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Slowly Breaking Me Down
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<blockquote data-quote="BusynMember" data-source="post: 625920" data-attributes="member: 1550"><p>You learn that your child is not you and you are not your child. Why should you not love and honor yourself because somebody else is making poor choices? That has nothing to do with you. It is on his shoulders as he is an adult now. You are a good person, deserving of self-love and care. Now your son...as an adult, he makes his own seperate decisions that reflect on HIM, not YOU. If they are bad decisions he will suffer for them in natural consequences, then you have mainly two choices:</p><p></p><p>1. You have the option of living your life through whatever happens to your adult child thus going down the hole with him if he chooses to do so. This usually involves not paying attention to your other loved ones who deserve you more than him, but difficult children take up all our oxygen if we choose to overindulge in them. Since you have no control over an adult child, his emotions will be yours. If he is doing drugs, in jail due to his bad decisions, living on the streets because of his refusal to conform even enough to get by in society, you can stay in bed all day every day and cry. Or you can go about life, but never really enjoy it because your adult child is doing poorly. Many people do this. It is a decision they make. Some parents think they can not have a good life if their child is struggling, even though the child is now an adult and it is due to the adult child's poor choices.</p><p></p><p>2. You have the option of maybe going to twelve step meetings or a private therapist or both and learn how to detach from your adult child's drama with caring, but with your eye on building a happy life of your own....realizing that your other loved ones and friends would like your happiness and company and that living one day at a time is more helpful to you than angsting over something you have no control over. Many of us have built good, fulfilling lives this way as we focus on ourselves and our loved ones who are able to have healthy relationships with us. As we detach, we learn to listen without the extreme emotion we once had. We learn when it is too much to talk to a difficult child and we set boundaries that are good for us. We start to laugh again.</p><p></p><p>The choices are very personal ones. Some people are 80 years old and their 60 year old alcoholic son who abuses them and never worked and dumped his wife and dodged child support and spent time in jail is STILL living with that poor eighty year old woman and maybe even shoving her around. But that was the way she decided to live her life.</p><p></p><p>Most of us here have chosen to move on and enjoy our lives in spite of having dysfunctional adult children. You have to make your own decision though. If you'd like to try to move on, the first thing I'd do is buy the book "Codependent No More" by Melody Beatty and then I'd sit in on an Al-Anon or Nar-Anon meeting. There are great resources there for learning how to move on when a loved one is in a bad place. Helped lots of us tons. Therapy too.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="BusynMember, post: 625920, member: 1550"] You learn that your child is not you and you are not your child. Why should you not love and honor yourself because somebody else is making poor choices? That has nothing to do with you. It is on his shoulders as he is an adult now. You are a good person, deserving of self-love and care. Now your son...as an adult, he makes his own seperate decisions that reflect on HIM, not YOU. If they are bad decisions he will suffer for them in natural consequences, then you have mainly two choices: 1. You have the option of living your life through whatever happens to your adult child thus going down the hole with him if he chooses to do so. This usually involves not paying attention to your other loved ones who deserve you more than him, but difficult children take up all our oxygen if we choose to overindulge in them. Since you have no control over an adult child, his emotions will be yours. If he is doing drugs, in jail due to his bad decisions, living on the streets because of his refusal to conform even enough to get by in society, you can stay in bed all day every day and cry. Or you can go about life, but never really enjoy it because your adult child is doing poorly. Many people do this. It is a decision they make. Some parents think they can not have a good life if their child is struggling, even though the child is now an adult and it is due to the adult child's poor choices. 2. You have the option of maybe going to twelve step meetings or a private therapist or both and learn how to detach from your adult child's drama with caring, but with your eye on building a happy life of your own....realizing that your other loved ones and friends would like your happiness and company and that living one day at a time is more helpful to you than angsting over something you have no control over. Many of us have built good, fulfilling lives this way as we focus on ourselves and our loved ones who are able to have healthy relationships with us. As we detach, we learn to listen without the extreme emotion we once had. We learn when it is too much to talk to a difficult child and we set boundaries that are good for us. We start to laugh again. The choices are very personal ones. Some people are 80 years old and their 60 year old alcoholic son who abuses them and never worked and dumped his wife and dodged child support and spent time in jail is STILL living with that poor eighty year old woman and maybe even shoving her around. But that was the way she decided to live her life. Most of us here have chosen to move on and enjoy our lives in spite of having dysfunctional adult children. You have to make your own decision though. If you'd like to try to move on, the first thing I'd do is buy the book "Codependent No More" by Melody Beatty and then I'd sit in on an Al-Anon or Nar-Anon meeting. There are great resources there for learning how to move on when a loved one is in a bad place. Helped lots of us tons. Therapy too. [/QUOTE]
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