But, how do YOU feel?

[Echolette]

ON an earlier thread there was a theme about not talking about our difficult child's....I have found that helpful with my friends,even my close friends, who have highly successful kids. I can't help feeling that they have a certain titillated interest in my life disaster, a little twinge of superiority...and it undermines me. So...after I read that, just a few weeks ago, I just stopped talking about him. If new acquainances push, I say "he is on an alternative path." If old friends ask, I say "he is the same". If we are doing "compare the kids" I talk about my 3 other ones. SOmetimes I feel that I have betrayed my mommyhood...I honestly feel these days that I have only 3 kids.
And yes, it is sad, and yes, it is embarassing. That part is ours to process our way through and let it go.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Good morning. Well, I think the best answer I can give to your question is that she did not learn how to detach. She was a very successful attorney and it appears that she set her son up in an apartment and paid for his needs to be met without addressing any of the ways in which she could learn to respond differently to his behavior. She became very bitter and many of her friends distanced themselves from her because it was difficult to be around that level of negativity. I heard through the grapevine that she lost her job and I believe that had something to do with her son as well.

In any case, my understanding of the events were that she enabled him to her own demise.

The last time I saw her was at a HS reunion and she told me that she never knew when we were kids just how horrible life could turn out. I recall thinking at that time, that we all have life events that are challenging and yet she allowed her life events to take her out and even though she was accomplished and affluent in the eyes of society, she was an extremely unhappy person. Her unhappy life events defined her as opposed to rising above them. It is very sad.

I think the lesson she might provide is that it is our choice what we do with what life hands us. I know it sound trite, but it is the truth. She had one child and he turned out to be a difficult child..........she could not rise above that fact. I'm sure there is more to her story that I am not aware of, I'm sure she has her own take on things. That is my take on it.

 

[Mom2oddson]

How did I feel in the worst of the crisis? Like an absolute failure! No matter how hard I tried I couldn't help my kids and it torn me into tiny little pieces.

Then we went through 6 months without a word from our daughter. No one knew where she was. So, we waited for the call to come identify her body because the road she was on was leading to that point. And we had to come to terms with the possibility of our daughter dying from her choices. And when you get to the point where you are at peace with that consequence?.....then you feel like a total Heartless witch, because what kind of parent can do that??

We've had no children in the house for a couple of years now. They are all living their own lives and living with their consequences. It's still not easy. I don't think it ever will be easy. There are times that it is very lonely. I don't have a "normal" relationship with my kids that others do.

But, I don't take anything for granted either. My daughter comes by to visit once a month. Her last visit, she apologized for all the grief she put us through. It made my heart SING!! She lives in a very bad neighborhood, she's in a bad relationship mainly for the financial support that she gets, but she is no longer homeless and she is clean right now! I have more to be proud of with her than the parent who's kid is a doctor because MY Daughter has overcome bigger obsticales than that docter could even imagine.

It's been years and I'm still trying to heal. I have accepted that I will never again be the person I was when this journey started. But I AM a better person for the journey. I appreciate every little thing! Waking up every morning is a gift now. I still have PTSD. I can't be outside when the school bus drops off the kids (our driveway is the bus stop). Just the sound of kids laughing and carrying on sends my body into a fit. My whole body tenses up, my blood pressure rises, and I'm overwhelmed with fear. But, I recongnize it for what it is....a result of living with my kids and their violence.

Advice? hahaha....I'm no success story so I feel funny offering anything. Routine was my way to function. I went to work every day. By the time I got home, all I could do was collapse on the couch. So, Sunday was cooking day. I loaded up the crockpots and cooked food for the week. That way, when I got home, I could heat up some food and be fine. And I allowed myself to do nothing after work. Saturday, I cleaned house. I didn't want to. I made myself. I would set a timer for 15 minutes and work on the kitchen. Then I would sit on the couch for 15 min. The next 15 was the living room, then rest. The next 15 was the bathroom then rest. I did that for the first year. I did nothing but go to work and my weekends were at home. I needed to grieve. I still find myself mourning the what-should-of-been's once in a while. And it's okay to mourn a dream that didn't come true.

My life and my family will never be what I dreamed of. Nor will anyone outside of this group understand all the invisible scars that I carry with me. I damaged my heart from all the stress. My health isn't great, but I did survive. And in the last month or two, I feel like I've reach the other side of the storm. I'm working on my crafts again. I find myself smiling more and more. I want to go out of the house and do things.

I guess my best advice is to accept the pain that you are feeling as normal for someone going through what you go are going through. You'd never judge someone who had terminal illness as being "wrong" for whatever emotions that they are going through. Don't judge yourself. What us Warrior Mom's have gone through is rough.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

It is what it is, we can cry about it, be shamed about it, resent it, flip out about it, have it ruin our lives..........or we can accept it and look at it differently .........it takes time, but I believe we can get through it and bring joy back into our lives...........

Determined intent, just like when we do the Heimlich Maneuver. That's the only way to reclaim ourselves. We have to mean it. Relearn cherishing, relearn humor, relearn self acceptance.

