO chronicles, while I would not call it forgiveness as much as letting go, allowed me to take back my power with my sister, and find some measure of peace about my mother.

I think of my sister but I hardly ever anymore think about what she did to me, which used to eat me up. I could not bear even to think about the way she would intentionally victimize me or hurt me. Now there can be a gnawing, but only slightly and occasionally.

My sister I guess still thinks of me in the same way. She feels I am the guilty party and would never ever consider her acts in any way as unwarranted transgressions.

The thing is, what do I care what she thinks? It is I who define myself.

I think we can get to this place with our children if we accept that our mental states do not have to be determined by theirs or them.

 

[InsaneCdn]

In order for there to be something to forgive, there has to be a problem - hurt, pain, anger, loss.
When I am on the receiving end of these, I have to choose how I handle it, for ME. I can either continue to carry the hurt/pain/anger/loss, or I can learn how to release it (not "let it go" like a balloon, but release it like a muscle knot, working it out). Part of that is the provision of forgiveness.

However. My forgiveness toward the perpetrator does the perpetrator no good, unless that person is truly repentant for what they have done.

Therefore, my gift of forgiveness is first to myself, and second to set the stage for the other to know being forgiven. It doesn't release the other person unless they seek to be released.

I had to work through this myself, in order to set myself free.

 

[Copabanana]

When I am on the receiving end of these, I have to choose how I handle it, for ME. I can either continue to carry the hurt/pain/anger/loss, or I can learn how to release it (not "let it go" like a balloon, but release it like a muscle knot, working it out). Part of that is the provision of forgiveness.

I think the word release is apt. In this sense, which I got off google: allow or enable to escape from confinement; set free.

It is ourselves who we set free from the chains in which we had tied ourselves in a relationship of victimization by another. It is for each of us to understand for what reason we maintained this relationship of bondage.

Therefore, my gift of forgiveness is first to myself, and second to set the stage for the other to know being forgiven. It doesn't release the other person unless they seek to be released.

It is the other person's responsibility and right to decide whether or not they want to maintain their own bondage. There are many reasons why people choose this. For example, avoidance of taking responsibility for their own behavior, choices; or wanting a scapegoat upon whom to blame their own shady choices. See. If you have hurt me I can tell myself I have a reason to retaliate against you, to take what is yours, enjoy seeing you hurt. I can do all of these things, while blaming you. It is a master-slave relationship. Everybody is harmed.

It is this kind of dynamic that enables our children to blame all of their problems on us while they keep choosing to dig themselves in deeper.

 

[TheWalrus]

The best way to describe it for me isn't anger. I don't feel angry. I am done feeling anything except vague discomfort when she does public things to shame me. Even that has less and less impact on me. It is more like I have taken my ball and gone home. I don't want to play anymore. I am tired of running back and forth, serving that ball, hoping for a response, a team effort in our relationship. I have just accepted that this is who she is and she has no interest in a relationship with me beyond gaining or taking something. I have accepted that there is not one thing I can do to change her; she has to do it herself. Like SWOT said about her mother, I feel like she is a stranger. Truly a stranger, and I don't know her at all. And I don't want to know this person because she is so abusive. I have decided I am tired of the verbal abuse, emotional blackmail, fear tactics, public shame and embarrassment, backstabbing, lying, manipulation. I am just picking up my ball and going home.

Rebel - If she only did these things when she was using, I might be able to just put the blame on the drugs, not let it affect me. She doesn't. She can sometimes be worse when she is sober, and she intentionally will say the most hurtful, personal things she can think of.

She texted me a happy Mother's Day today. First contact in over a month. I felt nothing except, "I wonder what she is up to," because she hasn't wished me a happy Mother's Day or birthday or Merry Christmas in longer than I can remember. My instinct was to delete it and ignore it because it means nothing to me. I just texted a thank you and then deleted it. It wouldn't have hurt me had she not acknowledged the day, but it means nothing to me that she did.

 

[DarkwingPsyduck]

The best way to describe it for me isn't anger. I don't feel angry. I am done feeling anything except vague discomfort when she does public things to shame me. Even that has less and less impact on me. It is more like I have taken my ball and gone home. I don't want to play anymore. I am tired of running back and forth, serving that ball, hoping for a response, a team effort in our relationship. I have just accepted that this is who she is and she has no interest in a relationship with me beyond gaining or taking something. I have accepted that there is not one thing I can do to change her; she has to do it herself. Like SWOT said about her mother, I feel like she is a stranger. Truly a stranger, and I don't know her at all. And I don't want to know this person because she is so abusive. I have decided I am tired of the verbal abuse, emotional blackmail, fear tactics, public shame and embarrassment, backstabbing, lying, manipulation. I am just picking up my ball and going home.

Rebel - If she only did these things when she was using, I might be able to just put the blame on the drugs, not let it affect me. She doesn't. She can sometimes be worse when she is sober, and she intentionally will say the most hurtful, personal things she can think of.

