Update on difficult child -we are in Colorado and it just went pear-shaped...

[welcometowitsend]

Blackgnat - You're doing well. I'm so proud of you for coming home and making him stay there with the opportunity for a fresh start. That's what it is right? An opportunity for him. He can open that door or close it. He can walk through the door or not. It's his choice. You can't make it for him.

While you were there you did everything possible to set him up with social service help so he knows where to turn. He knows where to go to get his medication, he knows he has options. Ex has given him a bus pass and a temporary place to stay. He has every opportunity at his feet right now he just has to take it.

I don't blame ex for giving him a very short period of time to get the ball rolling. The longer the time, the longer difficult child will take. Many people will only perform under a deadline and I'm guessing that is what your ex is hoping for.

I also don't blame you for not changing your phone number. Don't answer every one of his calls though. Talk to him once a day or 3 x a week, not every time he calls. That way he'll have to start thinking for himself, making decisions for himself, working things out for himself. He can do it, he just doesn't know it yet.

Read that post that was posted on getting through a crisis - lots of good lines to use on difficult child's in there that gets them to start taking responsibility for themselves and lets them know you love and support them too.

Hugs to you. You're doing a great job! Hang in there. This could take some time.

 

[recoveringenabler]

In order for you to take the focus off of your difficult child and place it back on you where it belongs, you will need constant, daily support. You are stuck in that groove and need help to extricate yourself. My suggestion is to augment your therapy with daily 12 step groups such as codependents anonymous, al-anon or family groups. Consider it as you would an addiction and in order to recover you need assistance every day, perhaps more. The worry will lessen considerably if you make that shift of focus OFF of him and onto yourself. He's gone now, it's time to take care of YOU. Do not take all the phone calls, tell him you will limit your responses to him to one phone call per week, or whatever feels right to you, but the constant venting to you will keep you stuck in that groove. You need time for yourself so you can heal. Sending you hugs..............stay strong.........

 

[blackgnat]

Hey guys-well, it's happened as I thought it might but hoped it wouldn't.

I am getting daily calls because he is panicking and doesn't see the point of being there if he's just going to do the same thing as in Illinois. I'm telling him he doesn't HAVE to do the same things but he doesn't seem to be getting that.

He is very mad at his father for not letting him stay longer. Last night was his first night away-he said he met some homeless people and was chatting to them and then slept on a bus stop bench. He can't get over the fact that he offered his father money but he still wouldn't let him stay.

He has been drinking every time he calls me. Talking about coming back to Illinois and how people were "looking out for him there". Why does he need people to look after him? Says he doesn't know anyone there. But he didn't know anyone here before he went to the mission here. Says he is NOT doing another mission.

I told him that his continued drinking will only lead to the worst of disasters and told him to find a mission and he could have full and productive days. If he has nothing to do, he needs to look for work. He hung up on me.

I am not taking these calls every day. He is using me as his therapist. But he already got one when we got to CO so he needs to use THAT qualified person and not his fallback person who can do nothing for him 1,000 miles away....

 

[scent of cedar]

he is panicking and doesn't see the point of being there

He is very mad at his father for not letting him stay longer.

Last night was his first night away

he met some homeless people

slept on a bus stop bench.

he offered his father money

He has been drinking

Talking about coming back to Illinois

Says he is NOT doing another mission.

If he has nothing to do, he needs to look for work.

He hung up on me.

You are doing a very hard thing very well, blackgnat.

It is never easy to parent difficult child kids. They are so manipulative that by the time we are off the phone with them, our heads are spinning and we don't know which way is up. I'm sorry this is happening. I know it feels like a nightmare. I read a poem once about pain. One of the lines went something like "sunlight scissors like the Living Lord." When we are trying to establish new behaviors for our difficult children, when we first begin saying the true and healthy things to them that we need to, if they are ever going to have a chance...it hurts us so much.

It is agony. But if you are going to try to help your son, you have to be strong, and face it, and do it.

What I see in difficult child's behavior, in his choice of words, in the choice of images he chose to present you with is "I will be making my way home soon ~ with or without your money, I'm coming home."

Preferably, of course, with YOUR money.

The father is doing the right thing.

Rather than commiserate with your son because his father will not allow him to use drugs and sell himself to strangers IN THE FATHER'S HOUSE blackgnat, I think it is important for you to keep contact with ex-husband and support him in this.

This can't be easy for him.

Your son is triangulating ~ is carefully inserting specific, highly specialized wedges between you and husband. He intends to change your concept of husband, and of this whole moving to Colorado idea.

So he can come home, blackgnat.

Ex husband made the rules and the time constraints very clear to difficult child. difficult child is upset that ex husband means what he says. difficult child will have to change, or he will have to take responsibility for his own life.

Here are some things you might be able to say to difficult child:

I know it's so difficult, difficult child. But you are strong. You are so bright. I know you will find a way to live strong and healthy.

difficult child, I'm so proud of you for making it through that first night. It must have been so scary. Good job!

