To Tell the Truth

[Scent of Cedar *]

You know, I had forgotten the strength to be found in laughter. It's hard to remember what it feels like to have that little funny bone part of us glowing away. We have to force ourselves to see so many uglinesses, with our kids. So many dreams (Cedar wrote, slipping one more time into vibrantly purple prose), rotting in the sun. But that is what it's like. It does something to our hearts, to have to know those things we know.

This so sucks, that we have to do that.

But I am beginning to see how to see all this without hating my kids or myself or my fate.

OR MY FATE, and that is key, I think.

Bitterness turned against ourselves at how unfair it all seems can justify self-condemnation without our being aware of it. We are very hard on ourselves. We search so diligently for the answer, for the just right thing that we missed, and that will turn all this around.

It really is impossible to walk around on an equal basis with those whose children have become the successes we dreamed for our own children.
If they weren't such nice ladies I would hate them so much....

I do hate them, of course.

And I get it that that is the depth of emotion with which I hate and condemn...myself, for failing my children, myself, husband. Only I add the additional appellations fool and fraud, because I do not deserve to walk and talk and swap stories of my children with those women.

And I hate them so much for that.

Add one thousand and one exclamation points, here.

***

Rock steady, that is what this site is. Rock steady and rock solid, and I am so defiantly glad each of us is here.

Somehow, we will figure this out.

I need a witness.

Thank you.

It's all so shaming, but we have to look, to expose and heal it.

She was outraged and devastated (those are correct interpretations, not purple prose descriptions) that I criticized her instead of supporting her in relation to the things she was saying about her ex-husband.

This is a manipulation.

I feel most terrible when I feel I have not been enough. Enough for my children especially, but enough in any situation. Remember the fishing line analogy from a prior post? That is what happens when we have been manipulated. It isn't the current thing that breaks us, that shatters our integrity, our sense of self. It is everything, over time, dragged up to accuse us of failing in this instance, too.

But that is okay. Once we see it, once we know the shape and flavor of it, we do heal it. We never in a million years, especially the people here on this site, whistle past something in the dark because it is too hard. Not once we see it, we don't.

***

The purpose was to take the heat away from what difficult child daughter actually said. (Which was freaking awful ~ see the way I am denial city about so much of it).

It is good to come into clarity.

Even just a little piece.

difficult child daughter has no right to talk that way about my grandchildren.

I am like, so darn mad. Beneath the numb, beneath that stupid FOG, burns an anger so intense it changes every single thing.

Cedar

 

[Albatross]

If they weren't such nice ladies I would hate them so much....
I do hate them, of course.

HAHAHA! Glad I wasn't driving when I read this one.

difficult child daughter has no right to talk that way about my grandchildren.
I am like, so darn mad. Beneath the numb, beneath that stupid FOG, burns an anger so intense it changes every single thing.

I hear you, Cedar. Oh, do I ever have those moments myself, when I have been zoomed and I finally realize it. It is how I felt when I put the pieces together and it finally hit me, that my son had used being kicked out of my house to help pay for a trip to the west coast. And I don't even particularly LIKE the person who gave him the help!

OK, I kinda hate her. See your nice ladies comment above. Plus, even nice ladies shouldn't reward my son's bad behavior.

Anyway...where was I?

I can't imagine how much more intense your anger is with grandchildren involved, grandchildren who are even more vulnerable than you are to your daughter's shaping things.

It is so good that you can know they are in good hands, that their father is rock solid and does what it takes, that he and your daughter have talked it out. But still...

Only I add the additional appellations fool and fraud, because I do not deserve to walk and talk and swap stories of my children with those women.

I think the greatest blessing I get from this place is seeing that *THOSE* moms, the ones I figure I don't fit in with because of the way my child turned out, are right here, probably better than the moms I THOUGHT had it all together. And when I look at the moms (and dads) here with admiration, it makes me think that maybe I am not quite the fool/fraud I thought I was. You and the other moms around here pull me up in my own eyes, just by your fine example. I'm so grateful for that.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

OK, I kinda hate her.

