Moving the runaway - need good thoughts pls.

[Star*]

Hi Family,

You know that extended exhale thing you do when you are just too tired to be upset and just knew you were right about something to do with your kid? Sorta like a horse snort without the snort?
But not a PFT? Yea - you tried it; that's the noise.

I got a call from the caseworker this morning who is still in receipt of a trash bag full of some second hand winter clothes and that letter I wrote to him explaining why it was so important to comply. Dude has been AWOL for 2 days. He never checked in or returned last night.

I sat there on the phone after "Your son is AWOL" and I had to ask the caseworker to stop talking so I my ears could digest what my stomach could not. After AWOL it was like what the dog must hear blah blah, blah blah, blah...blahblah. I think I saw a light. LOL.

After I got my breif 15 seconds to pull myself together in an office where 12 men are standing around waiting for assignments - I managed to muster up "So what now?" and he said "Well the psychiatrist here read your letter and said it was good but you didn't tell him WHY you are worried about his future." I thought then said "To tell him I'm worried about his future is redundant don't you think? I said that in the letter witout saying 'OH SON I LOVE YOU I WORRY ABOUT YOU CONSTANTLY YOUR FUTURE IS IN DANGER' as if I've never said that - but we're doing tough love and I'm not supposed to be emotional to HELP him." Apparently she doesn't believe in tough love. But this is the same psychiatric. that thought difficult child would be better at home so that he COULD go to jail and COULD be arrested, and COULD get the terrific (her words not mine) support system they have in juvenile hall. (Well he went, and there was no support, only a suicide attempt due to placing him on anti depressants I said was NOT good for him) argh. Each year I find it harder and harder to respect her thoughts regarding these types of children. I did ask at one time if SHE would be DUDES personal psychiatrist - quickly she said NO.

So he is being moved today (whenever they find him) to a high management group home with level systems, and earning privledges, and thug kids who are real street wise. He won't have freedoms or be allowed out for quite a while. I have no idea when I will see or talk to him. I just know currently he's in violation of probation and COULD end up in jail for the next 6 years. I thought it was 3 - it is 6.

I was asked to sign a permission slip - not a problem. In retrospect I should have just got a signature stamp for the caseworker when all this started years ago so I didn't even have to be bothered with bad news.

I think I shall change his name here from Dude to The Energizer Bunny - he just keeps going and going and going and going.

Thanks all - I think it either stops OR you just detach to the point of forgetting you ever gave birth or adopted that child.
Doing the right thing for you in these situations and learning to truly detach - hurts more than words can say.

But don't you ever just get flippin tired of settling? I mean I try to remain positive and he never quits, so I think "Well at least I have a son" (as opposed to the one that is gone) and I think "At least he's physically healthy" as opposed to taking care of two physically disabled people or loosing him to a disease, and I think "Well he didn't finish school" but he's trying to get a GED, and on and on and on....Maybe THAT is what detachment is - Learning to quit settling or lessening your dreams and thoughts each month about a kid you love.

Hard to tell - I just know at this point I don't have that dream any longer where he comes through the door a few years older, after not having seen or heard from him and he's got a GED, a job, a car - is happy. Instead I "settle" again for one where he calls and says "I finally made a level after 11 years mom". One stinking level- you'd think...

If you made it this far - thanks
Not depressed - not overwhelmed -
Just Star

 

[hearts and roses]

{{{Star}}}. I have no words, just sending you strength and hugs. I'm so sorry. :angel: Keeping a good thought for you and yours.

 

[muttmeister]

Sending hugs.

I do know how hopeless it can feel when they just keep spiraling down and down and you feel like it just never gets any better.

I do have one that I felt that way about and I was sure by this time (he's 23) he'd be either dead or in prison but he has straightened himself out and is doing OK. Of course, I say that with some trepidation because they could call me tomorrow and tell me he is back to his old ways but I am trying to be positive. I guess what I'm saying is that, no matter how bad it gets, there is always that slight chance that things may improve. I guess that I always held that in the back of my mind, even when I'd detached to the point that I had no contact with him and very few thoughts of him except negative ones.

