Manipulative son threatens and hounds

[tishthedish]

My youngest difficult child is 24 and has had a substance abuse problem since college. He had Tourette Syndrome growing up and some challenges with that and had to be on regular medication, but he was well-liked, a good student, loved sports and had a sweet disposition. Once he hit college the **it hit the fan. Every 6 months there has been some type of negative event since. What? Name it. Stealing my prescription medications, spending school loans on marijuana, having his car repo'd, drinking and getting ticketed, on-line gambling etc. He came home to go to junior college and met a girl and got her pregnant. They decided to keep the baby and make a go of their relationship. We were not pleased, but it looked as if they were in love and ready to make a go of it. They moved out of our home after the baby was born. They split up and difficult child has been living with us since. She has since taken up with his best friend. She is a negligent mother, drug user and has been indicated by DCFS for medical neglect of our grandson and hazardous environment. My son was the better parent, but not by much. My husband and have provided a lot of support in the form of care and $ for our grandson. As it turns out, our beautiful grandson has special needs. He needs therapies, to see special dr's., has had surgeries etc. My son was handling the baby's needs very well. They shared custody, but he started to falter in summer of 2012. He got a DUI, he missed out on a promotion at work because of it because he needed to drive. It cost a ton of money and it came out of our pockets while he payed us back in small increments. It's been a bumpy year. His license suspension has been prolonged by his failing on the breathalyzer machine on his car. I was ill in May and then on a vacation in the fall and during this time I found he stole money by using our credit cards and forging checks. He threatened suicide in the fall and was as well. He never took anything. We told him he had to leave. He is renting an apartment from a woman. She lives upstairs. He was fired for not showing up to work before the new year. He had worked there 2 years. His drinking and pot addictions are back and we found out today that just yesterday he was smoking pot at her home. He had the baby yesterday. I am sick about it. The landlord told him he had to move out within 7 days or she would phone us and tell us all of his misdeeds. So he came clean this morning and I went ballistic. He took a handful of Seroquel and said he was committing suicide, and my husband called 911. difficult child then went in the bathroom, where he must have spit them out, because when the rescue squad came he said he had nothing in his system. We called the baby's mother at noon and she finally showed up after 7 p.m. We are never able to get a hold of her and she has never put him on the bus for school, sends him with dirty, smelly clothes (teacher wrote a note home to us) and disappears for months at a time. My son's faltering has put his son in peril by having to turn him over to his inept mother. When she picked up the baby tonight I would swear she was on something. I asked my husband and he said she stumbled on her way out to the car. I am sick. Now the phone rings and my son says the hospital has nowhere for him to go for treatment until tomorrow and he wants a ride. I turned him over to his father. His father said he's done doing anything to help him. I told him as much prior to his fake-out OD. So difficult child is stuck at the hospital. We have been married for 30+ years and are tired of parenting. We are scared for our grandson. I never thought that my son would let himself get this out of control so as to let primary custody fall to his mother, but I guess he was never really rock steady. Another thing, baby mama was in rehab 2 months ago and "came clean" by admitting she had done drugs while she was pregnant with him. My son did them with her. My hubby and I are flummoxed. What makes this overwhelming is that my elder difficult child son is bipolar, off medications, was homeless, arrested for assault and has been found unfit to stand trial. He is in a state mental hospital. These are our only 2 children. There has been so much turmoil and upheaval in our lives that we are left drained. For this reason I don't feel we are equipped to try to get custody and raise our grandson. It is a very high standard in order to get custody and both parents would have to consent. They both think they are the BEST parents and delight in each other's faults, to the detriment of their son. The physical demands of raising a special needs toddler are beyond me and the mental demands at this point after what we have been through seem insurmountable. In addition we would still have to deal with his parents. We have gone through NAMI family to family, it was very helpful. I am in counseling and have been successfully treated for depression for several years. I was afflicted when both my sons were diagnosed with Tourettes and my mother was dying of cancer. My treatment is as good as it can get under the circumstances. They don't make medicines to counteract a life like mine. My elder son will be a whole other post. We spent years building a strong family. We were happy. We had fun and love and respect for each other and then the bottom falls out. Now we both feel empty and I grieve. Help.