I am woman, hear me roar!!!!

:O)

Cedar

I think the greatest blessing I get from this place is seeing that *THOSE* moms, the ones I figure I don't fit in with because of the way my child turned out, are right here, probably better than the moms I
THOUGHT had it all together.

Here is the thing I know about those moms: They are filled with conflict, they haven't done every single thing right in their lives, and they don't have my sense of style. AND YET, their children don't hate them, or take drugs (to excess ~ remember that I have a friend who uses, or has used, cocaine on occasion), or run around self-destructing and blaming it on mom.

Some of them even have children who are policemen.

Here is a story. So, I was driving somewhere with my granddaughters when they were oh, say about eight and four. All of a sudden, the eight year old dives for the floor and the littlest one, stuck in her car seat, shrieks, "Grandma ~ it's the cops!"

Now...how did they learn that response? I tried to tell them the policeman is our friend. They both looked at me like I was trying to feed them poison.

***

And the mom who has confessed to having used cocaine in the past? Is the mother of the Yale professor I keep trying never to think about let alone mention the spoiled little brat's name.

Ahem.

I think she said it was Yale.

I was vomiting, at the time.

You and the other moms around here pull me up in my own eyes, just by your fine example. I'm so
grateful for that.

I feel the same way, Albatross. Thank heaven we have one another to help us name and defend ourselves from our secret thoughts and self accusations.

Still, I remember when difficult child daughter was teaching and engaged and had the house and everything looked so impossibly bright? And difficult child son was working and happily engaged in raising his own son and things were looking pretty good there?

I was like, showing off every chance I got.

Which doesn't excuse those biatches for looking down on me just because one of my kids is an addict and the other is...is having the problems she is. (Numb silence descends, and Cedar is alone again, with the horror of what is....)

.

But here is the thing: It doesn't do any good to pretend that what is happening to us is not happening.

I do feel better about everything, though.

I just don't quite know how to separate myself, or how to think about all this.

I get the genetics piece.

 

[Albatross]

I was like, showing off every chance I got.

Yes, I used to do this too. Most people don't even ask much anymore, which is really okay, just to save the awkwardness. Except for my job. Funny story from yesterday.

I work with a couple of young ladies about my son's age. They ask about my son on occasion. (I think one of them kind of has a "bad boy" thing and is fascinated by his escapades.) Anyway...yesterday they asked about how he was doing in his sober living house and if he was calling me the way a son should call his mother, etc. They are really very sweet.

So I gave them the latest update and then walked away to check on a customer. I was standing around the corner where they couldn't see me and heard one of them say to the other, "Can you imagine having Albatross for a mother?" And the other one said, "That would be SO COOL! I love Albatross!" And the first one said, "Me too! She's so cute! I love her!"

So that made me feel really good, and made me feel really kinda sad, and made me feel really kinda mad at my son, all at the same time.

I just don't quite know how to separate myself, or how to think about all this.

I don't either. I really don't.

 

[Albatross]

A large part of me is starting to pretty much think if I was that pirate lady, not only would I not be lifting my skirts and roaring into the wind, my son would be lucky if I looked up from my magazine long enough to tell the other captain to...you know, just do whatever you want with him. I'm sitting in the sun here, and I know 2 other people who think I'm cute and cool, so maybe I don't want to have to deal with my son right now. He'll figure it out or he won't.

I'm just feeling...I dunno...like I've heard it all before and I'm tired of his BS and I deserve better.

The other part of me says that regardless of who "deserved" what when he was younger, the bottom line is that for whatever reason my son didn't get what he needed when he was growing up, and that was my job.

So I don't know how to think about that either.

 

[Hope_Floats]

The other part of me says that regardless of who "deserved" what when he was younger, the bottom line is that for whatever reason my son didn't get what he needed when he was growing up, and that was my job.

