That I had to work on, and this is far beyond my difficult child, is to love myself, to
accept myself and to honor myself. These are not just buzz words to throw around, this is a matter of profound significance which must be addressed
if we are to shift this dynamic with ourselves and with our kids.
As I have been away for awhile, I reread this thread. For each of us, recovery begins with self kindness, and with self compassion. If you listen to your self talk, the shocking negativity there will stun you. To consciously counter the negativity will feel like a breath, will feel like, all at once, you can breathe freely.
I think it has much to do with forgiving ourselves.
Made me ashamed that my boy, who was raised to care about others, could laugh about being manipulative and terrifying his father.
Ouch, MWM.
I'm so sorry this happened to you.
what I would do if he showed up on the doorstep.
One of the moms here just went through that, CaMom. She prepared as best she knew...and she got through it in that horrific, slowed time place we live in when there is trouble. For moms like us, there is no bright new morning. There is the intention to change our situations, and there is hard choice. And when the thing is done, there is only the dark. There is wondering where they went and if they're okay and how we ever convinced ourselves we were doing a right thing. But then...we learn that not only did our child survive, but he is treating us just a little differently.
We have reclaimed our power, to a degree.
This is where the strength comes from to take it all one step further.
I'm sorry this is happening, CaMom.
With kids like ours, we need to learn to parent differently. Those old, loving patterns are not helping our kids step into adulthood. Those old patterns are keeping them whining children, are turning us into some twisted version of a mother that we never would have accepted or allowed ourselves to become, in healthier times.
Understanding and changing the patterns we fall into naturally enough when our kids are going a wrong way is not easy, CaMom, but it's possible.
We got where we are by degrees. We will find ourselves in a healthier place one day, and that healing will happen in degrees, too.
Little, tiny steps to a better, saner perspective.
That's all this is, really.
Understanding and changing habitual ways of seeing and responding to our difficult child kids. Typical responses don't work with our difficult children. They get further and further into the whirlwind and we are sucked right down into it with them.
There is something different about our troubled kids, CaMom. They seem to love riding the far edge, out where it's dangerous. They seem to find violent interpersonal relationships enlivening. They hate rules. Techniques that should address and resolve whatever the heart of the problem is only exacerbate the problem with these kids we love so much it drives us crazy. But...we worry. Over time, we forget how chaotic life with them was.
All we remember is that trapped, panicky, worried feeling.
That is where we need to work to change our responses.
What we need to learn to do is to choose, ahead of time, what our reaction will be. If we need to post a picture of a young soldier beside the phone to remind us our child is a man, not a boy...then, that is what we do. If we need to post the exact words we are going to say right beside that picture?
Then we do that, too.
It is such a hard thing to go against the grain of the love we feel for our kids. And though it seems impossible to act correctly in the face of that worried, responsible feeling...that is what we have to learn to do, too.
We need to learn to sit with that worried feeling. We need to learn to stop condemning ourselves for where our adult kids are in life. We need to extend mercy and forgiveness, to them and to ourselves.
And if that seems impossible, then we need to set that intention.
Mercy and forgiveness, for ourselves and for them.
They are doing what they want to do, CaMom. They are not little babies in danger. They are adult men and women choosing how they will live their lives
and we need to learn to let them do that.
Each of the parents here will have a different definition for the way we have had to learn to parent our difficult kids. There are those who claim it is easy to turn away. I seem not to be able to do that. But what I can do is understand my own part in creating dependent adult kids.
Once I can see it, I can choose to stop my part in the vicious set of patterns that developed in my family.
That is what it comes down to, really.
If we can see the pattern, and if we can see the harm in it for our failure-to-launch (to say the least) :O) kids...then we can choose to change our behavior.
And then, the pattern will change.
And maybe, without us there buying the appearance of success for them, the kids will begin steering their lives more responsibly.
It is all about how we think of it, CaMom.
Posting here is the best way I know to keep myself honest in my interactions with my difficult children. It isn't about them, really. It's about me, about how I see them and myself.
Try not to be so hard on yourself. (I know you are, CaMom. I've been there, too.) I made a resolution to be kinder to myself, this year. Nothing big, nothing specific, just...kinder.
The advice about doing for yourself is good advice. When we have been wounded, we tend to isolate. The wounding, the loss of our dream children, becomes who we are, becomes the story we tell ourselves and the story others tell about us. And while that is a facet of who we are, CaMom, you need to (and I need to) make our lives and our stories about more than that bad thing that happened to us and to our families. Your life is, as it should be, a multifaceted creation. There are dark notes, as there are in every life. Try not to let the dark notes, the darker colors, become the defining factor of your life. Consciously choose something joyful. Every time you think about it, look around for something beautiful, something happy and good. It's a small beginning? But it is a beginning.
We are right here.
:O)
Cedar
A gratitude journal will counter the worrying, worrying feeling, CaMom. Sometimes? We need to be pretty determined that gratitude is what we are going to feel instead of fear and worry? But we can always find five things that we really are so fortunate to have in our lives, and that will change the feeling tone.
That is the battleground. How our lives feel. Those bad, guilty feelings are not going to help anyone. They are valueless, and they suck the strength out of us. We need to be strong, so we have to choose against them.
***********
My son is furious with us too; he blames us to this day that we did not:
Continue paying for school
though he wasn't bothering to attend classes because he was smarter than every one of those teachers at that crummy school.
Had we only kept paying (and he was 26, the last time we did pay), he would have that degree he needs to make it in the world.
Buy him a duplex so he could live on one side and rent the other out for income.
Mortgage our house to buy him a business, as the parents of one of his friends had done for their non-drug addict child.
Take his children.
Let him move home with his entire family.
My son absolutely believes he is where he is in his life because we refused to help him. I am sorry this is happening to you. Each in his own way, every one of our children manipulates us through our own guilt, remorse, and sadness at the way their lives are going.
'I love myself, I care for myself, I honor myself, therefore I can trust the choices I will make about YOU. I will teach you, by example, how to love yourself.
Did it ever occur to you that THAT is why they get so angry at us, that they know that somewhere inside, even if it is out of their awareness, and they hate us for hating ourselves?
Yes. These understandings have been instrumental in moving me forward, in moving me into detachment.
Thank you so much, Recovering.
