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A big step for difficult child and me
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 625792" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>I woke up this morning feeling peaceful and happy. </p><p></p><p>Thank you all for your kind words, it means a lot.</p><p></p><p>I was noticing yesterday this physical sense of sort of an unraveling of what I would call a knot in my solar plexus area. I read once that fear hides in that area........that it's where we "swallow" a lot of feelings...........that makes sense to me. I can breathe more deeply in to that area now. My whole system feels as if it is calming down. We talk often here about the kind of PTSD that parents of difficult child's feel, waiting for that other shoe to drop. That other shoe can drop at any time. I am not willing to have that be how my life is going to be. That eats up a lot of energy and time.............I've already put that time in, I don't want to do it anymore.</p><p></p><p>That's all about fear, fear of the future, fear of what I can't control. Worry. I've lived in the land of worry for a long, long time. I'm done with worry. Our difficult child's bring up all our parental fears and after awhile those fears just run our lives............I've worked diligently on letting that go, as COM talks about, I have my arsenal of "tools" to keep me not only afloat in this sea of gfgness, but thriving. I use them all the time too.</p><p></p><p>I can't help thinking about that adage, "the truth will set you free." As parents we often perceive our difficult child's in ways that are not, in my opinion, real or true. The comment about superimposing toddler images on our grown children really had an impact on me. Although that is not something I do, I have had other false perceptions of my daughter which have kept me stuck. We want to see our kids in a certain light and even in the face of enormous evidence to the contrary, we persist in seeing what we want to see. Whatever the reason and I know there are many, it is simply not the truth. </p><p></p><p>That is the FOG I talk about. We fly into it when we're faced with either seeing the truth or keeping our well structured false image of our kids intact. Not to judge us for that, I think it is a self protective defense mechanism which allows us to continue believing our kids are who we want them to be. It's a part of our own healing. It's very hard to peak out of that fog, we really just don't want to see what is right in front of us.</p><p></p><p>I've chosen to see my daughter in a certain way because the actual truth is pretty hard to take. The last 6 days, for whatever reason, perhaps I was simply ready to see it, but I saw my daughter for the person she is. Not with my cloak of "pretty" wrapped around her, not with my judgements of her life, not with anything but my eyes looking at her and my heart recognizing the truth. It's hard to do. Maybe it's the hardest thing I've ever done.............I won't label her or describe a profile or judge her...........she is who she is, it's just that now, I can see that too. For whatever reason, my inability to recognize her is over. This didn't happen overnight, this has been a process that has taken time and enormous support. Our ability and our need to NOT see the truth of who our kids are is enormous.</p><p></p><p>That truth has not only freed me, but it has taken a lot of my fear away, my worry. When she drove out of my driveway, I realized she would soon be picked up by the police because that is who she is. That is what she's chosen. She is free to make her choices without my input. I am over here in my life without any control at all and I knew that. I am over here. She is over there. That separation, the recognition of who she is without my perceptions of her clouding my view, my deep realization that I have no control over her life at all...............took a bunch of fear out of me............</p><p></p><p>In my acceptance of who she is, I am liberated. I think it has had a lot to do with my own acceptance of myself, letting go of my own guilt and mother expectations I placed on myself, the shoulds that society and I put on how all powerful mothering is........my own inadequacies, my own perfectionism, my own profound false conviction that I could fix this.........step by step I've freed myself, inch by inch until I could see my own self clearly, give myself a break, have compassion for ME, love ME, accept ME and then turn around and begin to see the truth of what was right in front of me. </p><p></p><p>I've quietly slipped into a new worry free zone. I feel humbled and grateful. This is big stuff we do here. I feel like I want to wrap all of us up in a bubble of comfort because we deserve that...............every one of us...........</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 625792, member: 13542"] I woke up this morning feeling peaceful and happy. Thank you all for your kind words, it means a lot. I was noticing yesterday this physical sense of sort of an unraveling of what I would call a knot in my solar plexus area. I read once that fear hides in that area........that it's where we "swallow" a lot of feelings...........that makes sense to me. I can breathe more deeply in to that area now. My whole system feels as if it is calming down. We talk often here about the kind of PTSD that parents of difficult child's feel, waiting for that other shoe to drop. That other shoe can drop at any time. I am not willing to have that be how my life is going to be. That eats up a lot of energy and time.............I've already put that time in, I don't want to do it anymore. That's all about fear, fear of the future, fear of what I can't control. Worry. I've lived in the land of worry for a long, long time. I'm done with worry. Our difficult child's bring up all our parental fears and after awhile those fears just run our lives............I've worked diligently on letting that go, as COM talks about, I have my arsenal of "tools" to keep me not only afloat in this sea of gfgness, but thriving. I use them all the time too. I can't help thinking about that adage, "the truth will set you free." As parents we often perceive our difficult child's in ways that are not, in my opinion, real or true. The comment about superimposing toddler images on our grown children really had an impact on me. Although that is not something I do, I have had other false perceptions of my daughter which have kept me stuck. We want to see our kids in a certain light and even in the face of enormous evidence to the contrary, we persist in seeing what we want to see. Whatever the reason and I know there are many, it is simply not the truth. That is the FOG I talk about. We fly into it when we're faced with either seeing the truth or keeping our well structured false image of our kids intact. Not to judge us for that, I think it is a self protective defense mechanism which allows us to continue believing our kids are who we want them to be. It's a part of our own healing. It's very hard to peak out of that fog, we really just don't want to see what is right in front of us. I've chosen to see my daughter in a certain way because the actual truth is pretty hard to take. The last 6 days, for whatever reason, perhaps I was simply ready to see it, but I saw my daughter for the person she is. Not with my cloak of "pretty" wrapped around her, not with my judgements of her life, not with anything but my eyes looking at her and my heart recognizing the truth. It's hard to do. Maybe it's the hardest thing I've ever done.............I won't label her or describe a profile or judge her...........she is who she is, it's just that now, I can see that too. For whatever reason, my inability to recognize her is over. This didn't happen overnight, this has been a process that has taken time and enormous support. Our ability and our need to NOT see the truth of who our kids are is enormous. That truth has not only freed me, but it has taken a lot of my fear away, my worry. When she drove out of my driveway, I realized she would soon be picked up by the police because that is who she is. That is what she's chosen. She is free to make her choices without my input. I am over here in my life without any control at all and I knew that. I am over here. She is over there. That separation, the recognition of who she is without my perceptions of her clouding my view, my deep realization that I have no control over her life at all...............took a bunch of fear out of me............ In my acceptance of who she is, I am liberated. I think it has had a lot to do with my own acceptance of myself, letting go of my own guilt and mother expectations I placed on myself, the shoulds that society and I put on how all powerful mothering is........my own inadequacies, my own perfectionism, my own profound false conviction that I could fix this.........step by step I've freed myself, inch by inch until I could see my own self clearly, give myself a break, have compassion for ME, love ME, accept ME and then turn around and begin to see the truth of what was right in front of me. I've quietly slipped into a new worry free zone. I feel humbled and grateful. This is big stuff we do here. I feel like I want to wrap all of us up in a bubble of comfort because we deserve that...............every one of us........... [/QUOTE]
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