So I don't know how to think about that either.

That so resonates with me. I think that's where our guilt comes from that makes us try so hard to somehow make up for that perceived failure to do our job.

I'm still working on that "radical acceptance" part, in which I accept that yes, somehow perhaps my son didn't get what he needed, but that yes, also, I did the best I knew how at the time. That none of us get everything we needed, but we are still responsible to make a life worth living for ourselves, anyway.

Yes, I'm still working on that.

 

[SeekingStrength]

One of the atrocities difficult child mentions often is the time, when he was in eighth grade. I drove to his school during his lunch period, while he was out in the courtyard. One of his teachers had just called me at school (same district) to tell me difficult child had been rude to her sub. And, I was livid. I must have been yelling, because the assistant principal walked over and asked us to come inside her office to talk.

I have apologized to difficult child many times for that episode. I'm sure it was embarrassing for him. Perhaps even more embarrassing than getting the phone call was for me.

------------

When I was in seventh grade, my father slapped me on the face at a science fair- in front of friends and their parents. He never apologized.

While I have not forgotten, I do not bring it up to him over and over and over. It happened. It was wrong. It did not ruin me.

I'm still working on that "radical acceptance" part, in which I accept that yes, somehow perhaps my son didn't get what he needed, but that yes, also, I did the best I knew how at the time. That none of us get everything we needed, but we are still responsible to make a life worth living for ourselves, anyway.

So, yeah!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

"Can you imagine having Albatross for a mother?" And the other one said, "That would be SO COOL! I love Albatross!" And the first one said, "Me too! She's so cute! I love her!"

I am so glad you overheard those good things.

It is crucially important for us to be away from the negativity surrounding our difficult child kids. We are separate people, good people, interesting people even. It seems impossible to believe there is anything good about us, when our difficult child kids see us as they do, and when our difficult child kids make the choices and take their lives in the directions they take them.

We are alone so much with the hurt of it. With the hurt of how it is that our child is being hurt or is scared or disadvantaged in some way, or alone.

my son would be lucky if I looked up from my
magazine long enough to tell the other captain to...you know, just do whatever you want with him. I'msitting in the sun here

That was pretty funny, Alby.

:O)

I wonder what would have happened with my children if I had been that kind of mom. I think what happens to us when our kids have gone a bad way is that whatever we did, we take on the responsibility of that having been somehow the wrong thing. Somewhere in our truest heart, we continue to believe we are the culprits here, that there was some essential something we missed.

I don't know how to think my way out of that, because I feel it, too.

This is part of the reason we all get hooked back in, I think. We hear those old echoes and hope that if we help in just the right amount this time, or if we don't help at all this time, or if we help, but behave differently toward them this time, something will change.

In addition to the money spent when we cosigned for difficult child daughter apartment and paid her credit card every month and paid damages on the apartment and sent difficult child money and clothing at the treatment center she was state-mandated to attend and from which she escaped to go back to the dirty rotten scoundrel she was "in love" with at the time...we gave her $1000 cash, when she and the father of our now 15 year old grandchild needed help to get their licenses and titles and etc straightened around. (Different man altogether. The first one? Was in prison or jail somewhere for attempted vehicular homicide...of difficult child daughter.)

How could we not help, right?

That was the man who, three months later, did his level best to beat her to death.

I am helpless in the face of what is happening, and it keeps happening, and I don't know how to stand up to it, or how to see it or myself, or what to do.

It's very hard.

The other part of me says that regardless of who "deserved" what when he was younger, the bottom line is that for whatever reason my son didn't get what he needed when he was growing up, and that was my job.

That so resonates with me.

Me, too.

But this is what happened to me: difficult child son believes what I believe about where he is in life, and about what to do about that. The worse I felt about everything, the worse he felt about me, and about his own childhood, and my mothering, and my grandmotherhood.

When I stood up?

So is he.

