Hi and welcome MTDenise.
Your son's story and my son's story are so similar.
My difficult child is now 25, it all started (or so it seemed to me) with $60 missing out of my bank account (he had taken my debit card and then put it back), flunking out of college first semester, so many lies, a million second chances from us, me swallowing so many lies in my naivete', kicking him out, on and on.
You sound like you have a very good head on your shoulders and are moving forward in your own journey.
I have a super easy child son as well whose accomplishments can take up 30 minutes (if I let myself!
). And you know, in our culture today, moms always ask about the kids. The same moms and dads who are still putting their kids' pictures---25 and up) on their own Christmas cards---not their own pictures---are the hardest. (said a bit tongue in cheek but not much...lol).
For a long time I would talk and talk about easy child and just hope and pray they didn't notice that I was saying nothing about difficult child. But as I walked away, I would feel sick inside. For so many reasons. Sick because i had basically lied (though I agree it is no one's business), sick because of the truth of it all, sick because I am awful at avoiding truth, so I'm sure my discomfort was shining through...on and on.
Finally, as I moved forward in my own recovery from enabling, I began to say the things some have already suggested:
He's still struggling.
He's having a hard time growing up.
Sometimes I would still say: He's okay. But he wasn't, and it was hard for me to get the words out. Sometimes I would still say nothing about him.
I will tell you that I avoided certain friends for a long, long time. I withdrew into myself a lot and isolated myself. That is a natural thing to do, I have learned. We can go through periods when we are like wounded animals, and we have to crawl into a corner and nurse our wounds.
This stuff we are doing is the hardest stuff of our own lives, I believe.
Then I realized that probably a whole lot more people than I ever thought knew a lot more about him than I ever thought. There is an app in our town of 110,000 that shows daily arrests. Evidently a lot of the younger people use it to see who/what/where and then there is a lot of talk about it. A well-meaning friend told me that the daughters of one of my neighbors had seen my son's picture and charges there, and it was being discussed.
I was reeling from that news. It really hurt. But looking back, after a time, realizing that there is basically no secret anywhere anymore in our 24/7 news cycle, social media crazy culture, I was able to "own" the truth a bit more, and thus be a bit more open---but still guarded---about my son.
Many people are concerned and honestly so. There are a few who love to feel separate from the world, arrogant and different, if you will, and they "get off" on talking about people, putting other people down and feeling superior.
I can't do a thing about how they approach life, but I can guard myself from their questions. And that is what I do. My trust radar is very acute now. I used to trust everybody, but no more. That is a casualty of this h___ that I have lived through for the past five years with my son. Maybe it needed to happen anyway.
We are glad you are here. We get it, and we have so much compassion to give. Lean on us when you need to. Merry Christmas!