I hope that, eventually, you will get a positive outcome. If so, you can rejoice. If not, you just have to go on without him, knowing you've done everything you can do and more than most people would. It is up to him, not up to you. Try to relax and enjoy the other parts of your life.

Good luck.

 

[meowbunny]

I understand the settling and the pain behind it. We shouldn't have to "settle!" We have a right to dream our kids will go to college, get married, have kids, be successful. Yet, it is our kids who tear those dreams away from us and not gently but by ripping them out of hearts with every ounce of strength they have. Most of us are lucky that we have a bottom to our settling. StarDude aka EB keeps yanking your heart until there's nothing left to settle for. I'm so sorry.

 

[Big Bad Kitty]

Twinkle twinkle little Star
You have no idea how loved you are
You make everybody's day so bright
You give us strength to stay and fight
Twinkle Twinkle little Star
I wish you did not live so far.

 

[Star*]

Thanks JOg, MB, Mutt - here is some kinda wisdom in your words I think I shall copy them down and paste them into my head.
- and Gosh BBK -

A poem for ME??????? (squeal) wish I didn't live so far either. But could wherever we were together stand it? I think not. BWAH...ha ha.

Inhale, exhale, Inhale exhale - hows that for settling?

Much love back at ya -
Star

 

[DammitJanet]

Ya know star...when I read your posts they take me back to some very dark days. Not that what we live with now is easy but at least we arent held accountable for his actions anymore. There was something incredibly freeing about Corys 18th birthday for us. I swear I celebrated more than he did...lol.

I can remember fighting tooth and nail to get him in some form of placement where they couldnt or wouldnt kick him out for the precise behaviors that got him sent there in the first darned place! If they were easy child kids why on earth would they be placed in treatment? I argued that point countless times.

Your son, it appears, like Cory, falls into this black hole where he isnt "bad" enough to get sent to whatever SC has for the criminals that are under 18. Here we have "training schools" but you have to wrack up 15 points I think before you turn 16 in the juvenile setting and that isnt as easy as it sounds! Consider what Cory's juvy record was and he didnt come close to the 15 points.

I even begged for the training schools as a last ditch effort when it appeared we couldnt find anything else.

I did finally find a locked psychiatric facility when he was 16 but I cant say it really did much good. Look where we are today. Maybe if we had found one when he was younger and he had stayed longer.

I dont know how we completely detach. We wanted so much for these kids when they were born. This life sure wasnt what we dreamed of when we held them as infants.

 

[everywoman]

I think settling softens the blow when the proverbial other shoe drops. It protects your heart. You can say---well, at least he didn't....he isn't....

So many times in the past I have been disappointed by difficult child's choices. Now that I am truely detached---I view his life like I view the nightly news---I can think---oh how sad, but it doesn't hurt anymore than if he were a stranger----at least most of the time it doesn't. I'm not surprised anymore. I don't get excited when he is doing the right thing because too often, when I have, kerplunk---a shoe to the heart!

My dreams for him no longer exist. He must begin to dream for himself.

God, I sound jaded.

 

[MrsMcNear46]

Giant hugs for you Star. If they could only see it thru our eyes, maybe they would figure it out.

Words that get me thru the toughest times;

Where there is life, there is HOPE.

Don't ever give up on Hope.

Blessings & Hugs,

Julie

 

[jbrain]

Hi Star,
I think true detachment with my difficult child 1 came for me when I realized, "hey, maybe she really is as bad as she acts. Maybe there is not a good, nice person deep inside, maybe she has no feelings, maybe she just is not a nice person." Somehow that was very freeing for me, I felt like I had taken the blinders off and could really accept her for who she was, good or bad. As it turned out, soon after I did that she started changing for the better (not that there necessarily was a connection!) Now I seem to have the kid back that I thought I had in the first place but somehow being able to take her at face value when she was at her worst did me a lot of good in the detaching department.

Jane

 

[flutterbee]

On the upside, they didn't try to send him home this time.