Stop drinking, difficult child.

Stop using drugs, difficult child.

That is dangerous behavior, difficult child. I love you too much to watch you destroy yourself.

And my old standby phrases:

You were raised better than to do what you are doing, difficult child.

I love you too much to watch you self-destruct, difficult child. Stop using drugs.

I love you too much to help you self-destruct, difficult child. Stop using drugs.

You will be fine, difficult child. Stop using drugs.

I think you said your son was 24? Envision the things other 24 year old males ~ whatever their sexual orientation ~ are accomplishing. They are taking their Master's degrees, buying their first houses, beginning new businesses, getting married, supporting families.

That is what you want for your son, too. Not this lifestyle he has somehow fallen into.

I am sorry, blackgnat. I know you probably aren't sleeping well. I imagine your stomach is tied into knots and it is sometimes difficult to breathe or to concentrate. I know it seems impossible to make it through the days, and the nights are worse.

Post often, blackgnat. All of us here are living through the same terrible things.

You can do this.

Barbara

 

[recoveringenabler]

Blackgnat, Scent of Cedar has given you stellar support, there isn't much else I can add................your son's Dad is not enabling him, you have enabled him, he wants to be near you so he can manipulate you to get what he wants, that's why he is wanting to be "home." Try to remember that. Do not take all those calls, limit them to once a week. In the meantime he will need to make choices without you and you can get some rest from his relentless attacks of guilt onto you. Be strong, this is your chance, take your life back. Get help. Hugs......................

 

[welcometowitsend]

Blackgnat - Hugs of support coming your way. You are going through something so painful right now. You ARE doing the right thing and so is your ExDH. difficult child needs boundaries set out for him and he is getting them. The choices he makes from here on out are his. You have set up therapy, found him places he can go to get help but he has to take those offers and use them.

Please stay strong and keep in touch with your Ex. Support him in his decision as well and ask him to support you as well.

My thoughts are with your difficult child that he finds his way out of this.

 

[blackgnat]

Thank you so much for your wonderful and supportive replies.

I went to my therapist today and while I was there he called 3 times in quick succession. I ignored it and when I left her office, I did what so many others have told me to do...I changed my phone number.

I cannot tell you how wretched I feel. I know I am still very sick because I feel heartbroken, that I've abandoned him and this change of number will NEVER feel right.

The concensus from those in the know-i.e. everyone on this board, plus many supportive and long-suffering friends, is that this was a necessary action. The therapist says I have a lot of logical thoughts mixed up with irrational ones. She says he wants me to solve the problems for him and that someone in this unhealthy set up has to be as well as possible and it needs to be me. She says that he NEEDS this limit. My best friend says that I am crippling him if I don't sever the ties.

I see everyone's point. The fact that he is already drinking, not even out of his father's house for 12 hours, just leads me to believe he'll never make it unless he gets to the points where he already sank to here in Illinois-jail, ERs, detoxes, rehabs, park benches where he got his nose broken, etc.

It's that expression, "Wherever you go, there you are".

I just feel so broken. It feels like he will be wanting to talk and I won't be there. But you know, I had NOTHING to add to what I've already said a trillion times. If he hates me for doing this, so be it. It wouldn't be the first time that he has expressed that feeling to me. And shown it by hitting me, threatening me, stealing from me, destroying property.
Sorry for rambling. But it does help to look at what has actually happened in the past, without me putting my hugely unhealthy spin on things...


Thanks for supporting me through this process. It's going to be SUCH a long road, but if I don't make moves to take myself out of the equation, I will be trapped in this horror forever. And I truly believe that it'll kill me.

 

[blackgnat]

And Barbara, I loved what you said I should say to him, but I guess now I will write those words to him, either via email (though he is now homeless so probably won't have computer access) or snail mail-his dad has a P.O.Box which my son is using when he needs to give whomever a mailing address.

So thank you for the suggestions. It will give ME comfort to know that I can express myself to him and let him know I support healthy choices for him, but can't let myself be drawn into the drama of his life which inevitably follows his substance abuse.

 

[scent of cedar]

I cannot tell you how wretched I feel.

I just feel so broken.

Blackgnat, you have us. You are not alone with this, anymore.

That is so important.

Not a one of us is going to judge either you or your child, whatever happens next.

Each of us has walked through fire for her child blackgnat, just as you have. Each of us knows the horror ~ the true, endless, living horror of loving our stubborn, special, self-destructive children.

And blackgnat? Each of us is still standing...and you are, too.

You will make it through this. One day, you will feel a little more whole, a little stronger. Some days, you won't be doing so well. But every day blackgnat, you will be learning and healing and surviving and reclaiming your life. Not from your child, but from this hellish nightmare of guilt and pain and confusion. That is what this site is about. None of us really has any solutions. If there were any way to help our children, we would have done it and been long gone from the site.

We need one another, blackgnat, to share the pain and the little triumphs and the everyday, living horror of it all.

