This has been a week of stepping further back..........geez, it's so easy now to look back and see how many of those steps back are inherent in this detachment process. I didn't just jump out of my daughter's life, running for the hills, although, God, there were times I wish I could have. Instead it's been this incremental backing out, stepping back, sometimes aghast, horrified, sometimes, relieved, filled with sorrow, sometimes just tired, exhausted and worn out. Sometimes free, liberated and remarkably.............. okay.
There is an odd order to it all, I can see that now. If love weren't involved, oh how easy to just let go...........but I love her, I want her to be safe, I want her to be happy...........and none of my wants are likely to be fulfilled..........sigh.........love complicates it all, brings forth the protectiveness, the desire to help, the deep need to mend and nurture.............
She called last Friday to ask me to drive her to get paperwork for the insurance, notarized (for her stolen car). You know, I just didn't call back. I reached some point inside me, some critical mass, some newly developed part of me that just said, "enough." It wasn't what the request was, it wasn't too much to ask, it was just the last straw and I knew it. I left my cell phone in my car and forgot about it so the ensuing calls went unanswered. On Monday I went to work barely able to contain this rage I felt, this big, huge angry mass inside of me which felt as if it had crept out of the depth of me, all the years of answering the call of the chaotic lives of those impaired by mental illness..............not just my daughter, my whole family...........
Fortunately, I did not commit murder, crash my car into a tree, go punch a stranger in the face or kick a dog..............I did all the healthy stuff I've learned to do to be okay. By Tuesday I was okay again, and as I have witnessed before, that anger, that burning, seething rage blows the dust out of the dark corners of denial, or magical thinking, or the places we go to hide from the truth. Clarity comes marching in stating the new reality, "yesterday is over..........this is the way it is now!"
difficult child calls stating her car has been found and she needs a ride to the police station, blah, blah, blah.............an hour away, needs it right away, place closes in 2 hours.............blah, blah, blah.............I didn't call back. My SO and granddaughter both must have recognized this as new behavior on my part and both said they would handle this. SO made arrangements to drive difficult child to the police station and to get her phone replacement. He drove over there this morning waited a half an hour and she never came out, no one answered the door or the phone. She called 2 hours later and apologized, she overslept. She has likely missed all the deadlines for getting the car, the insurance, all of it. And, I knew this would be the outcome, it's always the same. She is sliding down the rabbit hole quickly now. And, here's the interesting thing, her slide is directly correlated to my removing myself. As if I had, by sheer force of my will, been holding her up, out of the quicksand, out of the bottom, out of the reach of the darkness..................
Each step that I've taken back from her life, each step further away from her, she's then stepped closer to the edge, closer to that darkness, the unknown, the uncertainty, the place I have no control. I can look back now and see how predictable it has been, I move back, she moves closer to her bottom. No car, no phone, no money, no friends, moments away from eviction.............she is about to step into her destiny, whatever that is...........and I am not a part of it now, I am for all intents and purposes, out of the game.
I'm trying to find words for the way this feels to me now, a year and a half later, through the worst nightmare of my life, to "just let go" of my only child, to release her completely to her choices, whatever the reason for them, and allow her fate to engulf her.............I think that holding love in my heart, as well as the complete powerlessness I feel, as well as all the other feelings, anger, sadness, relief, acceptance.............. is what this process demands of us humans, that we can contain all of it, all those feelings in one heart, a mothers (or fathers) heart............contain it all and ......................not go crazy.............still be able to laugh, to live, to respond to life, to engage in life..........to love............in the face of (what scent of cedar so aptly said) a personal devastation like no other.
I wasn't trained in this, I didn't take a class in detachment and get tested and pass............I was thrown into it, basically kicking and screaming, NOT wanting to do it at all................and yet here I am............tragedy could call me up at any time and I'd be in that movie ..........but the odd part is, tragedy finds you whether you have a difficult child or not, it can be seen lurking around all of our lives..............so I could wait around for tragedy to find me or I could just live in this moment and be okay. Yikes. A year and a half ago, I could not have imagined being able to even breathe with my kid trapped in her choices when I could have pried her free.......You know,........ me,....... super mom,.......... the one who can do anything ........and now I don't answer the phone, I don't call back, I don't respond. I've hung up my super mom cape, found out it was really only made of cotton, it wasn't bullet proof, it didn't have magic powers, I'm without any super powers. Go figure. I'm just a mom. There is really some tangible, poignant, very real sense of relief and liberation to find out just how much I can't do. And, at the same time, how much I can endure and still survive................and be happy too.
