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I am being an ostrich
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<blockquote data-quote="trinityroyal" data-source="post: 549690" data-attributes="member: 3907"><p>Signorina, I don't think you're being an ostrich at all. I think you're handling things very well...not enabling bad behaviour or poor choicees, but still letting difficult child know that you love him and keeping the door open.</p><p></p><p>I've been following your story and that of the other SA posters for a long time, but I've hesitated to weigh in until now because I haven't walked in the shoes of a parent trying to live with and help an addicted child. Still, I think my perspective might be helpful from the point of view of a fiercely independent child who from birth needed to "Do It Myself!".</p><p></p><p>I am now, and have always been, fiercely independent. I have a burning need to do things for myself, figure out my own path. Partly due to Aspergers, which means that the world doesn't always quite make sense to me, and partly due to a kinaesthetic learning style, which means that I learn best by hands-on experience. I have to touch it, manipulate it, live it, in order to learn it.</p><p></p><p>What that often boils down to is that I have to go through it myself and learn the hard way. Just hearing someone else tell me doesn't help me to learn it. In fact, it can be frustrating, because I don't yet have a way of interpreting the input, so it comes across as just static and noise. It doesn't make sense, and I don't understand why someone is telling me this stuff. Until I've lived and learned, I don't know how to categorize or use the information I'm being give. Once I've learned the lesson the hard way, all of a sudden the advice makes sense. I now have a way to categorize the information that's being given to me, so I can make sense of it and use it. It acts as reinforcement to my own lesson, learned from experience.</p><p></p><p>As a teen, I was always just on the edge of being a full-blown difficult child. I danced along the cliff-edge, but kept just far enough back from it that I wouldn't fall over. Why? My parents just weren't capable of looking after me, so they left me to my own devices. I had all the stuff a teenage girl could possibly want and then some, but they were never THERE. My mother wanted to connect, and used to try to involve herself in my life, but with her mental illnesses I was more often than not in the parental role. And my father had no time for a daughter -- I was a little insect, to be swatted away when I buzzed too loudly or got too close.</p><p></p><p>But fending for myself was the making of me. I had to learn the lessons of self-sufficiency, and responsibility, and vulnerability and strength, how to cook and clean, do laundry and pay bills, stay sober at the party so that I wouldn't get into crazy situations I couldn't handle, how to say no to cigarettes so I could afford groceries...all that stuff that most kids can learn by being taught.</p><p></p><p>So...I guess in my rambling way, I'm suggesting that you continue to hang back. Your difficult child knows you love him, unconditionally and without question. Now, you've got to show him that you love him enough to let him go. Let him go make a mess and clean it up. Give him the time and space to miss you. He will, and then he'll be back.</p><p></p><p>Trinity</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="trinityroyal, post: 549690, member: 3907"] Signorina, I don't think you're being an ostrich at all. I think you're handling things very well...not enabling bad behaviour or poor choicees, but still letting difficult child know that you love him and keeping the door open. I've been following your story and that of the other SA posters for a long time, but I've hesitated to weigh in until now because I haven't walked in the shoes of a parent trying to live with and help an addicted child. Still, I think my perspective might be helpful from the point of view of a fiercely independent child who from birth needed to "Do It Myself!". I am now, and have always been, fiercely independent. I have a burning need to do things for myself, figure out my own path. Partly due to Aspergers, which means that the world doesn't always quite make sense to me, and partly due to a kinaesthetic learning style, which means that I learn best by hands-on experience. I have to touch it, manipulate it, live it, in order to learn it. What that often boils down to is that I have to go through it myself and learn the hard way. Just hearing someone else tell me doesn't help me to learn it. In fact, it can be frustrating, because I don't yet have a way of interpreting the input, so it comes across as just static and noise. It doesn't make sense, and I don't understand why someone is telling me this stuff. Until I've lived and learned, I don't know how to categorize or use the information I'm being give. Once I've learned the lesson the hard way, all of a sudden the advice makes sense. I now have a way to categorize the information that's being given to me, so I can make sense of it and use it. It acts as reinforcement to my own lesson, learned from experience. As a teen, I was always just on the edge of being a full-blown difficult child. I danced along the cliff-edge, but kept just far enough back from it that I wouldn't fall over. Why? My parents just weren't capable of looking after me, so they left me to my own devices. I had all the stuff a teenage girl could possibly want and then some, but they were never THERE. My mother wanted to connect, and used to try to involve herself in my life, but with her mental illnesses I was more often than not in the parental role. And my father had no time for a daughter -- I was a little insect, to be swatted away when I buzzed too loudly or got too close. But fending for myself was the making of me. I had to learn the lessons of self-sufficiency, and responsibility, and vulnerability and strength, how to cook and clean, do laundry and pay bills, stay sober at the party so that I wouldn't get into crazy situations I couldn't handle, how to say no to cigarettes so I could afford groceries...all that stuff that most kids can learn by being taught. So...I guess in my rambling way, I'm suggesting that you continue to hang back. Your difficult child knows you love him, unconditionally and without question. Now, you've got to show him that you love him enough to let him go. Let him go make a mess and clean it up. Give him the time and space to miss you. He will, and then he'll be back. Trinity [/QUOTE]
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