So I am thinking we need not to defeat ourselves and our kids by giving in to those worrisome, nagging negative feelings about what happened to cause this.

"You were raised better."

"Stand up."

"I want to see the man your father and I raised you to be."

Those things seemed to make a difference with difficult child son.

So far, there is not too much that can make a difference with difficult child daughter. When she is mean, she is mean as a snake and does as she pleases.

Then, she cries.

That none of us get everything we needed, but
we are still responsible to make a life worth living
for ourselves, anyway.

Two things:

If we were the kinds of moms parenting difficult child kids makes us feel like we must have been, we would not give a care. We do care, very much.

How else did we all find this site?

There are probably other sites out there where the difficult child is condemned. We did not pick those.

I should go find one of those.

But that's not even funny, because I don't want to hate anyone. I feel so betrayed by everything that has happened with the kids. It would not be a huge leap for me, I don't think, to hate them for what they have done.

I think that is part of why I feel so responsible. The other choice is to blame them for what they are doing.

And those were my babies.

***

Second thing: I believe the drugs out there today affect a person's capacity for empathy. My children (and your children too, I am sure) have done and are doing things they never learned at home. Those decisions they take, those first, initial assessments of things that then lead them down one stupidly monstrous path or another, have their basis, so many times, in a lack of empathy.

A lack of conscience.

They just don't care. Not about themselves and certainly, not about us.

That might be what that dead look in the eyes is about.

Pretty hurtful.

Cedar

 

[Lil]

The other part of me says that regardless of who "deserved" what when he was younger, the bottom line is that for whatever reason my son didn't get what he needed when he was growing up, and that was my job.

OMG yes. A thousand times yes.

I don't know if Jabber is reading this thread. If so, I'm not sure how he'll react to this, although I think I've hinted at it before, but there is a part of me that thinks that he and I are to blame here. We met two months before he turned 4. From our first (blind) date, we never missed a weekend seeing each other. Nine months later we were engaged. We moved in together a year later two months before the wedding, which was three days before his 5th birthday. We were in our 30's and neither really believed we'd ever meet "the one". And he is "the ONE", really truly I feel he is my missing half.

I know, rationally, we didn't neglect our son. But part of me wonders if we were so in love with each other that he felt pushed aside, if we should have spent more time focused on him instead of each other.

But if that was true, if we neglected him, wouldn't he be more capable, more independent, less babied?

It isn't like we didn't take him with us everywhere we went. We took 3 vacations and one honeymoon his whole life without him. We did try to do things he liked, Jabber took him to play golf...he quit. We took him fishing. He didn't like it. We took him camping and to events, but all he wanted to do was spend money. Didn't we try hard enough?

Eh...I guess I'm hijacking.

"You were raised better."
"Stand up."
"I want to see the man your father and I raised you to be."

My son hates these statements. They don't make a difference to him. They only make him angry.

 

[AppleCori]

Cedar, Hope, Alb, SS, Lil, and everyone,

You were THAT kind of mom. You just didn't have THAT Kind of kids.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

You were THAT kind of mom. You just didn't have THAT Kind of kids.

I am coming to believe this is the true thing that we all must learn to declare, whether we believe it yet or not.

We will come to believe it.

There are such things as difficult child kids. They are different kinds of kids, they grow into different kinds of adults, and they are difficult to parent.

They are hurtful people to be the parents of, once they are grown.

That is just a fact. It is not a judgment call. If we can accept that no one has to have done something wrong to create this situation, that means we can stop devoting our lives to searching for that magical thing that will make it right.

If we never manage to get them out of our houses, there is a very good chance they will abuse us verbally, emotionally, financially and finally, as we age, physically.

These things seem to be true.

***

Or our children are addicted to drugs and because of that, have lost the capacity for empathy, with all that entails. When they are clean for a time, their behaviors change. (This is true.) But I wonder whether there is a point of no return with the drug thing. Empathy and conscience are habitual things. I imagine you could get out of the habit of these kinds of assessments, too.

