Dear Eyvette
Welcome. I am so very sorry. My own son has spent the better part of the past 8 years in some variety of homelessness. With him, too, mental illness has played a part. My son is loved greatly and I never in my wildest dreams/nightmares could have imagined that our lives would be as they are.
Right now my son (he just turned 31) is living in a home that I own. It has not been going well. He will not follow rules. He prefers dependency which means everybody else (mostly me) providing for his needs, with full freedom and autonomy. In other words, he prefers to call the shots. Nobody could live like this, how I am asking myself to live. But find it so impossibly hard when he is on the street or near it.
So. I do understand how you feel, the grief, frustration and anger. Yes. Anger. Because our children pull us down with them, unless we work very, very hard to maintain a strong separation, which I have been unable to do.
I can do it for 6 to 8 weeks. That's the longest. And then there is either fear or longing, that take over, and I am despondent. Which is why we are trying yet again to help him establish himself living near us.
I think the thing that brings me down the farthest and the most is when I live my life centered in him. In other words, define my own well-being based upon his functioning, his mood, his circumstances, especially expectations that he do one thing or another. Because the reality is that I control not one thing in his life or personality. The other thing that brings me down is murky boundaries. When I expose myself to the effects of how he behaves, to what he does.
Like waiting for him. When he was in the large metro 3 hours away by train, I went 3 times to meet him. I missed him so. Three times I traveled there, and three times he did not show up. He could have called or texted so that I could have avoided a day of travel only to turn around and return home, but he was indifferent.
We have control over whether or not we expose ourselves to this hurt. I know that I expose myself to this hurt, but I do it anyway. There are mothers here who have had the strength to no longer do this. My friend M, who I refer to often, calls this acting like a mother. He sees this as a choice. I agree with him. But I also think that one can be a good mother, by setting protective boundaries, that demonstrate dignity and self-care. It's not necessary to keep doing the same thing, if one gets the same painful result. It does not help our sons, if we sacrifice ourselves. If anything, they are helped by the contrary. By mothers who have a bottom line.
I only want to add one thing. That our sons have been homeless 8 years or 18 years does not mean that they will continue so. People change their lives all of the time. The same way that we can change, by having a bottom line, by filling our lives with meaning and hope and support, they can change too. Just like that. Life entails choice. The possibility to choose differently is offered every waking minute of every day.
I think our responsibility is to live from that place: The belief in life that it is possible (and required) that we choose from hope every day. The only ones we have control over are ourselves. To live from hope each day, for us. And only after we do this for us, pray for our children to do the same.
I am glad you found us. There are a number of us here in the exact same circumstance you find yourself in. The message here, is that we don't have to stay in that place with our children. We can live from another place. Hope.
