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Out of jail, results sadly predictable
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 616319" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>First off, Echo, you did the best you knew to do. I would have done the same. In years to come, however this works out, you will know you did every single thing you could do to help your son take a better path.</p><p></p><p>I know how that goes, though. We are angry, too. We think of all the ten thousand things that didn't make a bit of difference, or that might have made a difference, or that we should have known, or that we knew better than to do but did anyway because, when it gets right down to it, there are times when we just cannot turn away and do nothing. </p><p></p><p>I don't think any of us here on the Board are the kind of people who are able to just turn away from any situation where we might be able to help, might be able to make difference for someone. When that someone is your own child, how much harder it is to turn away! So, each of us needs to stop condemning ourselves.</p><p></p><p>We are , every one of us, doing the best we know. </p><p></p><p>But here's the thing, Echolette. It wasn't our wrong decisions that created the situation. Our kids have problems. Serious problems, problems that are so painful and wrong and that seem to have no solutions. Someone told me once, when I was trying to figure out what to do, to bless myself and do it. And if that turned out to have been the wrong decision, then to bless myself again, and try another way. The one constant is to bless ourselves Echo, to give ourselves full credit for doing the best we know. </p><p></p><p>There is no strength in berating or second-guessing ourselves.</p><p></p><p>And we need to be strong because, barring some kind of miracle, the situation is not going to resolve well.</p><p></p><p>****</p><p></p><p>The grief and continually renewing commitment to a troubled adult child (interspersed with those brief flashes of rebellion when we declare our freedom from all of it) wreak havoc in any relationship. We don't even know the cost of our commitments to our kids until we really explore what it would be like, not only not to have had to deal with the things we've dealt with, but to have had, instead, the things other parents have. The steady love of your child, his growing independence, the joy to be taken in watching the same friends we knew as little guys all grown up and still remembering us and our homes and the birthday parties and football games. The girlfriends become wives and mothers, the successful career moves, the other challenges, well met. Whether we are aware of it or not Echo, we are grieving those losses, grieving a kind of invisible devastation...while we are being blamed, and are blaming ourselves, for it. In order to function in a world no longer sympathetic, we hide our pain and deny our confusion. We go to work or to class or whatever it is we do, and we don't even talk anymore, about the daughter beat nearly to death or the son seen begging on the streets.</p><p></p><p>We don't tell anyone about it, Echolette. </p><p></p><p>I can't, because once I get started I cannot, for the life of me, shut up again. </p><p></p><p>There was a thread here on the site about whether it was worse to lose a child to death than to lose a child piece by piece, as we all are losing our children, here. The consensus was that this is way harder. Then, a mother wrote in who had lost her child. She pointed out that, though we do indeed go through the near deaths of our children again and again, those with living children still have hope.</p><p></p><p>******</p><p></p><p>You and S.O. will work through it, Echolette. It is just so impossibly hard to do this that we get out of the habit of being in love, with ourselves or with anyone else. There are days when I look at my husband and remember how handsome I thought he was, once. It's a little shocking to realize he still is. Too much pain, too much reading one another's expressions instead of loving each other's faces, too much testing the waters instead of skydiving in. </p><p></p><p>Possible for you and S.O. to take a weekend away? Go somewhere no one knows you and pretend you are one of the lucky, beautiful couples relishing themselves and their good fortune? I don't know where you live or what you like to do, but I think there are really inexpensive Vegas packages.</p><p></p><p>Or flights to Southern climes, where all you have to worry about is sand in the bikini area.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>Barring that, eat the oysters and drink the champagne in bed with S.O.</p><p></p><p>If you two are anything like husband and I? We forget to do that half the time, too. </p><p></p><p>Ew. </p><p></p><p>too much information.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 616319, member: 17461"] First off, Echo, you did the best you knew to do. I would have done the same. In years to come, however this works out, you will know you did every single thing you could do to help your son take a better path. I know how that goes, though. We are angry, too. We think of all the ten thousand things that didn't make a bit of difference, or that might have made a difference, or that we should have known, or that we knew better than to do but did anyway because, when it gets right down to it, there are times when we just cannot turn away and do nothing. I don't think any of us here on the Board are the kind of people who are able to just turn away from any situation where we might be able to help, might be able to make difference for someone. When that someone is your own child, how much harder it is to turn away! So, each of us needs to stop condemning ourselves. We are , every one of us, doing the best we know. But here's the thing, Echolette. It wasn't our wrong decisions that created the situation. Our kids have problems. Serious problems, problems that are so painful and wrong and that seem to have no solutions. Someone told me once, when I was trying to figure out what to do, to bless myself and do it. And if that turned out to have been the wrong decision, then to bless myself again, and try another way. The one constant is to bless ourselves Echo, to give ourselves full credit for doing the best we know. There is no strength in berating or second-guessing ourselves. And we need to be strong because, barring some kind of miracle, the situation is not going to resolve well. **** The grief and continually renewing commitment to a troubled adult child (interspersed with those brief flashes of rebellion when we declare our freedom from all of it) wreak havoc in any relationship. We don't even know the cost of our commitments to our kids until we really explore what it would be like, not only not to have had to deal with the things we've dealt with, but to have had, instead, the things other parents have. The steady love of your child, his growing independence, the joy to be taken in watching the same friends we knew as little guys all grown up and still remembering us and our homes and the birthday parties and football games. The girlfriends become wives and mothers, the successful career moves, the other challenges, well met. Whether we are aware of it or not Echo, we are grieving those losses, grieving a kind of invisible devastation...while we are being blamed, and are blaming ourselves, for it. In order to function in a world no longer sympathetic, we hide our pain and deny our confusion. We go to work or to class or whatever it is we do, and we don't even talk anymore, about the daughter beat nearly to death or the son seen begging on the streets. We don't tell anyone about it, Echolette. I can't, because once I get started I cannot, for the life of me, shut up again. There was a thread here on the site about whether it was worse to lose a child to death than to lose a child piece by piece, as we all are losing our children, here. The consensus was that this is way harder. Then, a mother wrote in who had lost her child. She pointed out that, though we do indeed go through the near deaths of our children again and again, those with living children still have hope. ****** You and S.O. will work through it, Echolette. It is just so impossibly hard to do this that we get out of the habit of being in love, with ourselves or with anyone else. There are days when I look at my husband and remember how handsome I thought he was, once. It's a little shocking to realize he still is. Too much pain, too much reading one another's expressions instead of loving each other's faces, too much testing the waters instead of skydiving in. Possible for you and S.O. to take a weekend away? Go somewhere no one knows you and pretend you are one of the lucky, beautiful couples relishing themselves and their good fortune? I don't know where you live or what you like to do, but I think there are really inexpensive Vegas packages. Or flights to Southern climes, where all you have to worry about is sand in the bikini area. :O) Barring that, eat the oysters and drink the champagne in bed with S.O. If you two are anything like husband and I? We forget to do that half the time, too. Ew. too much information. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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