There is an odd order to it all, I can see that now. If love weren't involved, oh how easy to just let go...........but I love her, I want her to be safe, I want her to be happy...........and none of my wants are likely to be fulfilled..........sigh.........love complicates it all, brings forth the protectiveness, the desire to help, the deep need to mend and nurture.............
She called last Friday to ask me to drive her to get paperwork for the insurance, notarized (for her stolen car). You know, I just didn't call back. I reached some point inside me, some critical mass, some newly developed part of me that just said, "enough." It wasn't what the request was, it wasn't too much to ask, it was just the last straw and I knew it. I left my cell phone in my car and forgot about it so the ensuing calls went unanswered. On Monday I went to work barely able to contain this rage I felt, this big, huge angry mass inside of me which felt as if it had crept out of the depth of me, all the years of answering the call of the chaotic lives of those impaired by mental illness..............not just my daughter, my whole family...........
Fortunately, I did not commit murder, crash my car into a tree, go punch a stranger in the face or kick a dog..............I did all the healthy stuff I've learned to do to be okay. By Tuesday I was okay again, and as I have witnessed before, that anger, that burning, seething rage blows the dust out of the dark corners of denial, or magical thinking, or the places we go to hide from the truth. Clarity comes marching in stating the new reality, "yesterday is over..........this is the way it is now!"
difficult child calls stating her car has been found and she needs a ride to the police station, blah, blah, blah.............an hour away, needs it right away, place closes in 2 hours.............blah, blah, blah.............I didn't call back. My SO and granddaughter both must have recognized this as new behavior on my part and both said they would handle this. SO made arrangements to drive difficult child to the police station and to get her phone replacement. He drove over there this morning waited a half an hour and she never came out, no one answered the door or the phone. She called 2 hours later and apologized, she overslept. She has likely missed all the deadlines for getting the car, the insurance, all of it. And, I knew this would be the outcome, it's always the same. She is sliding down the rabbit hole quickly now. And, here's the interesting thing, her slide is directly correlated to my removing myself. As if I had, by sheer force of my will, been holding her up, out of the quicksand, out of the bottom, out of the reach of the darkness..................
Each step that I've taken back from her life, each step further away from her, she's then stepped closer to the edge, closer to that darkness, the unknown, the uncertainty, the place I have no control. I can look back now and see how predictable it has been, I move back, she moves closer to her bottom. No car, no phone, no money, no friends, moments away from eviction.............she is about to step into her destiny, whatever that is...........and I am not a part of it now, I am for all intents and purposes, out of the game.
I'm trying to find words for the way this feels to me now, a year and a half later, through the worst nightmare of my life, to "just let go" of my only child, to release her completely to her choices, whatever the reason for them, and allow her fate to engulf her.............I think that holding love in my heart, as well as the complete powerlessness I feel, as well as all the other feelings, anger, sadness, relief, acceptance.............. is what this process demands of us humans, that we can contain all of it, all those feelings in one heart, a mothers (or fathers) heart............contain it all and ......................not go crazy.............still be able to laugh, to live, to respond to life, to engage in life..........to love............in the face of (what scent of cedar so aptly said) a personal devastation like no other.
I wasn't trained in this, I didn't take a class in detachment and get tested and pass............I was thrown into it, basically kicking and screaming, NOT wanting to do it at all................and yet here I am............tragedy could call me up at any time and I'd be in that movie ..........but the odd part is, tragedy finds you whether you have a difficult child or not, it can be seen lurking around all of our lives..............so I could wait around for tragedy to find me or I could just live in this moment and be okay. Yikes. A year and a half ago, I could not have imagined being able to even breathe with my kid trapped in her choices when I could have pried her free.......You know,........ me,....... super mom,.......... the one who can do anything ........and now I don't answer the phone, I don't call back, I don't respond. I've hung up my super mom cape, found out it was really only made of cotton, it wasn't bullet proof, it didn't have magic powers, I'm without any super powers. Go figure. I'm just a mom. There is really some tangible, poignant, very real sense of relief and liberation to find out just how much I can't do. And, at the same time, how much I can endure and still survive................and be happy too.