Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New profile posts
Latest activity
Internet Search
Members
Current visitors
New profile posts
Search profile posts
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Forums
Parent Support Forums
Parent Emeritus
Ew
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="scent of cedar" data-source="post: 603803" data-attributes="member: 1721"><p>I'm feeling better, today.</p><p></p><p>Thanks to each of you for your responses. It's just so hard to know how to look at things, sometimes. What husband and I have concluded is that, as Recovering noted in her post, we have a choice as to what we believe about what comes, next. Though difficult child has been a wild child from birth, she has never been a thief. She has never been intentionally unkind. She has never blamed anyone else for her situation. She is compassionate to a fault. When she has anything ~ a place to live, a car, food, money ~ she shares whatever she has with whoever needs what she has. All of which goes to say that, in retrospect, I really don't believe our neighbor/houseguest is in danger or will be taken advantage of. The more I thought about this whole thing, the more sort of embarrassed I am at my initial response.</p><p></p><p>This conclusion is one we chose. It's a matter of pushing the fear away. Plus, we will be right next door, should anything nasty start to happen. (Okay, it's still a little scary. Like I said, we chose to believe for the best, heart palpitations and all.) </p><p></p><p>Like all of us here, I am learning how to do this, too.</p><p></p><p>It is difficult to see a difficult child child as trustworthy or decent ~ or even, sometimes, as a person who can come back from their mistakes. We have built up a kind of armor to protect ourselves. It is a really scary thing to allow trust or vulnerability, or to allow someone else to be vulnerable to, difficult child. </p><p></p><p>But the emotion we have decided on, the reality we have decided to perceive, is to believe in difficult child, and in the good outcome, for all of us.</p><p></p><p>That this series of events happened as they did can be seen as almost a miraculous occurrence. I am thinking that one over. </p><p></p><p>Seriously.</p><p></p><p>After six months homeless and living on the street, difficult child calls to come home the very day we are collecting the houseguest from the airport. The only reason she calls is because the police have picked up the bad man up and put him in jail over the run-the-van-into-the-stone-wall incident. Which happened April 1st. There is no attempt on difficult child's part to hide anything about who she is or where she has been ~ or why ~ from the houseguest. The houseguest likes her anyway. husband happens to say, in front of the houseguest, that he doesn't think he wants difficult child to come South with us, sort of forcing an issue the houseguest must already have been considering as a way to help difficult child, when she arrived with us, in October. (I am very sure difficult child would have come with us in October, if that is what she wanted. husband is pretty much the boss around our house. After me, I mean. :O) </p><p></p><p>So, one way or another, difficult child would have come South, anyway, unless she refused.</p><p></p><p>The bad man with whom she has been living on the streets (and who has been beating her since their relationship began) will be in jail for something like the coming five years.</p><p></p><p>difficult child's children are adjusting beautifully to their situations with difficult child's ex-husband. Their lives are stable, they are surrounded by exDH's good, decent family. They will be attending good schools. difficult child's exDH continues to keep contact with us, and may even come, with the kids, to visit next summer.</p><p></p><p>The way everything has worked out so precisely seems almost supernaturally, purposefully, perfect.</p><p></p><p>So, we're back to Joel Osteen, and believing for the best.</p><p></p><p>If you haven't read those materials yet, please do so. Or, try to catch one of his sermons. You can call them up online, if you like. Even if things don't work out, even when I was certain we were looking at losing difficult child, that understanding that I had the right and the ability to determine my own response to events out of my control helped me stand up again. (For those who don't know, difficult child was being beat, sometimes badly enough to wind up hospitalized ~ or was drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning and winding up hospitalized, though that only happened once that I know of ~ almost as a matter of course. Drug use was a part of the picture. Oddly enough, at least according to difficult child, it was the bad man who put a stop to the drug use. He had watched a former girlfriend lose her limbs due to injecting drugs. Anyway, to go back to difficult child. She had closed head injuries twice that I know of, and a lacerated liver one time. Proceeded to drink and drug and who knows what with the liver laceration. Homeless and living on the streets through the very cold Winter. The winter before last? difficult child was an excellent, beloved, highly motivated teacher, working with at-risk adolescents.)</p><p></p><p>I could cry for husband and myself, when I think back on this year.</p><p></p><p>Other parents, read the Joel Osteen materials, if you can. </p><p></p><p>Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown. (Recovering, you were right. This is a beautifully done book.) </p><p></p><p>Posting here, so helpful, too.</p><p></p><p>I feel a little like Roy Scheider in Jaws. Sunny day, boat is running well. Spooky music in the background. The shark is still under there....</p><p></p><p>But for today, for this minute, husband and I have been able to choose to believe for the best. Not in a Polly Anna way, I don't think.</p><p></p><p>Everything may change, tomorrow. But for right now, it feels like we have learned that it is possible to choose to survive the horror of watching a child self-destruct without losing sight of the potential for joy, in our own private lives. Once you can see that, you can pick that reality over the dark, hellish one we spent the winter in. If we can do that, you can, too. I don't know whether it is possible to pick that brighter reality in the thick of the chaos self-destructing difficult children cause. But I do know it is worth trying to do that.