Here is a pretty quote:

"You speak of gods. Very well. Avata speaks that language now. Avata says consciousness is the Species-God's gift to the individual. Conscience is the Individual-God's gift to the species. In conscience you find the structure, the form of consciousness, the beauty."

Frank Herbert
The Jesus Incident

Here is another, just because I have my quote box out:

"Civilization is not contagious, not accidental, not a whim of geography. It doesn't spill over or infect. It is a deliberate act: We will have Art, we will rise to advanced thought, we will surpass our normal venality, we will walk on the Western Slopes."

I don't have a notation on this card of where I got this. It is too beautiful for me not to have written it down somewhere. When I find it, I will post.

And the last:

"American women seek a perfection in their husbands that English women only hope for in their butlers."

:O)

***********



But even knowing this, even knowing what I think I know, even hearing all the stories from everyone here ~ all from different styles of childrearing but all resonating, almost verbatim, on the same points...I still just want my kids to be okay.

I don't get it, why this happened.

I have such a hard time with denial.

Well, you know what it is. Given what seem to be higher than average levels of intelligence and accomplishment here on the site, I would say (and I have said it, but that was on another thread) that most of us have met and conquered the enemy even when we realized it was us. I think we have done that all of our lives, and I think the majority of us have had to overcome any number of challenges all of our lives. So we just don't get it when a child of ours does what our kids are doing.

Repeatedly.

But I think we could start right there, right with Applecori's statement.

We ARE wonderful, kind mothers.

Our children are very difficult.

That is a beginning place.

I have apologized to difficult child many times for that episode. I'm sure it was embarrassing for him. Perhaps even more embarrassing than getting the phone call was for me.

There was a discussion here on the site one time, about whether difficult child kids do better when they are scared of the mother.

The more I apologized to difficult child son, the nastier and more entitled he seemed to get. When I changed my responses, difficult child son first was outraged but now, seems to be coming back to us with clearer vision and with a sense that we have value.

difficult child daughter apologizes very much when she is fine. Or, she doesn't remember so much about what really transpired, and presents other versions of reality in which I am the villain.

So I apologize for that too, just in case.

Maybe, I think, I am remembering this incorrectly, or maybe difficult child daughter needs to believe this to heal. Then, we learned this is how difficult child daughter is with everyone. Perhaps she cannot face what happens when she is not doing well and so, she denies responsibility for it.

It is heartbreaking to be the mom of a difficult child, whether the issue is addiction or mental illness or whether one causes or exacerbates the other or whatever the situation is.

Eh...I guess I'm hijacking.

Could not happen on a thread of mine. We are all wondering the same things. Every one of us turns the issue, sees a different aspect of it.

I love to see where the threads go, and I learn from those new ways of looking.

Cedar

 

[Albatross]

none of us get everything we needed,

Yes, exactly. None of us get everything we needed. It's so hard to remember that, to remember that every human being out there had imperfect parents, just like my son did.

Darn it, my quote thingie isn't working again, but SS, yes, we remember these painful incidents and we move on. Even if it leaves a hard spot. We somehow accommodate it. And we even carry it forward with maybe a little more compassion. You might have WANTED to slap his face that day at school, but maybe you held back because you remembered. And somehow it ends up getting used against you. That double standard is a killer. I use it against myself. And my son uses it against me.

Now that I think about it, they tend to be good at finding our soft spots and blind spots. It makes sense that they would find these too, even if they are buried somewhere in our memory banks.

Does that sound paranoid?

Anyway, I wish my quote thingie was working.

Cedar, Lil, what you said about wondering what would have happened if I had been a little more outwardly seemingly disinterested kind of mom, or if we HADN'T found our soulmate...we can turn anything around to make it our fault, can't we?

Yes, maybe that's it! I was TOO interested!

Yes, maybe that's it! Jabber and I were TOO stable and loving!

