Contact with homeless son. Wants to visit and stay for couple of nights.

pasajes4

Well-Known Member
Thank you for sharing your son's visit with us. I love that you could be in the moment with your child and love him where he is at in his life right now. When I have been able to do that, I have experienced a rebirth of sorts akin to the day my child was born and felt that fierce love that connects me to him all of my days and beyond.

Your post has given me hope.
 

Echolette

Well-Known Member
Lucy,

thank you for sharing the details of your visit with you son. I think it gives all of us hope that we can have a relatively pleasant visit with our difficult children too, at some point.

and regarding this...

We cooked a lot and he ate everything without ranting about the immoral way that meat is produced or the way the earth is being destroyed by deforestation to plant crops or the food that is flown all around the world so that we can eat anything we like out of season.

He is not totally wrong about that stuff! That is how they often get us...a thread of rational in their crazy ;)

Hugs to you. Drink out of Cedar's teacup.

Echo
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
I am so happy for you both, Lucy.

Your son sounds like a bright, articulate young man. I had to chuckle about the part where he felt you were dressing him! I could picture the two of you walking and not talking much, could picture the rareness and joy of being near him.

I am so glad your visit with your son went well.

:O)

Cedar
 

Albatross

Well-Known Member
It sounds like it went wonderfully. I so enjoyed reading about the humor and the acceptance and the just...being there with him, I love that part. That easy comfort and connection that is somewhere under the surface but we have lost sight of with all the other "stuff" we go through. I'm so glad you got to share those kinds of moments with him.
 

Childofmine

one day at a time
LucyJ! I am so happy to read your post. Through every line, I hear acceptance. Acceptance by you and by him.

What a gift. You are accepting him, you made plans so that the visit had the best chance to be successful, you used quiet and silence to manage yourself, you didn't engage, you see him periodically...and....lo and behold....the visit was good for you. It sounds like it was also good for him.

You used your tools, Lucy. You used your tools when you were with difficult child. It's one thing to even begin to use our tools, it's another to use our tools when we are not with our difficult children, and it's still another to use them when we are together.

What amazing progress you have made in dealing with...what is.

I hope you are at peace today. It sounds like your difficult child is happy with his life. I hope you are both happy, today.
 

nlj

Well-Known Member
Thank you everyone. Yes COM you are right, I hadn't analysed it properly before as I have been feeling completely drained since I took him back yesterday, but you are right, I used my tools of acceptance and quiet in an effective way and the outcome was really positive, and I stayed detached in my head so as not to be drawn into any antagonistic situations. I have been out for lunch with my husband today so that we could talk about the visit and how things are. H saw my son only for the first night but he says that he thought my son was looking a bit more together and seemed calmer. We are both feeling optimistic that this could be the start of us having a reasonable, peaceful relationship with him, now that I have accepted that he doesn't want a normal life and that he is happy living like this and he seems to have accepted without discussion that there won't be any more financial handouts or interference. I think we have to ask ourselves this question before anything else - Is my son/daughter happy with the life they have chosen? In my son's case, I know that his state of mind is really the only thing of importance. His hair could be cut and his beard trimmed and his rags exchanged for neat clothes and his skinny body fattened up, but if he is not ok in his head then those are just surface things of little importance. The only thing that matters, in the end, is whether or not he is ok mentally, because that is the thing that can't be put right easily, unlike all the surface things... and I have to accept that he seems content with this bizarre lifestyle that he has chosen. I still feel sad about it, but I am hopeful that he may one day find a way back and in the meantime I am happy (ish) to accept him as he is. I am also concentrating on looking after myself and valuing my husband and other children and the good things in my life. I have been reading your thread COM (what's happening to me ...)and the ups and downs and optimism followed by heartache. Albatross posted "It seems a lot of times just when things are getting better and we start to settle into that idea -- they find a way to mess it up! " That is very wise and very true and I am going to keep this in mind, because, although we had a good few days, all of us parents here know that things can change and I don't want to be too 'up' in order to be knocked 'down'. But yes, I have made amazing progress and it is all thanks to this site. The future has a possibility to be happy, and that must be true for all of us here.
 
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