 

[helpangel]

Wow you do have a lot on your plate, I'm so glad you found us but sorry you needed to. You want to read Recovering Enablers thread on detaching (at top of this forum I believe) very valuable info in there. Others will be along shortly, welcome you found a soft place to land.

Nancy

 

[greenstockings]

Welcome, Tish. I am new here, too. My life with my difficult child has been stressful all the way up, but I haven't dealt with the turmoil you have. I'm sorry that you have experienced all of this.

 

[BusynMember]

Hi. Wow. The only thing worse than an adult child who is constantly in more trouble than a wayward toddler is when he or she has a baby. That's where I'm not sure what to do. I would certainly not help your son anymore. He is obviously into high level addiction and does not seem to want help. As for your grandchild, I'm not sure what you can do to actually help if he lives with negligent mom. I worked at a Head Start and some of the kids came to school in terrible shape and their parents almost always retained custody of them. Often social services was involved though.

Is anyone keeping an eye on BabyMama?

It takes time, but you need to learn how to detach from your son's problems or you will be unable to live any sort of quality life of your own. And you deserve to have a good life free of the intense drama. I doubt if your son is capable of being even a halfway good father right now. Poor baby.

Hugs and glad you found us.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Tish, welcome. I am so sorry you find yourself in this situation with both your sons. Your story is a sad one and I can only imagine how depleted, exhausted, angry, sad and stunned you feel right now.

You may want to read the article on detachment at the bottom of my post here. For most of us here on the Parent Emeritus side, detachment is the way for us parents to learn to get our own lives back. Our adult children force us into having to learn to remove ourselves from their orbit of bad choices.

You have made excellent choices in getting help for yourself with NAMI and therapy. I think the next step may be that you recognize that you are not responsible for the choices your 24 year old son is making and learn the tools of detachment and ultimately acceptance of what is. I know that is a tall order, but it is clearly the way we parents can find peace of mind and regain our lives. Your grandson certainly presents more issues but you are clear you cannot raise him now and that clarity is important, many parents suffer in not knowing what to do, so it is very good that you have already made that decision.

No matter how you look at this, you're in a tough place. I have a 41 year old daughter whom I've had to disengage from, almost entirely and I am raising my 17 year old granddaughter...........I know a little about the terrain you find yourself on and as devastating as it is, there is hope for you to find your way out of this maze of profound disappointment.

Detachment is a process of making choices along the way. You're in a pretty good place in that you've made good choices already........and you have help which I believe is essential on this path.

I think for me it was a deep internal realization that there was absolutely nothing I could do, there was no way for me to control any of it, I had no power in that. I was powerless. That realization was difficult, but it also helped me to begin to remove myself from all that I couldn't control in my daughter's life. You may try the 12 step CoDa groups, I immersed myself in support any way I could find it because you have to turn your parenting completely around and let go...........and it's so hard and I needed LOTS of help. I actually found an 18 month long Codependency program through a huge HMO in Ca. lead by therapists well versed in how to detach. It was what made the difference for me...........that continuing, relentless support from professionals. I was also in a parent support group through that program in addition to regular therapy...........it literally saved my life. And around the same time I found this forum and writing my story down and getting support from others who really knew what I was going through was an amazing and really needed level of support.

You're going through a lot of really hard stuff Tish..........and at least for me, the way to find a balanced, peaceful life where you can find your joy once again is all about learning how to detach from your own kids. It is such a precarious and strange place to be and from my standpoint, it requires extraordinary levels of support to get through it. You're doing a good job already, you've sought support and that is very good...........keep posting, look for more supports for yourself, be kind to yourself, do more for yourself, take the focus off of your son and place it on yourself, shift that focus and learn to take excellent care of yourselves, you and your husband. Remember how to have fun, play, laugh, start to rebuild your lives in the way you want it to be.............you deserve that. Wishing you peace............