Today I was remembering the young coworkers who thought I would be a cool mom and thought, maybe THAT'S why it's my fault. Maybe I was a COOL mom.

(I won't go into all the times I WASN'T a cool mom, and he would just disappear for days or weeks at a time.)

AppleCori, wow. Thanks. That was...wonderful.

 

[SeekingStrength]

Cedar, Hope, Alb, SS, Lil, and everyone,
You were THAT kind of mom. You just didn't have THAT Kind of kids.

Oh, Apple, that is so sweet. Thank you. husband and I had a laugh a few minutes ago, as I shared the wisdom gleaned from this forum tonight.

Again, not the HAHA! that is so funny! kind of laughing. But, at least, it was laughs.

As long as we were sending difficult child money, he miraculously never mentioned the horrible events of his childhood.

They reappeared after the ATM shut down. hmmmmm

 

[BusynMember]

Ladies, for most of us, none of this is our fault. I am reading an amazing book now called "When Parents Hurt" by Dr. Joshua Coleman. Now, if we beat or sexually abused our kids, belittled them constantly, had substance abuse problems ourselves (this was listed as a risk so I'm just passing it on) or (Drat! I forgot the last risk...lol). It's a good book. I recommend it as a comfort to any of us...getting back on point, if we did those things, naturally they will affect our children as adults. But not all kids become professional victims...some decide not to let it define them and get help. This is beyond our control.

But if we didn't, we tried our best and probably gave our kids more than they needed...DNA comes into this. Yes, DNA is mentioned in this book. We can not change THAT. Many of us have more than one child and neither were abused, yet one turns out to be our worst nightmare and the other one turns to be exactly how we hoped our kids would turn out. If we were so horrible, how did this happen?

There are some people who are born too sensitive, too differently wired, too negativist, and even too violent for ANY parent to get a better result. You think if somebody else raised them it would have been different?

I worked at a medical answering service and we had many psychologists and psychiatrists on the board. Because of the nature of the job, we knew very personal things about them. Our busiest psychiatrist had two children. One was in a mental hospital for cutting, anorexia, and other issues. The other was also a mess. Time has made me forget his problems...I'm thinking it was drugs.

A psychiatrist has the highest training in human behavior that exists and even they can't always do it right. Or make their particular children turn out the way we'd like. I know this man's daughter had been in the hospital for at least a year.

How can we blame ourselves when psychiatrists can't always get it right? How can we think it's not, somehow, the wiring of the child. Who did we have this child with? Is this child like our ex-other half? Is the child like Aunt Sally whom we try not to talk about? Uncle Clyde who is an alcoholic? How can we expect ourselves to be so brilliant that we can overcome genes passed along from people we couldn't help and didn't understand and still don't?

Think of what you all have done for your adult children. And then think about how illogical it is to blame ourselves when these were not the examples we set for them nor what we taught them for eighteen years?

I put the onus on genetics. I knew before I had a child about my family tree and I chose to have a child anyway and, boy, he did things I'd NEVER have done, but many of my DNA collection would have. In a way I do blame myself, but for not following my instincts not to pass my dang genetic mess onto a beloved child. His personality is very hardwired into him. Yet he is slowly getting better.

Remember that many problems, such as personality disorders, tend to level off in middle age. Nobody knows why. Honestly, unless Son is under tremendous stress, in which case he is wired to totally fall apart, he is doing pretty good and we get along really well UNLESS he is under tremendous stress. That is HIS hard-wiring at work.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

These are chain of consciousness light bulb moments that came through as a result of reading these posts. I am going to go ahead and post, because others of us may be able to trace through their own recovery processes more easily if I share my process.

I am so grateful for this site, and for all of us, and for the commitment to healing we have created, together.

As long as we were sending difficult child money, he miraculously never mentioned the horrible events of his childhood.
They reappeared after the ATM shut down. hmmmmm

Lightbulb moment.

Oh for heaven's sake, how could I not have put those two pieces together!!!