Gosh, Star, I don't know what to say. It seems like these people will just never get it.

Sending lots of good thoughts. Something, sometime, somehow, someway has to get through to him. Doesn't it?

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

Good thoughts and prayers going out to you.

 

[slsh]

Aw Star... I just don't know what to say. If someone could just figure out how to get him pointed in the *other* direction and let him dig and dig... all his energy... so frustrating and sad.

That "settling" is an interesting thought. I guess because to me settling a more internal/emotional thing, while detachment (for me at least) is an actual physical exercise that requires a lot of effort. I have no expectations of/for thank you, today, but that is a really directed choice for me. When I allow myself to have even the smallest of expectations, like he won't go AWOL or smoke pot, that's when I lose detachment because it's apparently guaranteed that even though I haven't voiced that expectation to him, he's going to blow it up anyway.

Settling in my vocabulary holds a hint of acceptance and I absolutely positively do *not* accept this state of affairs.

How are you holding up? You're in my thoughts, as always.

 

[Star*]

Thanks everyone for the good thoughts and prayers.

I thought maybe the racing and anxious feelings I had this morning were due to the call from the caseworker. After all that was some pretty scathing news. I came home tonight and DF was in the kitchen, grabbed my coffee mug a rather Large Clemson Tigers cup - and he said "Was your coffee a little stout this morning?" and I said "Come to think of it -it was." and he looked down, then chuckled and said "There are two buttons on that new coffee maker - one will make only 4-6 cups and the other does 8-12. You pushed the 4-6 cups with a full basket of grounds!"

And now that I think about it I THOUGHT it was odd I had heart palpitations and was running around like a chinchilla in a dust bath!
From this
:coffee: to this :xmasdancers: in 12.0 cups! WAHHHHHooo.


I told someone else here recently -

Some days it just doesn't seem worth it to gnaw through the leather straps -

-No word on Dud errrr Dude.

 

[Suz]

I had to ask the caseworker to stop talking so I my ears could digest what my stomach could not. After AWOL it was like what the dog must hear blah blah, blah blah, blah...blahblah.

I don't think I've ever read a better description of what happens to our bodies/ears/hearts when we receive a call or face a devastating situation like the one you wrote above, Starbie.

I hear ya.

And I remember those days well. Time simply stands still when something like that happens.

Exdh and I used to talk a lot about expectations and settling. We've talked about it often in this forum. I know that when I stopped having expectations...and when I stopped asking questions I didn't want to know the answers to...or wasn't sure what the answers would be...it was so freeing for me.

But those freedoms didn't happen until Rob was over 18 and on his own. (for him that didn't happen until he was almost 19). As long as they are minors, you are pretty much forced to be THERE even if you want to run screaming into never-neverland.

So hang in there. We're rowing the boat while you take a deep breath.

Hugs,
Suz

 

[HereWeGoAgain]

I had to ask the caseworker to stop talking so I my ears could digest what my stomach could not. After AWOL it was like what the dog must hear blah blah, blah blah, blah...blahblah.

I don't think I've ever read a better description of what happens to our bodies/ears/hearts when we receive a call or face a devastating situation like the one you wrote above, Starbie.

[...]

Oh so true! And then there are the times the phone rings at 2 a.m. -- you know that whatever it is is going to be a punch straight to the gut.

 

[standswithcourage]

I understand all of you and have had the same feelings! My son still sits in jail. I dont know what will happen tohim. I have written the trial judge and given him my sons letter he wrote to me to tmail to him saying he wants rehab for a year - who knows - I have had so many disappointments that I dont believe anything anymore - but at least he is still alive and where there is life there is hope! I am thinking about you Star = you always reply to my posts and I appreciate it - hang in there and keep posting - we understand.

 

[Hound dog]

Star

I don't have any wise words. Just lots of gentle ((((hugs)))).

 

[Scent of Cedar II]

I have nothing to add to what has already been said Star, but I am here waiting, too.

Barbara

 

[DDD]

You know you have my support and that I am sincerely sorry that there isn't a bunch of happiness floating your way. Hugs. DDD