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Another thing, baby mama was in rehab 2 months ago and "came clean" by admitting she had done drugs while she was pregnant with him.

My son did them with her.

These are our only 2 children.

The physical demands of raising a special needs toddler are beyond me and the mental demands at this point after what we have been through seem insurmountable.

We have gone through NAMI family to family

I am in counseling

We spent years building a strong family. We were happy. We had fun and love and respect for each other and then the bottom falls out.

Now we both feel empty and I grieve.

Tish the Dish. I love that name!

:O)

We haven't faced caring for a special needs grandchild. Though we did take our granddaughters from time to time, it was never longer than two or three months. This was fortunate, because our daughter went on to have two more children. Our son has two children. Had my husband not made it perfectly clear that he had no intention of raising his grandchildren other than for short-term emergencies...we could be raising six children, right now.

Know what we're doing, instead? Sunning, boating, roaring around in convertibles with the other old farts. Drinking too much sometimes and telling each other this has got to stop. Falling into and out of love with each other, laying down the law and working through all those things marriage is really about.

That is what you should choose too, Tish. My husband chose that for me. If it had been up to me? I would be the one raising the six (maybe, more) grandchildren. It was touch and go for awhile, there.

Our son did ask us (did demand, I should say) that we take his biological child. We have taken our daughter's kids, or I have gone to stay with them, many times. This might have been no different. Had our son shown up with the baby? I am sure I would have taken him. So, I am serious when I say there is a pretty good chance we could be raising between four and six grandchildren right this minute, Tish. And as many more kids as either of our children brought into the world. Where do you stop, when that is the family dynamic, right?

As long as the possibility that you will take this child exists, your son and the child's mother will not have to take responsibility. The option you present should be the threat of foster care ~ not that, if it gets bad enough, if mom and dad just can't help but take drugs, Grandma will raise their baby. And any other babies that come along, too?

What I heard in your post is that you know what decision you have to make. Two years ago, when the first danger signals of our daughter's impending breakdown were shivering around the edges of things, husband and I considered calling in Social Services. If there is anything I cannot forgive myself for now, it is that we did not do that. Our daughter's children were exposed to terrible things, to terrible people.

No one can decide for you, Tish. But I can tell you that you are seeing what you think you are seeing. That little boy does need help. All the dreams we dreamed, all the things we were so sure we had, as we raised our children...none of that happened for us, Tish. Something very bad happened, to us, and to our children. We have to see that so clearly Tish, so we can know how to proceed. I do hear that in your post. You do see your situation clearly. But you, like my husband and I, are reluctant to act decisively on what you know.

Hope and belief can strengthen us in some ways. But hope and belief can blind us to what is happening right now, can blind us to what is real. The worst thing that could happen to anyone happened to us, Tish. Not once, but twice. We've lost our children in a way even more painful than death. There is no grace period for us, no community support, no healing come of time. Our children are alive. They're in more trouble than you or I even knew existed. They're confused, they're in pain...and there is nothing we can do to help them. They are being judged by their communities, by their old friends, by their extended families, by their parents and even, on some secret level, by themselves.

There could hardly be a worse thing that could happen to anyone than losing their children, their family, their dreams of grandchildren and great grandchildren, the way we have. And we are helpless, in the face of it. As you noted in your honesty over the issue of custody of your grandchild, there is nothing you can realistically do, even for him.

But there is, Tish.

You can see clearly, admit what you see is true, and act on what you know to be the best thing. It is not going to be pleasant. It is never going to feel good, you will always wonder whether it was the best thing, what else you might have done. You might beat yourself up over not taking him, yourself.

You might do that for the rest of your life, Tish.

I did that for a long, long time. Because I felt like such a failure, I encouraged everyone else to think poorly of me, to walk all over me, too.

It seemed like what I deserved.

