BusynMember
Well-Known Member
Janet...I think it's great...and very brave. You deserve it!
Thinking of cutting off communications with difficult child
- Thread starter Echolette
- Start date
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
Janet, that is great! I love it that you are fleeing together.
Cedar
Cedar
Scent of Cedar *
Well-Known Member
I haven't heard one thing from our son since just after Christmas. I am sad about the way I wanted my relationship with my son to be ~ but I didn't have that, anyway. What I had was me, trying to pretend the relationship I had with him was enough, or was even remotely acceptable. I am not sure when my son got to be such a poop. I think it was during the drug years. We put up with so much that was inappropriate, then. The way he started to talk to us seemed like the least of the things we were concerned about. But here's the thing: if I am ever going to have any of the things I want from anyone in my life, I am going to have to figure out what this is supposed to look and feel like and accept nothing less.
How much damage are we supposed to accept because a child does drugs, anyway? I am not sure how that disrespect piece came to be so accepted...probably because, when we couldn't figure out what happened with the kids, we lost respect for ourselves. We refused to acknowledge the drug piece for so many years ~ that was part of it.
We didn't know about the mental illness piece either...although now that I think about it, that was probably a refusal to acknowledge, too. Good for me. I really did believe, I really did try everything I knew or could learn to save the kids. But now, I'm going to salvage and save myself and husband. If the kids want to keep being sick, want to keep being stuck in those old, sick patterns, that is up to them.
So much of what I am learning and valuing now has to do with regaining my self respect. Everywhere there is shame ~ all of which seems to have become lumped together down in my psyche somewhere ~ I am taking another look at the assumptions I was making about how and why all this happened. The difference seems to be that I feel so tragically sad that these terrible things happened to us, instead of feeling so clueless, so ashamed, so blown away by the difference between what we wanted, worked for, and thought we had and the way it all turned out. These changed understandings, proceeding from sadness instead of guilt or shame, are healthy, strong, right things. In this light, I see everything in my life differently.
Most disturbingly, I see that others ~ family members, friends ~ changed their opinions about us for the worse as our opinions about ourselves changed for the worse. Human nature, I suppose. Still, it is an interesting dynamic to understand.
More interesting still is the difference in the way I am seeing and interacting with others as the sense of shame over what happened with the kids lifts and changes, and I begin reclaiming myself.
All of which is my way wordy way of saying that you need to follow your heart on this one. It sounds to me like you have reached that point of healthy recovery where you can see the wrongness in the choices the kids are making about the way they treat YOU. It's like suddenly becoming aware of a choice to change back from that dark, shamed place we've spent our time in since we started trying to figure out how to motivate our kids to do better, to do the right thing. All at once, I feel like seeing what they are really doing.
And I don't much care for it.
So yes, I miss my son...but the truth is, I haven't seen my real son, except in the briefest of flashes, since he started using drugs fifteen years ago. The difference is this: There was a time I believed that, even if it was drugs, he got into them because we raised him with a vulnerability. Now, I feel compassion for myself at what I have been through.
I am sorry my son's life was so focused on drug use. But I no longer feel responsible.
Cedar
How much damage are we supposed to accept because a child does drugs, anyway? I am not sure how that disrespect piece came to be so accepted...probably because, when we couldn't figure out what happened with the kids, we lost respect for ourselves. We refused to acknowledge the drug piece for so many years ~ that was part of it.
We didn't know about the mental illness piece either...although now that I think about it, that was probably a refusal to acknowledge, too. Good for me. I really did believe, I really did try everything I knew or could learn to save the kids. But now, I'm going to salvage and save myself and husband. If the kids want to keep being sick, want to keep being stuck in those old, sick patterns, that is up to them.
So much of what I am learning and valuing now has to do with regaining my self respect. Everywhere there is shame ~ all of which seems to have become lumped together down in my psyche somewhere ~ I am taking another look at the assumptions I was making about how and why all this happened. The difference seems to be that I feel so tragically sad that these terrible things happened to us, instead of feeling so clueless, so ashamed, so blown away by the difference between what we wanted, worked for, and thought we had and the way it all turned out. These changed understandings, proceeding from sadness instead of guilt or shame, are healthy, strong, right things. In this light, I see everything in my life differently.
Most disturbingly, I see that others ~ family members, friends ~ changed their opinions about us for the worse as our opinions about ourselves changed for the worse. Human nature, I suppose. Still, it is an interesting dynamic to understand.
More interesting still is the difference in the way I am seeing and interacting with others as the sense of shame over what happened with the kids lifts and changes, and I begin reclaiming myself.
All of which is my way wordy way of saying that you need to follow your heart on this one. It sounds to me like you have reached that point of healthy recovery where you can see the wrongness in the choices the kids are making about the way they treat YOU. It's like suddenly becoming aware of a choice to change back from that dark, shamed place we've spent our time in since we started trying to figure out how to motivate our kids to do better, to do the right thing. All at once, I feel like seeing what they are really doing.
And I don't much care for it.
So yes, I miss my son...but the truth is, I haven't seen my real son, except in the briefest of flashes, since he started using drugs fifteen years ago. The difference is this: There was a time I believed that, even if it was drugs, he got into them because we raised him with a vulnerability. Now, I feel compassion for myself at what I have been through.
I am sorry my son's life was so focused on drug use. But I no longer feel responsible.
Cedar
blackgnat
Active Member
Wonderful replies here-how many of us are in the same boat! Did the difficult children all read the same manual or what?
Echo, I don't know how to answer you because I was just wondering the same thing about my difficult child-what is the last straw? Not that there really has to be one. Maybe it's just like when a friendship has run its course-it no longer adds anything to your life, you grow apart, needs and goals change and you have less and less contact because neither of you really wants to invest in it any more.
I know it's different because these are our children, but maybe I'm going to look at my contact with my difficult child that way. When and if he calls, I won't want to hear anything but good or positive news. NOT the same old story. NOT a conversation that doesn't even include a "How are YOU , Ma?" in it. NOT a request for money or a woe is me tale...I already know how his stories end and how empty his promises are.
When I think about it, it breaks my heart that he is so lost, but I also know that my overthinking and my inability to be rational has helped to feed the Beast, so that way of thinking doesn't work any more. Maybe you can quietly just phase yourself out of it all and see how productive and pleasant the calls are when they are less frequent? If they're still "lather, rinse, repeat" then maybe you won't feel so bad about not communicating at all?
As I said before, I have no clue, because I'm still struggling . But I hope you find a way to feel okay with it all.
Echo, I don't know how to answer you because I was just wondering the same thing about my difficult child-what is the last straw? Not that there really has to be one. Maybe it's just like when a friendship has run its course-it no longer adds anything to your life, you grow apart, needs and goals change and you have less and less contact because neither of you really wants to invest in it any more.
I know it's different because these are our children, but maybe I'm going to look at my contact with my difficult child that way. When and if he calls, I won't want to hear anything but good or positive news. NOT the same old story. NOT a conversation that doesn't even include a "How are YOU , Ma?" in it. NOT a request for money or a woe is me tale...I already know how his stories end and how empty his promises are.
When I think about it, it breaks my heart that he is so lost, but I also know that my overthinking and my inability to be rational has helped to feed the Beast, so that way of thinking doesn't work any more. Maybe you can quietly just phase yourself out of it all and see how productive and pleasant the calls are when they are less frequent? If they're still "lather, rinse, repeat" then maybe you won't feel so bad about not communicating at all?
As I said before, I have no clue, because I'm still struggling . But I hope you find a way to feel okay with it all.
