Oh Albatross, your post brought me back to a few years ago when I could have written (and probably did) a very similar story. My heart hurts for you...... I'm sorry, I do know how hard all of this is.....
In so many ways I am beaten down, not solely because of Difficult Child but he plays a huge role. My interactions with him lead me to question my competence in everything I do. Worrying about him costs me joy, focus, energy, health, friends…
That is how I felt before I entered that Codependency course. One of the first things they told us, at the very first group, was that most of us landed there because our lives had become completely out of control because of the actions, behaviors and choices of someone else. The level of devastation and misery in that initial group was enormous....... all of us felt exactly how you describe. For me, it had become necessary to place myself in a completely different environment, put aside whatever resistance I was feeling and begin to open up to an entirely new way of thinking and responding. The course was actually 2 phases which lasted about a year, but I stayed on for close to 2 years because I was in fact learning and changing and I could see progress in myself because I began to feel so much better. As a result of the new tools I was learning and the continuing support to use those new tools, as I've said many times on this board.....my entire life changed for the (WAY) better.
I don't think most of us have any way of being prepared for this path with our kids. To learn how to be okay in the face of our precious children's terrible choices and behaviors is clearly the most difficult thing any of us can do. Every week for 2 years I was able to voice my concerns, my fears, my resistance, my anger, my resentments, my grief, all of it in a safe and caring group of others who were in the same boat, with therapists trained in Substance abuse, mental illness and codependency........and that began to shift my own belief system about what the "right" thing to do was. I was very resistant to detaching and letting go, it appeared to me that that was the furthest thing from love......and yet......I observed the changes others were making and how much better they were feeling about themselves and their situations......so I listened and tried to keep an open mind.
enough to have taken a heavy toll, enough to leave me feeling gaslighted, abused, confused, and tearful, ruminating afterward for days.
I often highly recommend folks here find professional support on this journey because for me, it took outside help for me to not only see my own behavior and how that was keeping me stuck, but to learn where that behavior came from and how I could change it. That heavy toll you speak of really just became too heavy for me to cope with......my life was suffering greatly....something had to change......I thought it would be my daughter.........but it was me.
I don't think it matters where you seek help, just that you seek it. Someplace where you can look at yourself truthfully, look at the situation truthfully, to take our outdated beliefs and resistances, look at them squarely and say to ourselves, "so how is that working for you?" If it is not working, then it needs to change.
But how do I stop destroying myself over it, feeling so despicable and unworthy for failing to have the relationship I *think* we *should* have?
I don’t know how else to put it, but I need to find my strength again.
How do I do that?
I am very focused on positivity and living life in a high spiritual vibration (look it up if interested).
This is very similar to how I frame it. Like SWOT, I see life as opportunities for growth, learning, awareness and healing. My daughter's lifestyle presented me with the greatest opportunity of my life........how I ultimately began to feel was that this was a spiritual path about learning acceptance.......and love. Acceptance and love first of myself and then acceptance and a different way of loving my daughter. It was a process. I had to relearn a lot. I had to try to remain open to much that I found abhorrent initially. The whole thing disrupted my beliefs about being a mother, about love, about my role with myself, about my own lack of worth and how much that rested on what I did and what I gave, as opposed to who I am in the deepest core of me. It often felt as if I was changing my DNA.......as if the very root of me was dissolving and the constellation of beliefs built on that root were tumbling down.......and I was building new beliefs that in fact were much more in alignment with who I am. I began to see how much I resisted reality, how much I railed against what I couldn't control and the absolute, stunning misery that brought me.
I've said on this board quite a number of times over the years that I see this path we are all on as the PHD program for one of the hardest things I think we humans have to learn........acceptance. As the Serenity prayer says so succinctly....."God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference." What happened for me is that I made my largest intention, my biggest prayer, my deepest desire and my main commitment, to be for that serenity, or for me, it was the phrase, peace of mind.......peace of mind was what I was after. It ceased to be about my daughter, it was about me and how I could obtain that peace.
My belief is that what we focus on not only expands and continues, but becomes our life. As SWOT mentioned about raising the vibration, I made a conscious effort to put my attention on positive things, on love, on gratitude, appreciation, on meditation, on whatever brought me joy. I had been focusing almost entirely on my daughter's life and what I could do to help her. When I changed that focus, when I placed it on myself and finding peace of mind, new opportunities began to show up. That codependency course appeared out of nowhere. I began reading spiritually based books by Pema Chodron, Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra.......many of which I had already read, but now I was understanding from a different vantage point, the intention was not about how I could help my daughter, but how I could love myself enough to learn how to make my life peaceful, meaningful and fulfilled. It was in essence a perceptual shift which shifted my focus and ultimately shifted everything.
I don't know if this is helpful Albatross, it is my journey through this forrest of fear, it is my point of view.......not the "right" way or the only way, simply my way......if you haven't sought support you might consider that now. I have found that when we reach the low point you find yourself at, it is often the turnaround point for us......when we just can't go further down the road we're on, when we must find a new road to discover a new perspective, a new focus, a new way of thinking and feeling. It may represent a new beginning for you......I so hope that is true for you......I'm sending every bit of strength and love I can muster to you......with prayers and wishes for you to find yourself, for you to look beneath the present circumstances and find YOU, the YOU which shines brilliantly no matter what is going on in your life.