The reason I did not put them together is that I would rather believe my children are damaged, were somehow damaged by me, than that they are mean. Plus, I would never bring up what happened between my mother and myself in an accusatory way to her because I have seen her crumble (around the issue of an electric burner on high), and it didn't change anything and I don't want to hurt her.

I just want to heal me.

It's like, when you see the victimizers so clearly that you decide victimhood too is a choice and refuse it, you cannot be surprised or hurt in the same way, anymore. What I have come to understand through all the writing I have done here on the site is that, probably because victimizing others is nothing personal to the victim, persons who do that kind of thing will do continue to try to hurt you, so you need to be aware and never trust them.

Just as I don't trust my sister. I trust that she will call again, and that it will be the same game.

I want to stand up to her, and to my mother, but I don't want to hurt either one. I don't want to continue to perceive myself through the filters they insist on.

I assume that same reluctance to hurt me motivates my kids but it does not.

They are being spoiled brat bullies when they say the things they say. And I have allowed and tried to understand it...when what I need to do is confront it, and say what I see and rebalance the situation.

It's a natural progression until we stop it, when you think about it. Though we would never have allowed the kinds of things that happen routinely with a difficult child to go unaddressed when the kids were little, the only consequence we can apply at this point is not to help.

And then we feel badly. And that whole overwhelming cascade of guilt and accusation and regret and shame and bravery and exposure buries us alive.

But I am the one who created the dependency.

But not in a bad way. In a normal, I love my kids parent way. It went on too long, it happened too many times, the situation was too dire, and a dependency was created. It became a habit to resent it, to fix it, to make dire predictions about it...and to do it all over again.

And then, difficult child son fell apart, too.

Proof that I must have done something terrible, or that I was just unfit as a mother or even, as a person.

But if these things have a genetic base.... MWM, your post this morning could not have come at a more perfect time for me to hear it.

:O)

You know what it is is that I don't want to lose my children, don't want to lose my family, all that warmth, all that prettiness and happiness and food cooking. I keep fighting to create what should have been the natural progression of the way things were when I was the responsible one and created that life for all of us.

So I am beginning to get a little pissed, here.

What an ugly trick has happened to all of us.

It is a strange truth that I take responsibility (and thus, the illusion of control) for so much that is unexplainable.

How can we blame ourselves when psychiatrists can't always get it right? How can we think it's not, somehow, the wiring of the child. Who did we have this child with? Is this child like our ex-other half? Is the child like Aunt Sally whom we try not to talk about? Uncle Clyde who is an alcoholic? How can we expect ourselves to be so brilliant that we can overcome genes passed along from people we couldn't help and didn't understand and still don't?

Oh, wow.

I love this.

How can we expect ourselves to be so brilliant that we can overcome genes passed along from people we couldn't help and didn't understand and still don't.

MWM, you are golden, here.

It's feels like things are falling into place and assembling themselves. The self concept recreated carries no guilt.

I feel like Sleeping Beauty, waking up.

Remember in that movie, when the entire forest comes back to life.

Man, I have been guilty for so many years....

Think of what you all have done for your adult children. And then think about how illogical it is to blame ourselves when these were not the examples we set for them nor what we taught them for eighteen years?

"...think how illogical it is to blame ourselves when these were not the examples we set...."

I never could figure that one out, MWM! That is why I was so focused on the idea that somehow I had hurt my children in the ways I had been hurt and then, blocked it out. I have spent years and years trying to figure out what I did.

I chose to have a child anyway and, boy, he did
things I'd NEVER have done,

Not in a million years.

"...and, boy, he did things I'd NEVER have done."

This is so true, MWM!!!

But before, I was trying to ferret out where she learned to do that, how she'd been hurt ~ what, in all the hells that ever were, I had done, for her life to follow the patterns it does.

