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Trying to Detach...again
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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 747328" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>Dear Beta</p><p></p><p>I could have written so much of your post. I am tired now so can't write much, but I will say this. My adopted son and I do the same dance. I too cannot bear to be disconnected from him. Even when I initiate the time out, and feel strong and sure, within a month or six weeks, my defenses erode and I dissolve. I miss him. I worry about him. But mostly, I cannot live without contact of some sort.</p><p></p><p>My son is initially insulting, then indifferent, and now he is back here in a rental I own. I will not see him and don't want to talk to him, but at least he is where I know he is safe and nearby.</p><p></p><p>I do not believe your son really feels what he says. I think these guys have a whole lot of confusion and hurt about being adopted, mental illness, race, in my own son's case, his self-destructive birth parents who made him ill, and he just doesn't know how to think about himself. He projects his rage at his birth parents onto me, the only parent he has known. I am the scapegoat. He blames me for how he feels (less so now) because i am the only one he has to put this onto. I get the overflow from his own distress.</p><p></p><p>My son is a J too. I don't think that right words will reach my boy, but nonetheless I try, too. I think our sons know how much we love them, and that they love us too. But the love is temporarily drowned out by all of the conflict and confusion and low self-worth they feel.</p><p></p><p>My own son is mellowing some. A lot of it is marijuana, which worries me. But i think the intensity is softening of what he is dealing with. Or he is learning how better to tolerate it. I don't know.</p><p></p><p>I think we need to be gentle with ourselves and not to have the expectation that it be one pole or another. Distance is required when we are being mistreated or when they are being self-destructive. And strong boundaries. I see nothing inconsistent at all in reaching out with love. Even when they are rejecting, they still are able to feel our love, I believe. We cannot however define ourselves and the story of our lives, by their rejection. We need to hang onto ourselves, to build ourselves up. And have faith and hope that they will right themselves. I know how hard it is. But what choice do we have?</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 747328, member: 18958"] Dear Beta I could have written so much of your post. I am tired now so can't write much, but I will say this. My adopted son and I do the same dance. I too cannot bear to be disconnected from him. Even when I initiate the time out, and feel strong and sure, within a month or six weeks, my defenses erode and I dissolve. I miss him. I worry about him. But mostly, I cannot live without contact of some sort. My son is initially insulting, then indifferent, and now he is back here in a rental I own. I will not see him and don't want to talk to him, but at least he is where I know he is safe and nearby. I do not believe your son really feels what he says. I think these guys have a whole lot of confusion and hurt about being adopted, mental illness, race, in my own son's case, his self-destructive birth parents who made him ill, and he just doesn't know how to think about himself. He projects his rage at his birth parents onto me, the only parent he has known. I am the scapegoat. He blames me for how he feels (less so now) because i am the only one he has to put this onto. I get the overflow from his own distress. My son is a J too. I don't think that right words will reach my boy, but nonetheless I try, too. I think our sons know how much we love them, and that they love us too. But the love is temporarily drowned out by all of the conflict and confusion and low self-worth they feel. My own son is mellowing some. A lot of it is marijuana, which worries me. But i think the intensity is softening of what he is dealing with. Or he is learning how better to tolerate it. I don't know. I think we need to be gentle with ourselves and not to have the expectation that it be one pole or another. Distance is required when we are being mistreated or when they are being self-destructive. And strong boundaries. I see nothing inconsistent at all in reaching out with love. Even when they are rejecting, they still are able to feel our love, I believe. We cannot however define ourselves and the story of our lives, by their rejection. We need to hang onto ourselves, to build ourselves up. And have faith and hope that they will right themselves. I know how hard it is. But what choice do we have? [/QUOTE]
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