The nice lady Stephanie wants me to participate in family meetings....

[nlj]

A good step.
A good week.
As you say "who knows", but without letting some hope and optimism into our lives we're done for.

Progress not perfection, that is all we can hope for

One step at a time.

 

[recoveringenabler]

don't really ahve an exit strategy

I don't have one either. We're both giving our kids a chance. They appear to be moving in a positive direction.

Like when they are faltering, when they are trying, we still have to take it moment to moment and stay here in the now.

My daughter continues to move ahead, each day she makes positive choices which will ultimately bring her to success if she continues. The IF still looms large for me given the past, however, in spite of that, she is doing well. All I can do is stay in the moment, be honest with myself and with her, be supportive and keep my boundaries intact. I am doing all of that.

quote="Echolette, post: 630165, member: 17269"]this time felt a little different.[/quote]

This time felt different for me too ECHO, and it appears that it is. It appears it is in your case as well. But, they have to prove themselves, it will take time.

But a few days more, a few days clean, a little more effort...who knows.

Yes, who knows. We can't control it, we let go and they appear to be changing.

And, we live in uncertainty because that is life.

My prayers are with you and your son and me and my daughter and all of us struggling to find our way.............

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

the response of 'cold' is likely a very normal and natural response to the devastation that our kids create in our lives. As much as I want to approach all of life with a loving and accepting attitude, I am merely a human being, doing the best I can under extraordinary condition

You have hit on something key here, Recovering. If we have chosen, maybe because of the pain we've experienced, to choose to love instead of justifying hatred or dominance or any of the thousand other justifications to mistreat or think badly of someone else ~ maybe that does not mean we enabled them into being who they became.

Maybe, all that means is that the particular addicts who have us for parents have been very fortunate addicts, indeed.

Just lately, I have been seeing what my kids do as having nothing to do with me.

No guilt.

There is even a sense of real anger growing in my heart at what my children have done, not only to me and to husband, but to their own children.

Strange feeling.

I explained to him that it gets old when your life revolves around 'family day'

Yes.

And I feel such hostility around those issues, now.

I feel like my life has been stolen away, has been frittered away justifying relationship with people (not just my kids ~ these feelings have to do with family of origin issues, too) who were nothing like the people I believed them to be.

Bad Cedar.

But I don't feel bad.

I feel awake.

here is an exercise I learned years ago where you state your resentments to the other, without them having a chance to defend, justify or in any way respond.......you just continue stating your resentments. Once those are expressed, remarkably, all of this appreciation and love shows up..................I would be once again in touch with those positive feelings which had been buried under unexpressed resentments.

I hope this is true for me too, Recovering.

I really felt sorry for him. He tried to get help for him and now his son has killed all those kids and himself and now Dad has to live with what Elliott did for the rest of his life.

I wonder if it would be possible to contact the father, to support him in some way. It must be awful, to be going through what is happening to him, now.

I am not so sure these are mental health issues. Even in my daughter's case, drugs were involved.

I am so in a cold place myself, today.

Sorry, guys.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

didn't go to any family meetings.

went up to a house on a lake for the week instead

he was being discharged, had medications for 5 days and a referral to a shelter

s dad was leaving town the next day.

Oh, Echo!

He didn't ask me for help or to come home.

I thought about RE's frequent comment that we should do what we can do without resentment.

I have found that so helpful, too.

difficult child asked on our last night if he could call the friend..he said he felt anxious about returning home. He called, they talked, and somehow I ended up at an AA barbecue with SO and difficult child and best friend the next night.

he went to two AA meetings with the friend

Echo, you have come such a long way in so short a time. I could feel that feeling of time stopping, in your post...and you stayed with it, Echo.

And your son's responses are so different than they would have been just a few short weeks ago.

You had asked for prayers earlier in this thread, Echo.

I am praying now, for you and for your son.


Cedar

 

[witzend]

Echolette, how long since you have updated his "parent report"? I realize that he is an adult now and it would probably be bad to call it a parent report to a professional, but since he is manipulating inpatient treatment as a means of getting you to interact with him, and you are aware of his repeated attempts it might be helpful to them and he might actually get treatment if they know what they're dealing with. (Honestly, I doubt he'd get treatment if he knew that they were fully informed of his manipulations but one can dream... )

It sounds as though it is too late in this instance to get in front of it, but if you had an updated "patient report" (sounds better) the next time you get a call from a "Stephanie" type, you can say, "I'm really busy right now and I can't talk until this evening (tomorrow, etc.) but I am at my computer. I have a list of his hospitalizations, diagnoses, treatments, and medications that I could email to you now so that when we talk we can both be on the same page." Then you don't have to hedge or buy time or feel badly that they hit you out of the blue.