And I have believed, for all these long, long years, that I had indeed done something. I just could not figure out what it was. Some intrinsic something I could not see was all I could come up with.

do blame myself, but for not following my instincts not to pass my dang genetic mess onto a beloved
child.

"...my dang genetic mess...beloved child."

This is beautiful, MWM.

This conversation will enable me to let go of judging myself, or either difficult child.

They are beloved.

I believed that capacity to see what is and accept it without judging either them (which I could not, would not, do) or myself (which I have done, in spades) would never happen outside of conscious choice. Or outside of blaming myself for their situations, of feeling guilt at my own good fortune because I have enough when they have so little.

I have posted before about the guilt I feel when I go shopping. I fixate on the things I should be buying, for grandchildren, especially.

His personality is very hardwired into him.

I should post this on the fridge.

Honestly, unless Son is under tremendous stress, inwhich case he is wired to totally fall apart, he is doing pretty good and we get along really well UNLESShe is under tremendous stress. That is HIS hard-wiring at work.

Cedar

 

[BusynMember]

I know I sound like this man's agent, but I'd buy the book "When Parents Hurt" by Dr. Joshua Coleman. It's outstanding and explains how we are but one parcel of this "everything" our kids experience. We are not their all, not even close.

I found it interesting and comforting. He has an online course too.

http://www.drjoshuacoleman.com/forum/when-parents-hurt/

 

[Albatross]

As long as we were sending difficult child money, he miraculously never mentioned the horrible events of his childhood.

Wow, that is sobering, isn't it? Those are the kinds of things that are hard to admit to ourselves, because, as Cedar said, we realize what that means. Like Cedar the first time she protected someone else from her own child. Like my realization that my own child would shade his version of events to get vacation money. Once we see those things, it changes everything we see going forward.

They are being spoiled brat bullies when they say the things they say. And I have allowed and tried to understand it...when what I need to do is confront it, and say what I see and rebalance the situation.
It's a natural progression until we stop it, when you think about it. Though we would never have allowed the kinds of things that happen routinely with a difficult child to go unaddressed when the kids were little, the only consequence we can apply at this point is not to help.
And then we feel badly. And that whole overwhelming cascade of guilt and accusation and regret and shame and bravery and exposure buries us alive.
But I am the one who created the dependency.
But not in a bad way. In a normal, I love my kids parent way

Cedar, my head exploded when I read this. I've never seen this cycle I go through again and again put so succinctly. This is it. This is me.

 

[pasajes4]

" I did not ask to be born just so I could suffer from mental illness. You wanted someone to love. Well here I am. You owe me for the rest of my life. You selfish @#$%^." This is what my 18 year old beloved son said to me as he was being lead away in chains.

 

[BusynMember]

What your son said to you is just plain mean. You didn't know he was going to have mental illness. What crapola from them. Yet the more we expect it, because THAT IS WHO THEY ARE, the less it hurts us. When my son is under stress and says something crazy like "You #*@(%...you are the worst mother on earth!!!!" I just repeat to myself these days, "This is what he says when he is under stress. It would not be him if he DID NOT say these hurtful things. It is his very dysfunctional way of coping with his own stress...he blames everyone else and says horrible things." Then, since I no longer tolerate anyone abusing me, I gently hang up the phone for another day.

Once I started expecting people to act like the people they are (and that means people who say horrible things WILL say horrible things) that took some of the sting out of it. They are who they are.

Radical acceptance.

It rocks.

 

[Tanya M]

" I did not ask to be born just so I could suffer from mental illness. You wanted someone to love. Well here I am. You owe me for the rest of my life. You selfish @#$%^." This is what my 18 year old beloved son said to me as he was being lead away in chains.

I am so sorry you had to hear that kind of ugliness. My difficult child has said equally ugly things to me over the years and it was always when he was feeling "trapped'.
It's never easy to hear these kinds of things from someone we love but when you consider the source and their mindset, it makes it easier to let it go.

I agree with MWM.

Radical acceptance.
It rocks.