I don't know how to do that.

I was Brownie and then, Girl Scout leader. I was Cub Scout Den Mother. I was Great Books teacher. So...I came to love all the kids' friends too, as my kids grew up and until they went down their paths of choice. So, I know that it hurts in a special, puzzling way to see a friend's child do well when ours are not. One of my former Brownies is a pulmonologist, today. One of difficult child daughter's former friends is a cardiologist. Other friends of either of my children have gone on to become attorneys, psychiatrists, firemen, teachers, policemen.

There are children I would have sworn would turn bad who are fully functioning members of society, today.

I cannot imagine what life would look and feel like, if my children were okay.

Cedar

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

She had one child and he turned out to be a difficult child......

I think that is how we need to see it, too. Not that I raised a child who became a difficult child. But that the child turned out to be a difficult child.

Cedar

 

[Childofmine]

Mom2...I believe you are a huge success and your wisdom is inspiring.

I spent a lot of my life dancing as fast as I could. I was running around trying to make everybody happy and fix everybody. I learned that early on in my childhood as the oldest of four, with one disabled. I grew up fast and I was a "great helper." Very capable, responsible, strong, worked hard, tried hard, made it happen.

Great qualities until I met addiction. And guess what? All of the great stuff doesn't work with addiction...and it doesn't work with people.

One time a friend of mine said to me (I remember thinking it was a great compliment at the time): You're always around when things are bad and I need a friend. But when things are good with me, I don't talk to you much.

Over these past few years, I have come to realize that statement is very telling about the person I used to be. And I don't like it. I don't want to be that person anymore.

This thread has been talking as well about how it feels when all of our friends talk about how successful and great their grown kids are. I have struggled with that too, and still do. I have to work hard to overcome my belief that everybody has to get a college degree, get married, have 2.5 children, go to church every Sunday, get involved in the community, have a great professional career, raise well-behaved kids who have every opportunity, take every lesson, excel in every sport, make straight As, etc., etc., etc.

Who put me in charge of determining everybody's life? I didn't know any different. I watched and listened to my parents, and that was what we all were supposed to do. Right? That was the prescription for a great, successful life.

Wrong. So wrong. I am having to do a lot of reality work myself over the past years, weeks and months. I am realizing how wrong I have been about so many things.

I have been dancing as fast as I could dance for all of these years to make the above "perfect life" happen, and guess what, it doesn't exist! It really doesn't exist anywhere with anybody but we are all so locked in our isolation and prisons that we don't tell the truth to each other, unless we become so broken we have no choice but to start truth-telling, like we do here.

I have so many good friends whose kids are living a version of that dream---on the surface. When/If they start truth-telling, you learn that well, there are problems. It's not all perfect. It's not all what it appears to be.

Of course it isn't. We knew that already. But somehow we isolate ourselves in our pain and we build up their lives and their children's lives in our minds to be something they are not.

Trouble is the great equalizer. And all of God's chillun have troubles. (sounding like a gospel song...: )

I am telling more truth today. I am living a simpler, more real life today. I have more peace today. I am more content in every moment today. I don't have to dance anymore.

Would I have learned any of that without all of this? Not sure of that answer, but this is where my gratitude comes from.

Keep moving forward.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Well said Childofmine. I can relate to having danced as fast as I could. I still dance, just a whole lot slower and to the dances I enjoy. Not the frenzied, breathless ones which are the result of perfectionism. I am the oldest of 5 and had the same prescription for life as you. Learning to just BE and ENJOY have been huge life lessons. And, truly, I believe my daughter, the difficult child, was one of my greatest teachers in that realm. Once in a moment of clarity and truth, with tears in her eyes, she said all she ever wanted was for me to be happy and released from the pain of my own childhood.

I think of that sometimes and realize that there is much more to just our bodies walking around here on planet earth................there is a deeper context, the growth of the soul..................the development of consciousness...............the learning of deeper truths that have to do with staying awake and present through all of the pain and joy and simply BEING a part of it all............not defining it as right or wrong or good or bad but just what is and responding with as much grace as we possibly can.

I took a workshop many years ago (prerequisites in the state of California) which taught 4 "simple" guidelines,..................they are, 1. let go of judging, 2. let go of comparing, 3. let go of the outcome and 4. let go of the need to understand. The need to understand has been a bit of an issue for me. I want to KNOW. But that is where the "it is what it is" and acceptance comes in. I continue to practice these guidelines. They work for me.

And Cedar, you are relearning cherishing yourself, accepting yourself and humor. You are right smack in the middle of that. Bringing the joy back, being kind to yourself, being aware of the what you DON'T want. You DO know how to do this, you ARE doing it. You need to acknowledge that and own it. The more you can realize you are doing all of that, the more of all of that will be obvious to you.

Even though you may never know what it would be like to be the mother of a kid who is okay, as I may not know that.............YOU Cedar are already okay just the way you are.............separate from being a MOM, you are a person who is starting to glimpse your own magnificence. Decide to enjoy that ride...............it is really the only ride in town.