Here is something that helps me. Whether my child rejects me, hates me, ignores me, tells lies about me, hurts herself and others, the secret strength I have, and most of us here have blackgnat, is that my child does not have to love, approve of, or even like me for me to endlessly love her.

I love my child.

Nothing will change that.

I mourn her, I miss her, I rage at the unfairness what has happened, to her and to me and to all of us. But I love her with a mother's love blackgnat, just as you love your son. Whatever the tragedy in their lives, however awful the things they do or the things done to them...that is my daughter. I love her. She is worth it, worth every instant of it and more. If I am looking at the beginning of the end to my daughter's story (which I believe I may be)...then that is still my daughter. Somewhere in this world, whoever she becomes, there is a mother who knows the value in her, who sees so clearly who she really is, who will never give up on her, will never forget her, will always remember who she was, once.

There is strength in that kind of love, blackgnat.

That is the kind of love that asks nothing in return.

It isn't easy, for us. There is so little to be proud of, or happy for.

No, really ~ it is never going to be an easy, or even, a pleasant thing to love our difficult child kids.

But there is strength there, blackgnat, for you, and for your son.

It doesn't matter what he does, really. Love him through it. We need to be healthy enough not to enable. We need to try so hard to respond appropriately when all we want to do is bring them home, forever.

We would love them the same way if they were perfect. That our children are troubled just means that our children are troubled. So much of the joy we might have taken is, for us and for our children, tragic, instead.

That's okay.

It's okay, blackgnat.

One way or another, everything is going to be alright.

Barbara

 

[blackgnat]

Thank you so much for the beautiful words! I will read them many times to give myself strength.

Was I too extreme in changing my number? I just felt that in the last couple of days I was dreading any phone calls in case they were him. I would turn my phone off or ignore his calls, which honestly would give me a pain in my heart.

I can't bear to think that he is scared and lonely and needs to vent. But that's the part of my brain that continues to see him as a 12 year old...

He's actually very manipulative, a chameleon, who is capable of making extremely adult (and dangerous) choices and decisions when he wants to. THAT'S the person that I need to remember.

But denying him access to me feels wrong. The mother heart and all that.

How many others have changed numbers or just refuse to answer the phone when difficult children call? Does it really get easier?

 

[InsaneCdn]

If you have caller ID, you could let his calls go to voicemail, then decide whether to return the call or not.
Some cell phones will do that automatically - you can set certain phone numbers to always go to voicemail.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Barbara, that was a beautiful post, it brought tears to my eyes, your love for your daughter is so touchingly real, it reaches right out of your post into my heart and I know, it reaches your daughter's heart too........... deep in her heart you reside there.............you said it all just beautifully...........

Blackgnat, yes it does get easier..........listen to Barbara, it's okay, everything is going to be alright.............give your son over to whatever your perception of a higher power is...........hold him in love and let him go into his life.............you have your life to own and live now..........he has his.............hugs..........

 

[Kathy813]

Blackgnat, we are going through something very similar so I totally get your feelings and fears. My counselor said today that we have to stay firm or this will be a never ending roller coaster. I know that but my difficult child has been calling and texting tonight that she is going to kill herself. This is not new behavior but it still is hard to hear.

There are ways to block texts from people that you don't want to text you. I did that last week because just the sound of a signal that I had a new text made my whole body tense up. I found blocking her texts was such a relief. I also often have her calls set so that they go straight to voicemail without ringing and then I can choose whether I want to listen and respond.

I am so jealous of all of the things you got set up for your difficult child in Colorado. We don't have any services like that here in Georgia. Your difficult child is really in a good place for him and he needs to stay there for his sake and yours.

~Kathy

 

[scent of cedar]

No, blackgnat, I don't think it ever gets easier. But you will get stronger.

You are doing the right thing.

Maybe you could set a time limit for yourself. This week, you can take some time away from all of it, just to see how difficult child does. You can expect that he will up the ante. You are teaching him new rules. He won't like that. He is used to you bending to his will. This has not helped him to be stronger in the past, blackgnat.

Try this new thing, this new way of being with your son.

You can always go back to the old way. That is what he wants, and what he expects you to do.

Just try this for a little while, blackgnat.

We are all right here. We get it. Post about his responses, about your feelings.

Think of all the wonderful responses you have received, just today blackgnat.

We are right here.

Barbara

 

[busywend]

Blackgnat, give it a week. Then reach out to difficult child through easy child or ExH to get him your new number. Tell him your phone broke and you had to change the number. He will have had an entire week without you suggesting ideas, saving him, or even knowing what he is up to. His dad is there, so you know if he gets really into trouble there is someone to help him. Relax.

Give yourself this week. Try to regroup and understand your new role in your son's life. It is no longer 'Crutch'. When you talk to him. Tell him, you only want to hear the positive updates. Tell him you just can not take the negative ones anymore. Nobody could for this long. It is a reality of life. He is old enough to hear that reality.