She texted me a happy Mother's Day today. First contact in over a month. I felt nothing except, "I wonder what she is up to," because she hasn't wished me a happy Mother's Day or birthday or Merry Christmas in longer than I can remember. My instinct was to delete it and ignore it because it means nothing to me. I just texted a thank you and then deleted it. It wouldn't have hurt me had she not acknowledged the day, but it means nothing to me that she did.

Do you think apathy more appropriately describes what you are feeling? Like you are just numb to it all at this point? I am apathetic a lot of the time, too.

I forgot Mother's Day . Although, to be perfectly fair, it was always a painful day for me. Especially before I got in with my aunt. I bought my aunt some flowers, and a card. She always wanted children of her own, but couldn't have them. Even without having ever been pregnant, she is an excellent mother. And ALL mothers deserve acknowledgement, and respect.

 

[Copabanana]

She texted me a happy Mother's Day today. First contact in over a month. I felt nothing

Walrus. The way I see it you are putting your relationship with your daughter in a trunk with mothballs.

I remember my mother had a fur cape from the 40's. It was one of those with the head and the feet attached. Like Davy Crockett. It had been the height of fashion. Until it wasn't.

One minute Betty Davis or Joan Crawford looked regal in a fur with feet on it, and the next Audrey Hepburn had a pixie cut and Grace Kelly had pearls.

So what does this have to do with you? Even furs with feet came back. Or could still. You are packing yours away, not donating it or giving it to the dog.

The reason this all is so painful is that children are not supposed to be like furs. When we put our deepest feelings into the trunk, we feel a deep void and emptiness which like it or not we fill with self-judgment or anger or some equally other icky feeling--or as bad--fear that others are doing that about us.

I see what you are doing as neutral. Neither bad or good. But survival. Your daughter is been hurtful to you and dangerous to you. You are packing the relationship away. You could take it out or not. We do not have to make her bad or you bad. It is just not the season or the time. Maybe some day you will decide differently.

 

[DarkwingPsyduck]

In order for there to be something to forgive, there has to be a problem - hurt, pain, anger, loss.
When I am on the receiving end of these, I have to choose how I handle it, for ME. I can either continue to carry the hurt/pain/anger/loss, or I can learn how to release it (not "let it go" like a balloon, but release it like a muscle knot, working it out). Part of that is the provision of forgiveness.

However. My forgiveness toward the perpetrator does the perpetrator no good, unless that person is truly repentant for what they have done.

Therefore, my gift of forgiveness is first to myself, and second to set the stage for the other to know being forgiven. It doesn't release the other person unless they seek to be released.

I had to work through this myself, in order to set myself free.

There we go. This is what I was trying to describe, and you just did it perfectly.

 

[BusynMember]

Insane Canadian, you explained it better than me. Thank you.
However I don't need to do the forgiveness part. It doesn't help me move on. It creates no feelings at all except apathy. So I skip that step.

I am not angry. I just no longer feel the hurt. My focus switches to those I love dearly who reciprocate. Life's too short and precious to me to spend time on people who are not interested in me. I give them a pass, but forgiving people who don't care does not seem useful to my recovery. Trust me, I tried, but it just feels empty and useless. So I use what does work for me. My motto: whatever works is good

 

[TheWalrus]

I wouldn't say it is truly apathy, because I do care what happens to her. I don't want her to hurt or do something that continues to put herself in harm's way, but I don't want to know, either. If I know, I am trapped with these hopeless and helpless feelings - like watching someone you love be tortured but not being able to step in and stop it, even though she is doing it to herself. So I would rather not see or know.

I don't want to hear from her because right now it would be nothing but pain. I think Copa put it in the best analogy - I am just packing her away for now, and forgetting her as much as I can. She is still there and there is always a possibility, however slight, that I may take that relationship back out. This time I am putting it all on her to make that happen so I accept it may stay packed away for a long time. Maybe forever. But I have done all I can and if I continue, I only hurt myself and the ones who love me without helping her at all. So it is time to just stop.

I was discussing this with a very good friend yesterday. People who don't have these kinds of issues just don't get it. All adult children go through rough patches, need help, need some support. These are "normal adult kid" problems. This isn't, "My car broke down and I need to borrow $500 so I can get to work," and you loan the money, they keep working and slowly pay you back. This isn't, "We are moving but we need somewhere to stay until the house gets ready," and they stay short term and move on to their next home. This isn't, "My babysitter quit and can you watch the kids while I work until I can set up something," for a few days. These aren't true, "temporary" hard times that every single person goes through regardless of age and you just need a little help through a rough spot. And people who have never experienced this have no concept and judge you through the lenses of their "normal adult kid problems," while tsk tsk-ing how they would NEVER turn their back on their child.

 

[DarkwingPsyduck]

I wouldn't say it is truly apathy, because I do care what happens to her. I don't want her to hurt or do something that continues to put herself in harm's way, but I don't want to know, either. If I know, I am trapped with these hopeless and helpless feelings - like watching someone you love be tortured but not being able to step in and stop it, even though she is doing it to herself. So I would rather not see or know.