I spent so long trying to figure out what happened, to figure out what I did and fix it. I felt so responsible. And then, my daughter got into trouble again. Really bad trouble, and I came back to this site. And I began to learn how to see with brutal clarity. And what I saw was that what I was doing wasn't helping.

My taking the blame for anything I have no control over only makes it easier for my kids never to have to face up to what they are doing. And then, I realized something else: My depression was a sort of screwed up way I was punishing everyone involved ~ including me. It was almost like, it I suffered enough, my kids would feel so guilty that they would stop doing what they were doing. But what I would learn this time was the real reason for my oldest child's problems. Like you Tish, my oldest child was diagnosed with mental illness. Whether it was the illness that led to the drug use or whether the drug use exacerbated the illness, we will never know. What I do know, darn well, is that illicit drug use made everything a thousand, million times worse.

And, though mental illness is not a choice, drug use is.

I knew all this in the back of my mind for a really long time. I think that knowing/not knowing part of me may have contributed to my own depression.

I just wouldn't see it.

But...mental illness of any degree is a genetic thing. For goodness' sake, my whole family is screwed up, one way or another. Which meant...I hadn't done this. Other than handing down my genes, I had not done anything horrible to my child, to my children. And feeling guilty in the face of a mental illness is not going to make it go away, no matter how much the mentally ill person loves (or hates) his or her mother.

So, there I was, with this stupid depression cooking away, and a ton of anxiety to boot.

I posted here like a madwoman. I learned. I posted more. Up and down and all around, with both kids, and I posted all through it. I did begin to get healthier, Tish. I began to see differently, began to let go of those horrible feelings of responsibility and inadequacy and shame.

I am still working very hard on myself, Tish. But it's working. And as it works, as I reinterpret all those things I thought I knew, I am changing. As I change, I am changing how I interact with my kids. The jury is still out on the outcome? But I feel better, cleaner. I actually respect my kids more. I see them as people who need to pick up, as people who, mentally ill or scarred in their childhoods by a really crummy mom or whatever it was, need to and are strong enough, competent enough, bright enough, to pull themselves out of the holes they've created all on their own.

That is true respect.

They are adults.

They do not need me. What they do need is to know that I have changed, that I no longer feel responsible for their irresponsible acts, and that I will not be helping, financially or any other way, when the next crisis arrives.

That is all I need to do.

That, and stay out of it.

That, and model healthy, happy behaviors, so they know who and how they can be.

It is never going to feel good, Tish.

It isn't going to go away.

Our children are self destructing. They're taking our grandchildren down with them. And all the while, they're using drugs and whining about what we need to do.

We have to stand up, Tish.

I'm so sorry this happened to you, Tish the Dish; I am even more sorry that it happened to me. More than anything, I am so sorry, so outraged, that it happened to our kids and that it is happening to our innocent grandchildren.

Cedar

 

[tishthedish]

Thanks everyone for your replies. They help so much. Recovering Enabler, the situation/decision about our grandson (gs) is not really decided yet. He is our one source of joy, but my husband and I are in a different place regarding our role in his care.

