Interesting inquiry Cedar. I think it looks different when your child is an older adult. For us here in PE, I think we are facing a possible detachment from our adult kids that may be more dramatic then parents still involved in their kids detox, or trying to find mental help for them or who are still needing to turn over more rocks and exhaust whatever efforts they think are necessary because their kids are a lot younger then ours.
And, we're older too, we're looking at this from a very different vantage point...........we just have less time to waste, there is more emphasis on the present moment and the recognition that our own lives are on the other side of the mountain...........
For me I think after the majority of the emotions subsided, it felt weird for awhile. I was in a kind of strange new land. It felt like a part of me was unhooking from a massive energy field where most of my energy had been stuck for a long time. There was an initial sense of relief and calm which vacillated with feelings of loss.
As time has gone by, as each event surfaced where I might have gone into enabling mode and didn't, I gained strength and resolve. I don't know if this is common for everyone, but because I've had to detach from most members of my family and have been doing that for quite some time, I've had a very clear sense of liberation and freedom from the role of care-giver/enabler/rescuer. There's been a lot of joy involved with that........laced with some sadness too.
That freedom translates into many other areas of my life, not just with my difficult child.
Detachment looks like I have no relationship with my daughter. When I made the connection that there was a huge amount of energy going towards her and none coming back, that changed a lot for me..........in pulling back all the energy I was exerting for my daughter, I had quite a bit more for my own life. So, one clear component is I have more time, more energy, more money, more head space that is not cluttered with thoughts about her and her needs. Since I have had a history of caring for the members of my family and my difficult child was the last in my enabling career, this has had a large impact on my life.
Dstc is right, it is about letting go. Letting go of not just the sense of parental responsibility, but a friendship with my daughter, any kind of connection at all, my hopes for her, letting go of my fear about what will happen to her, how she will survive now and when I am gone...........letting go of my own self blame and self judgment that I did this or could have stopped it..........it's a whole lot of letting go.
Where I am now is leaning into acceptance, the deep down knowledge that I am completely powerless and this is what it is, there is nothing else I can do. I still have hope that she will pull it together, but none of my life depends on that. As I mentioned in another thread I've become good at looking at this through a certain lens which enables me to not get stuck in the sad parts, because it is sad, but I can't allow myself to dwell on that. Particularly because I know my daughter doesn't, she is living the life she has chosen and I think that represents a certain freedom to her.
For awhile the first thought I had upon waking was of my daughter and there was angst.............and the last thought I had at night was about her............and there was angst...........but not now. I made a lot of hard choices as we do here and over time, all those choices added up to more time spent without any angst. It's definitely been a process, it's been almost 2 years now............it was one step forward and one back...........
Now, I have a lot of days which are hopeful, optimistic, happy, calm and hold new possibilities. The knowledge of setting boundaries, seeing the truth, speaking the truth, learning about myself and my own issues has placed me in a new place in my life which I am still learning about. Part of the connection with my daughter was not at all healthy for me and I think that's true for her as well. I've broken that connection. It remains to be seen if we have the capacity to forge another............but whether we do or we don't, I feel as if that broken connection has offered me a sense of wholeness and health I just didn't have before.
I think I was in a delusion of my own making, trying to make the situation into something it wasn't. It was hard for me to accept how it really was. Seeing the truth of it, with A LOT of help and seeing my part and ultimately letting go has offered freedom which has cleared a lot of dust out, cleared the decks so to speak.
I believe acceptance of what is is the healthiest place to land. Acceptance takes away the judgments, what ifs, fears, the past, the future...........it's all okay, it is what it is, I have no power to change that for anyone else............it takes the weight off..........lightens the load............
My self talk now is much kinder. I have less expectations. I nap more. I speak my truth MUCH more. I have the capacity now to express my anger immediately and appropriately. The old editing I used to employ is GONE. My thoughts are mostly positive and don't involve my daughter much. When she pops in to my mind, I gently push the thoughts aside, those thoughts don't go anywhere but into a familiar hole so I've learned to bypass it.
I think as we've discussed before, I choose to be happy. I choose to not dwell on what I have no control over. I choose to let go of thoughts that go nowhere. I choose to focus on what is good, what I CAN do and let go of the rest. "Misery is optional." As I say that I realize that I am practicing living within the serenity prayer. It's like the space between breaths in meditation...........where peace resides.
I just thought that it's sort of like a pendulum...........I swung all the way to the side of enabling my daughter...........then I went back and forth for awhile...........enabling to detachment..........back and forth.............and then it seems, it all slowed down into acceptance........where I am presently hovering....... some days I slip into an odd place, but for the most part, I hover right there in the middle now.