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Substance Abuse
New here-so sad about 19yo son's horrible choices
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<blockquote data-quote="Signorina" data-source="post: 528557"><p>I am so sorry you are going thru this. My son's bad choices became apparent at age 19 too. He refused help and just keeps compounding bad decisions with more bad decisions.</p><p></p><p>I know it sounds impossible, but you need to stop trying to look ahead. Yes, it's taken me a LONG time to learn that...but that's probably the biggest lesson I learned from this board. My kid doesn't care, he's NOT looking forward and no amount of looking forward FOR him will help him. I can see the road ahead and it's awful but he can't. And I can't see it for him - so I need to stop looking. I don't know if that makes any sense or not -- but he is so blind to the hole he is digging and because of his "blindness", I became hyper vigilant -- and that was not helpful to me.</p><p></p><p>And honestly, all the things I thought I could see in the near future, were wrong. Some worse, some better but he has not followed any path I could have seen. So it was a lot of wasted emotion, a lot of self inflicted pain.</p><p></p><p>One of the best things I read early on was this essay:<strong> <a href="http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/178/kids-bad-decisions-do-not-mean-we-are-bad-parents" target="_blank">Kid’s Bad Decisions Do Not Mean We Are Bad Parents</a> </strong>I hope it helps you the way it helped me. One line struck close to my heart (I am paraphrasing) "I wake up EVERY day with a desperate need to do something...and then I realize there is nothing I can do; the emptiness just has to be." I want so much to spring into some sort of action, but nothing I can do will change him. I can just be ready in case he reaches out. The ball is in his court. </p><p></p><p>Welcome to the CD board, you will find friends who understand here. Sorry you needed to find us - but so glad you did.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Signorina, post: 528557"] I am so sorry you are going thru this. My son's bad choices became apparent at age 19 too. He refused help and just keeps compounding bad decisions with more bad decisions. I know it sounds impossible, but you need to stop trying to look ahead. Yes, it's taken me a LONG time to learn that...but that's probably the biggest lesson I learned from this board. My kid doesn't care, he's NOT looking forward and no amount of looking forward FOR him will help him. I can see the road ahead and it's awful but he can't. And I can't see it for him - so I need to stop looking. I don't know if that makes any sense or not -- but he is so blind to the hole he is digging and because of his "blindness", I became hyper vigilant -- and that was not helpful to me. And honestly, all the things I thought I could see in the near future, were wrong. Some worse, some better but he has not followed any path I could have seen. So it was a lot of wasted emotion, a lot of self inflicted pain. One of the best things I read early on was this essay:[B] [URL='http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/178/kids-bad-decisions-do-not-mean-we-are-bad-parents']Kid’s Bad Decisions Do Not Mean We Are Bad Parents[/URL] [/B]I hope it helps you the way it helped me. One line struck close to my heart (I am paraphrasing) "I wake up EVERY day with a desperate need to do something...and then I realize there is nothing I can do; the emptiness just has to be." I want so much to spring into some sort of action, but nothing I can do will change him. I can just be ready in case he reaches out. The ball is in his court. Welcome to the CD board, you will find friends who understand here. Sorry you needed to find us - but so glad you did. [/QUOTE]
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New here-so sad about 19yo son's horrible choices
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