I've tried to call Baby Mama (BM) today and she answers neither phone. BM lives with her stepfather and her drug dealer boyfriend. Step father will lie for her and had his own prescription drug devils to deal with. Our addicted son (difficult child 2) is out of the hospital and home and starts treatment tomorrow. I don't know where. He called and said he needed us to drop off his car. I said no, call your father. husband is out right now. If it came down to foster care or us, husband said he would take GS even if he had to quit work. I am not sure I am in agreement with him. I don't know how it would get to that point, or if it would, but I know husband doesn't fully realize what it takes to raise a special needs child. He's never been to a parent-teacher conference and has never taken either of our children to a doctor's appointment, and with both having physical and psychological health problems from Tourette Syndrome, they have had plenty. He doesn't know what an IEP is or a 504 plan. He's never met with a teacher or checked assignment books or schoolwork. My kids had these all the way through their senior year in HS and even into college. Don't get me wrong, husband was a superlative Dad in a million ways, but he just doesn't understand the emotional and physical demands of kids who are special needs. They don't stay cute little toddlers. They don't want to sit on your lap and sing nursery rhymes while watching TV. You can't parent from the couch. I've been on the front lines and know it gets harder the older they get. I hesitate to point this out to him as I don't want to blow my marriage to bits. We are facing enough loss and I bear responsibility for being a very competent "fixer" during our entire life together. He was informed of what was going on, but never involved. Since I was worked part-time so I could handle these demands and he worked full time outside the home I had most everything solved or on its way to being solved by the time his van hit the driveway. We are both suffering in our own way and the chances that they will remove GS from BM and difficult child 2 is not assured. A huge part of my reticence to take on the responsibility of GS is our situation with difficult child 1, our bipolar elder son who is in custody at a state mental home. Once he is released from custody, I don't even know if we are safe in our own home. And while quiet now, at any point difficult child 1 situation could get worse. There have been days when I have been crying so hard about difficult child 1 or talking to his doctors or public defenders that I could hardly catch my breath all while taking care of GS. Is that fair to the baby? The little guy needs so much. But to have his go to strangers is unimaginable. My head spins. I will call GS school (he goes for 6.5 hours for special help) and talk to the social worker tomorrow to give her the entire picture. They are mandated reporters, but I have spoken to her once before and she said it is a huge burden and highly unlikely that DCFS considers a parent unfit enough to remove a child and this was after GS was sent to school with a high fever for 3 days in one week and BM was absent to answer any calls and had been sending GS in dirty clothes and with a bad rash. She was giving him Tylenol in the morning to mask his symptoms from difficult child 2 (he took GS to bus every morning to ensure he got to school. It's hard for BM to drag herself out of bed to be bothered). The social worker said a parent using drugs and even if GS's condition is subpar, being "Nasty" was not enough to remand custody to another. She said she had seen kids a lot worse than GS and had advocated for them to no avail. Our state has an overburdened, broken child protection system. I feel like everything in my life is on the table. Parenthood, being a grandparent, my marriage, my emotional and physical health, everything.

 

[Hopingforthe best]

I feel like everything in my life is on the table. Parenthood, being a grandparent, my marriage, my emotional and physical health, everything.
Tish, welcome to the forum. You are certainly going through a lot and i am sorry that you are so overwhelmed. But first and foremost you have to take care of you first so that your emotional and physical health can handle everything that is happening around you. It is a shame that many DCFS in the country are failing young children and families when they need their help most. I feel for you and i hope that you find some resolution that will bring peace in your household. Stay strong.

 

[Hopingforthe best]

I feel like everything in my life is on the table. Parenthood, being a grandparent, my marriage, my emotional and physical health, everything.
Tish, welcome to the forum. You are certainly going through a lot and i am sorry that you are so overwhelmed. But first and foremost you have to take care of you first so that your emotional and physical health can handle everything that is happening around you. It is a shame that many DCFS in the country are failing young children and families when they need their help most. I feel for you and i hope that you find some resolution that will bring peace in your household. Stay strong.

 

[Nomad]

What a sorrowful, painful story. I am glad you are seeing a therapist and if the great multiple losses and pain here causes marital stress, you might want to consider short term marriage therapy now and again. If things don't improve, perhaps an open adoption would bein order and you would have some access to your grandson. Hope it doesn't come to this. A good group meeting like families Anonymous might bring good support from those who have exp . similar trials, losses and pain and in addition to the support and understanding, you might get good access to local helpful resources. I know it is extremely hard, but try your best to do fun things now and again like see a funny movie with your spouse, get your nails done,....pick up a good magazine and just lay down and read it. In other words, find some important, relaxing "me/rest " time.
Sending healing thoughts (sorry about typos; problems typing on phone)

 

[recoveringenabler]

Tish, I am so sorry that you are going through all of this now, it is sad and I'm sure quite overwhelming. Sometimes in life we can only put one foot in front of the other and pray. When I took my granddaughter my relationship with my husband ended, my relationship with my daughter pretty much ended and I had a battle ahead of me in court for my granddaughter............who was 11 at the time. She then acted out against the world using me as the recipient of her anger and hurt..........it was a very hard time. I cried a lot. I have much empathy for your plight right now.