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="scent of cedar, post: 603803, member: 1721"] I'm feeling better, today. Thanks to each of you for your responses. It's just so hard to know how to look at things, sometimes. What husband and I have concluded is that, as Recovering noted in her post, we have a choice as to what we believe about what comes, next. Though difficult child has been a wild child from birth, she has never been a thief. She has never been intentionally unkind. She has never blamed anyone else for her situation. She is compassionate to a fault. When she has anything ~ a place to live, a car, food, money ~ she shares whatever she has with whoever needs what she has. All of which goes to say that, in retrospect, I really don't believe our neighbor/houseguest is in danger or will be taken advantage of. The more I thought about this whole thing, the more sort of embarrassed I am at my initial response. This conclusion is one we chose. It's a matter of pushing the fear away. Plus, we will be right next door, should anything nasty start to happen. (Okay, it's still a little scary. Like I said, we chose to believe for the best, heart palpitations and all.) Like all of us here, I am learning how to do this, too. It is difficult to see a difficult child child as trustworthy or decent ~ or even, sometimes, as a person who can come back from their mistakes. We have built up a kind of armor to protect ourselves. It is a really scary thing to allow trust or vulnerability, or to allow someone else to be vulnerable to, difficult child. But the emotion we have decided on, the reality we have decided to perceive, is to believe in difficult child, and in the good outcome, for all of us. That this series of events happened as they did can be seen as almost a miraculous occurrence. I am thinking that one over. Seriously. After six months homeless and living on the street, difficult child calls to come home the very day we are collecting the houseguest from the airport. The only reason she calls is because the police have picked up the bad man up and put him in jail over the run-the-van-into-the-stone-wall incident. Which happened April 1st. There is no attempt on difficult child's part to hide anything about who she is or where she has been ~ or why ~ from the houseguest. The houseguest likes her anyway. husband happens to say, in front of the houseguest, that he doesn't think he wants difficult child to come South with us, sort of forcing an issue the houseguest must already have been considering as a way to help difficult child, when she arrived with us, in October. (I am very sure difficult child would have come with us in October, if that is what she wanted. husband is pretty much the boss around our house. After me, I mean. :O) So, one way or another, difficult child would have come South, anyway, unless she refused. The bad man with whom she has been living on the streets (and who has been beating her since their relationship began) will be in jail for something like the coming five years. difficult child's children are adjusting beautifully to their situations with difficult child's ex-husband. Their lives are stable, they are surrounded by exDH's good, decent family. They will be attending good schools. difficult child's exDH continues to keep contact with us, and may even come, with the kids, to visit next summer. The way everything has worked out so precisely seems almost supernaturally, purposefully, perfect. So, we're back to Joel Osteen, and believing for the best. If you haven't read those materials yet, please do so. Or, try to catch one of his sermons. You can call them up online, if you like. Even if things don't work out, even when I was certain we were looking at losing difficult child, that understanding that I had the right and the ability to determine my own response to events out of my control helped me stand up again. (For those who don't know, difficult child was being beat, sometimes badly enough to wind up hospitalized ~ or was drinking to the point of alcohol poisoning and winding up hospitalized, though that only happened once that I know of ~ almost as a matter of course. Drug use was a part of the picture. Oddly enough, at least according to difficult child, it was the bad man who put a stop to the drug use. He had watched a former girlfriend lose her limbs due to injecting drugs. Anyway, to go back to difficult child. She had closed head injuries twice that I know of, and a lacerated liver one time. Proceeded to drink and drug and who knows what with the liver laceration. Homeless and living on the streets through the very cold Winter. The winter before last? difficult child was an excellent, beloved, highly motivated teacher, working with at-risk adolescents.) I could cry for husband and myself, when I think back on this year. Other parents, read the Joel Osteen materials, if you can. Daring Greatly, by Brene Brown. (Recovering, you were right. This is a beautifully done book.) Posting here, so helpful, too. I feel a little like Roy Scheider in Jaws. Sunny day, boat is running well. Spooky music in the background. The shark is still under there.... But for today, for this minute, husband and I have been able to choose to believe for the best. Not in a Polly Anna way, I don't think. Everything may change, tomorrow. But for right now, it feels like we have learned that it is possible to choose to survive the horror of watching a child self-destruct without losing sight of the potential for joy, in our own private lives. Once you can see that, you can pick that reality over the dark, hellish one we spent the winter in. If we can do that, you can, too. I don't know whether it is possible to pick that brighter reality in the thick of the chaos self-destructing difficult children cause. But I do know it is worth trying to do that. Cedar [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Forums
Parent Support Forums
Parent Emeritus
Ew
Top