Update on Difficult Child in Denver-no surprises here.

[blackgnat]

After 17 days, he doesn't think he can take it anymore.

He DID go today to the Mental Health place to try and change his medications, so he can be numbed to the realities of the mission, but didn't get anywhere. Too many people drinking and drugging outside the mission, getting aggravation from some people (someone called him a punk ass ) and he is full of anger.

Says it's not a good place for him to recover, with the public being so rude and all the temptation around him. I do feel bad that he attempted to get help, but said there was none forthcoming.

on the other hand, I know him and I think some of this is exaggerated so he can leave and do his own thing. Not sure what to think. I only know I cannot live his life for him.

He would be transferred to another place after 2 more weeks but said "Mom, I don't honestly think I can take it this long". A couple of days ago, he was fully committed to the 27th month program. Now it's not a minute longer. I asked what the problem was (the people, the disrespect-yet he has just been moved from the "bouncer" position to early morning kitchen duty, which is what he wanted) and what the alternative was. That one was a lot woollier.

Not much to say about it, except nothing is a surprise to me when it comes to him. It is always his decision. Another round in the saga-I can never rest assured that it's all going to be okay.

Thanks for reading.

 

[Copabanana]

It is always his decision. Another round in the saga-I can never rest assured that it's all going to be okay.

BG, none of us can.

Of course you feel the hope has been taken away. I have felt this way so many times. Like I could not any more bear the pain of it. Of having hope...and then despair.

That is why I have tried to let go and to concentrate on that which I can better control: my own life and home. I still love my son as much as before and certainly care as much, but I realize I cannot tie my own well being to his--over which I have accepted I have no control what so ever.

It is paradoxical that now that I have disengaged, my son seems to be making better choices...and is treating me better.

Nevertheless, I am reserved when he calls, saying little more than hi and goodbye. For me, it is better that way, for both of us.

BG, when your son is ready...he will do what he needs to do...and not one second sooner.

It may have been theater on his part, a way to destabilize you and get a reaction. So he can make you responsible and not himself.

That is the benefit to them (and us) of pulling back. The responsibility will rest firmly in your son. Where it belongs.

Try to do something nice for yourself right now. There is hope. But the power to get there does not rest in us. It rests in our sons.

 

[blackgnat]

Thanks, Copa! Just got a call from him-he apologized for his raging on the phone and said he'd calmed down a lot. He's ready to start his new kitchen job tomorrow and they gave him a pass to go to a clinic in Denver to see what he could do about his medications.

Sounding much more rational (as in 25% more than usual) like he's starting to think about CONSEQUENCES of his actions. Hope he sticks with it!

Realising more and more that there's not a damn thing I can do. As I told him, "I cannot live your life for you". And I really see the clarity or that statement.

Hope you and yours and all the CD family is muddling through these strange days...

 

[Copabanana]

I am so happy for you, BG. It is a learning experience for you.

I do not know why they do that. Blurt out to us some variation of a story which basically amounts to giving up on themselves...doing some rash and self-destructive thing....And the result is that we die inside.

It turns out to have been some stream of consciousness drivel that they never intended to do...and there we were hanging on their every word.

He is teaching you how to protect yourself.

And he has made a series of excellent choices. All by himself.

Have a good evening, BG. It must be late where you are.

 

[Tanya M]

Realising more and more that there's not a damn thing I can do. As I told him, "I cannot live your life for you". And I really see the clarity or that statement.

This is a good place to be BG.

I'm glad he called you back and apologized. I do hope he will stick with this program and I also hope he will come to understand that throughout life he is going to have to deal with unpleasant people.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Keeping my fingers crossed and saying a prayer for you and your son......

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Thanks, Copa! Just got a call from him-he apologized for his raging on the phone and said he'd calmed down a lot. He's ready to start his new kitchen job tomorrow and they gave him a pass to go to a clinic in Denver to see what he could do about his medications.

That's great!

What I wanted to post to you blackgnat is that when daughter left treatment AMA and began the rapid downhill spiral that led to the bottom falling out of every worst case scenario into something unimaginably worse still, we managed by small, little steps, not to enable. It was an awful time. I cannot begin to describe it.

But daughter is doing so beautifully well, today.

We have been telling son too that we believe in him. Not that we say it in those words, but we are (I am ~ D H was always there) letting the situations he creates be the situations he creates.

Son is coming back, too.

I do believe detaching, not from our child, but from patterns of enabling evolved over repeated times of crisis, helps both us and our kids. Detaching from our enabling patterns with love, detaching from those enabling patterns with courage and fully engaged vulnerability to the pain in it, helped our family. You know some of the challenges we have been through. There were times it looked hopeless. There were so many times when all I knew to do was to choose the next right thing. My guide was not to enable. That's it. I learned to say things like: "That's awful! I'm so sorry this is happening." I learned to say, and this was super hard: "I don't know." I said I love you whether the kids were roaring on about what a crummy family we were or not. I asked for the right words so many times.

Anne Lamott wrote a book: Help! Thanks! Wow! In it, she says that every prayer is essentially one of those three words. So, when I am in a lost place and I don't know what to say? I think "Help!"

Over the time these changed patterns from me have created change in the ways the kids see themselves, I have had a million occasions to think: "Wow."

And "Thanks!"

So, that is a simple enough thing that I could remember it even in times of crisis.

That helped me get through it.

Maybe, that can be of help to you, too, blackgnat.

Just lately, I've learned: "Pray for their peace and therein, find our own."

That helps me, when anxiety hits.

And that is all I know, this morning. Not so much to know maybe, but it helps me to think that way through all the small steps that create good change in our relationships to our kids and even, in how we see ourselves.

Cedar