I know at this point in time, as you said, "everything is on the table." I've been in those shoes too.........all one can do is make each choice as it appears, get as much support as you possibly can, exercise, eat right, sleep well, meditate if that works for you, seek guidance from trusted sources and do the best job you can in taking excellent care of yourself.

For me, all of those choices lead me into an entirely different life..........a lot of grief and yet out of that grief a new life emerged which now that I have some distance from all of it, is much better suited to who I am and what I really want.

Hang in there Tish...............wishing you peace and sending you sincere and understanding hugs............

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

He is our one source of joy, but my husband and I are in a different place regarding our role in his care.

If it came down to foster care or us, husband said he would take GS even if he had to quit work.

I feel like everything in my life is on the table. Parenthood, being a grandparent, my marriage, my emotional and physical health, everything.

There is nothing you can do that you aren't already doing, Tish.

There is nothing you have to do.

We all have a dream, a kind of life plan. For you, and for me and my husband too, that dream went up in flame and smoking tatters so thick we can't even see our hands in front of our faces. Like you, we stumble around in the dark, trying to save our children, trying to help our grandchildren, trying so desperately to salvage...something.

Like you and your husband Tish?

The dream, the people we thought we were, the children we thought we were raising, the grandchildren we imagined would make us those grandparents showing everyone their pictures...all gone, Tish. What we have instead is so painfully, so horribly different than what we thought we had that it destroys something in us even to acknowledge it.

But it is what it is, Tish.

And whether we are strong enough to face and face it down, whether we are kind or wise or angry or bright or committed or loving or prepared enough?

It is what it is.

The question becomes how to survive it.

We start by taking care of ourselves first, Tish. First, take good care of you. Good physical care, if anything beyond that is too hard, right now. Just a little half second to see and feel the sun on your skin, once you are strong enough, once you are committed to your own survival enough, to give yourself that gift.

Then, take good care of, love and support and question and answer and cry and laugh with, your husband. He is as confused, as hurt and angry and disillusioned as you are. It's like the house you built is burning down, Tish. You and husband need to be on the same page, or no one is going to make it out alive. Terrible things are happening to you, to your husband, to the people you love. Like it or not, ready or not, you are the one who will set the emotional tone for how you and your family survive this. It isn't right and it isn't fair.

But it is what it is, Tish.

Is your husband serious about quitting his job to take care of his grandchild...or is this a manipulation of you? My husband can be very manipulative, too. What I learned is that, though my husband would blame the heck out of me for what I had or had not done? When I became healthy enough to stop doing husband roared in, full speed ahead. He wasn't wrong, Tish. Even if your husband is being manipulative, he isn't wrong, either. What is happening to you and to your family is the worst thing that could ever happen to anyone.

I know that because it happened to us, too.

It's still happening.

Mostly what I have learned about surviving this kind of devastation is that forgiveness is a good first step. So, I forgive myself first. Forgive myself for not knowing, for not having seen this coming, for not being able to change one single thing, no matter what I do. That is a choice I can make, and follow through on. It's a beginning, a good place to start. Simply to decide that I want to forgive myself. I fall off that wagon all the time. But then I remember that I decided to forgive myself as a survival mechanism.

I think it is less the decision to forgive than it is that deciding to forgive teaches us that we intend to make it through this. That makes us a little stronger somehow, knowing that we intend to survive it.

During the time we were losing our marriage, my husband tried one last thing. At 5:30 every day, we were to meet in our own dining room. No television. No radio. I could have music. I picked Dean Martin. Something so old and sort of corny that it set that time apart for us. Then, we had a Manhattan together.

Because there was no pressure there, because husband was not like, all over me, but was just there for me? That time and those Manhattans saved our marriage. By the time he did that? My husband was the last person on Earth I wanted to spend any time with.