I don't want to hear from her because right now it would be nothing but pain. I think Copa put it in the best analogy - I am just packing her away for now, and forgetting her as much as I can. She is still there and there is always a possibility, however slight, that I may take that relationship back out. This time I am putting it all on her to make that happen so I accept it may stay packed away for a long time. Maybe forever. But I have done all I can and if I continue, I only hurt myself and the ones who love me without helping her at all. So it is time to just stop.

I was discussing this with a very good friend yesterday. People who don't have these kinds of issues just don't get it. All adult children go through rough patches, need help, need some support. These are "normal adult kid" problems. This isn't, "My car broke down and I need to borrow $500 so I can get to work," and you loan the money, they keep working and slowly pay you back. This isn't, "We are moving but we need somewhere to stay until the house gets ready," and they stay short term and move on to their next home. This isn't, "My babysitter quit and can you watch the kids while I work until I can set up something," for a few days. These aren't true, "temporary" hard times that every single person goes through regardless of age and you just need a little help through a rough spot. And people who have never experienced this have no concept and judge you through the lenses of their "normal adult kid problems," while tsk tsk-ing how they would NEVER turn their back on their child.

I didn't think it was a "normal" situation. You are right. She is going to do what she is going to do, and it will continue to cause you pain. It isn't like you could just magically fix her, but deciding not to. You recognize the simple fact that it is beyond your control. You have tried very hard, for a very long time, and you know your daughter. I didn't mean to imply that you didn't care about her well being. Sorry if that is the impression you got. I meant it in regards to the particular behavior you started this thread about. You have taken her abuse, and tried EVERYTHING you can think of to help her, and it doesn't work. Like I said, pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional. You can't help but feel hurt by the things that she does and says, but what is under your control is how you deal with it. You choose the perfectly reasonable, logical step. She has proven that she is going to keep hurting you, regardless of what you say and do, so the only rational step is to pack it away, and try to live your life as well as you possibly can.

 

[TheWalrus]

No, I didn't take it that way. It is just hard to describe. It is easier to feel nothing and not think of her at all when possible. "Pack it away," so to speak. I am not actively trying to figure it out, fix it, reach out, or even feel the need to respond to her. It is like I have stepped back and just look at it objectively and rationally, instead of through emotion and guilt and maternal instinct. I see the situation for what it is and I am choosing to no longer be part of it. I know there are a lot of people that would just never understand feeling that way about their child, but after so many years of push and pull, being shoved aside and ignored only to be reeled back in and used, I am done. That isn't a relationship, regardless of their genetic connection to you.

 

[BusynMember]

You can not be there for anyone who is not there for you/me/anyone. A relationship is give and take.

I can not have any relationship with Goneboy because he and his wife have decided I can't see them. I'm done trying to find out why and have finished the grieving process. In every important way, he is not my son. I refuse to allow thoughts of him to destroy the mucho good I have.

In a very real way, one also can not have a true relationship with any adult who isn't invested in your health and happiness, but only come around to ask for things or to talk about them. Yelling abuse at somebody is a SICK relationship. If the other listens to the abuse and cries and feels guilty that is also a SICK relationship. And hurtful. And demeaning.

We can only have normal relationships with people who are usually benevolent and reciprocate our warmth. In any healthy relationship both care about the other and little tiffs are easily worked out.

I've had one sided relationships. They suck.

I'm only doing healthy relationships these days. We can choose who we wish to interact with and when. Sometimes it gets so bad, even in a family, that we can't take any more. It is especially hurtful if it is a child. And they know it.
When I think about Goneboys enormous IQ and think about what he did to me and most of his family, certainly he is aware but uncaring that he once hurt us to the core. It has been ten years. He is a Christian, as is his wife, who apparently unwilling to ever forgive/work out whatever the problem was and obviously still is. That reminds me that, although I hate to think it, he is not a very nice person or he would at least attempt to give a break to his mother, whom he knows loved him so much. He is mean to me. And I could never trust him again. I could never risk my heart to him again. I have dismissed him...it is his desire and I now agree with him.

 

[DarkwingPsyduck]

No, I didn't take it that way. It is just hard to describe. It is easier to feel nothing and not think of her at all when possible. "Pack it away," so to speak. I am not actively trying to figure it out, fix it, reach out, or even feel the need to respond to her. It is like I have stepped back and just look at it objectively and rationally, instead of through emotion and guilt and maternal instinct. I see the situation for what it is and I am choosing to no longer be part of it. I know there are a lot of people that would just never understand feeling that way about their child, but after so many years of push and pull, being shoved aside and ignored only to be reeled back in and used, I am done. That isn't a relationship, regardless of their genetic connection to you.

I understand. When I was 16, my aunt (different aunt than the one I am with now) woke me up at 4am to tell me that my mom died. I remember just feeling completely numb. Was on a plane to Texas that same day, but I didn't cry until the very end of her funeral service. The entire time I was there, I couldn't understand why I hadn't cried. Started to think that I was just a bad person. It wasn't until I finally broke down that I realized that my apathy was due to the enormity of the pain, and that it was much easier to feel nothing. I remember wishing I could go back to that apathy, but I couldn't. So I get the feeling of apathy as a defense mechanism.