We are together 42 years, in June. We have been dealing with the loss of everything that mattered for twenty-five years. One gut punch after another...and here we still are. How does that old song go? Something about still standing?

Well, that's us.

It doesn't have to be Happy Hour for you and your husband. Maybe coffee together every day at a certain time, or maybe a long walk every day after work. Your husband is your witness, Tish. You are his witness, too. My husband and I still get into such terrible patterns when things go wrong with the kids. It's an ongoing thing, to decide to stay together.

None of this is easy.

It's a question of how you will survive, Tish.

Cedar

 

[tishthedish]

Cedar,
Thanks first for the thoughtful and thorough responses. I have read and reread the advice here and am sure I will continue to do so in the days and weeks ahead. Like a touchstone.

Something you said in your first response resonated so much with me. The part about your secret hope that your depression might cause your loved ones to take notice and stop what they were doing to help YOU. That is me. That was me. After a terrible incident in May, I know now that I am on my own as far as gaining strength and helping myself.

I was a good daughter, Cedar. A very good girl. I was the youngest in my family who saw what pressures my parents were under and would only bring them good news and good things. I was the one all responsibility fell to. No, I wasn't an angel, but I protected them. My mom especially. I never really expected it of my boys. I have always been extremely sensitive. But this hurricane of pain? Never. Never knew it was possible. All positive emotion flows out from me and all negative flows in.

I sometimes wonder if I have had to medicate myself to stand my family. The timeline works. There's only one way to find out and that's to start saying no, or nothing, or not answering the phone, or the door.

My husband and I will get through this. He is a gentle, sensitive soul too, and you're right, he is hurting. He feels numb. We have never gotten to the point where we have gotten bitter towards each other but the storm isn't over yet. I want to make the right choices to try to preserve what we have together. He, in turn, must make the right choices too. As far as manipulation, I don't think that comes into play with him. I think it's more that he thinks I am the woman I was before all this started. And as you so eloquently put it nothing is the same. The worst thing that could happen to us has, and I can't take up the family banner and charge the hill. I can't walk up the hill. I can barely stand to look at the hill. I want to take a nap far away from the hill.

As for our GS, I informed his lead teacher at school of the situation and will be speaking to the social worker tomorrow to tell her about the status difficult child 2 and BM. Let the chips fall where they may. Our little GS has no voice and I have no obligation to keep secrets that would put him at risk. It's the right thing to do. Even in the midst of this I hold out a small hope that NOW difficult child 2 is serious about recovery. I know differently and will act accordingly.

Thank you again for your help. It means more than you could ever know.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

I am on my own as far as gaining strength and helping myself.

But this hurricane of pain?

Never.

Never knew it was possible.

I sometimes wonder if I have had to medicate myself to stand my family. The timeline works. There's only one way to find out and that's to start saying no

The worst thing that could happen to us has, and I can't take up the family banner and charge the hill. I can't walk up the hill. I can barely stand to look at the hill. I want to take a nap far away from the hill.

Our little GS has no voice and I have no obligation to keep secrets that would put him at risk. It's the right thing to do.

I love the part about taking the nap far from the hill.

:O)

That we know the right thing ~ the right word, the right action, the right attitude ~ and cannot, or do not see how we can, follow through because it will hurt our children is why our situations are so hellish. It isn't that we don't know better, it isn't that we are so mindless or thoughtless or irresponsible that our poor, innocent little grown up babies are clueless. Parents like us really have been through some of the worst, most psychologically damaging things imaginable. The miracle of it is that we continue to function in the outside world as though our lives were as stable and rewarding as the lives of our peers whose children have claimed their independence and are successfully adjusting to adulthood.

Which is something our troubled adult kids may never manage to do. For us, a successful launch gets to be, not about the degree and the career, but about Social Services or disability benefits.

We need to give ourselves a little credit, here.

What we face and resolve (or lose) every day of our lives is impossible.

Cedar