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Am I hitching a free ride?
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 648846" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>I cherish the honesty and compassion in Echo's answer. </p><p></p><p>For a variety of reasons, our children (or our mothers, or someone else that we love) just aren't coping well. There is no simple way to turn away from that. At the same time, though we can help to the point of exhaustion, we eventually learn to acknowledge that it is impossible to change their situations.</p><p></p><p>Helping isn't helping.</p><p></p><p><em>That</em> is why we turn away.</p><p></p><p>Because against every true thing we know or can learn and no matter how hard we try, helping isn't helping.</p><p></p><p>It isn't enabling until it doesn't work. </p><p></p><p>When it doesn't work enough times, we need support to learn how to detach from the emotions involved in watching someone we love self-destruct.</p><p></p><p>There is nothing easy about any of this.</p><p></p><p>There is no black and white, here.</p><p></p><p>We are living and working and functioning through lives filled with the kinds of harrowing choices most people cannot even imagine.</p><p></p><p>The consequences are very real. </p><p></p><p>Unlike the majority of people in the world, our task here on the site is to learn how to function, how to understand and continue to love ourselves and our people through what are real, wrong, pain filled, and very complex, situations. Detaching from the emotions surrounding the choices we find it necessary to make where our troubled loved ones are concerned is a right thing, but it is not a simple or easy thing. Our hearts break to know those we love are suffering at the same time our resentment is flaring away because we know darn well they are only suffering because they continue to choose crazy. Our resentment boils away in the background; shame has its place in all this, too.</p><p></p><p>But below zero temps are below zero temps. It is impossible to stand on principles that made such good sense, when it was summer, when our self-destructing kids have gone homeless and we know flesh can freeze solid in a matter of hours and frostbite can happen in minutes.</p><p></p><p>For those who don't have that particular nightmare to contend with,vulnerable babies, grandchildren without adequate clothing or stable home lives are vulnerable babies and grands living in bad or dangerous neighborhoods, whatever the weather.</p><p></p><p>It's a confusing, painful mess.</p><p></p><p>There are no simple answers; there is a cold, clear-eyed decision to survive it that each of us makes. For me, and for most of us here I think, that decision was made out of desperation, out of a wild kind of "maybe this will work." </p><p></p><p>Turning away, disclaiming responsibility, carries its own set of consequences.</p><p></p><p>If your loved one is harmed (and this does happen ~ it happened to me), the roil of emotion is unbelievable. I could know I was right in what I had chosen for myself...but the consequences in real life, the consequences to real, living people that we love, are very, very hard to face.</p><p></p><p>Our situations are difficult. <em>This is not of our doing.</em> We must not blame ourselves or those who have not yet walked where we have walked and come, out of desperation and a crazy kind of hope, to detachment.</p><p></p><p>It is the situation we all find ourselves in that is bad.</p><p></p><p>Not the enabler, whose only crime is loving some troubled someone and becoming trapped in something she cannot see her way out of because the person she is trying to help will continue making bad choices. Not the difficult child, though he or she is the only one who can change her situation.</p><p></p><p>It is important for us to remember, for the sake of our own humanity, that we would help them if we knew how. </p><p></p><p>To learn that helping isn't helping, to believe it enough to survive the hellishness of saying "no" only happens over time. If we have come to that point, we should say a prayer of gratitude every night of our lives for having come through it. For those who have not reached that extreme edge we have had to crawl out onto, we should, we "should" and we must, feel compassion, not judgment.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 648846, member: 17461"] I cherish the honesty and compassion in Echo's answer. For a variety of reasons, our children (or our mothers, or someone else that we love) just aren't coping well. There is no simple way to turn away from that. At the same time, though we can help to the point of exhaustion, we eventually learn to acknowledge that it is impossible to change their situations. Helping isn't helping. [I]That[/I] is why we turn away. Because against every true thing we know or can learn and no matter how hard we try, helping isn't helping. It isn't enabling until it doesn't work. When it doesn't work enough times, we need support to learn how to detach from the emotions involved in watching someone we love self-destruct. There is nothing easy about any of this. There is no black and white, here. We are living and working and functioning through lives filled with the kinds of harrowing choices most people cannot even imagine. The consequences are very real. Unlike the majority of people in the world, our task here on the site is to learn how to function, how to understand and continue to love ourselves and our people through what are real, wrong, pain filled, and very complex, situations. Detaching from the emotions surrounding the choices we find it necessary to make where our troubled loved ones are concerned is a right thing, but it is not a simple or easy thing. Our hearts break to know those we love are suffering at the same time our resentment is flaring away because we know darn well they are only suffering because they continue to choose crazy. Our resentment boils away in the background; shame has its place in all this, too. But below zero temps are below zero temps. It is impossible to stand on principles that made such good sense, when it was summer, when our self-destructing kids have gone homeless and we know flesh can freeze solid in a matter of hours and frostbite can happen in minutes. For those who don't have that particular nightmare to contend with,vulnerable babies, grandchildren without adequate clothing or stable home lives are vulnerable babies and grands living in bad or dangerous neighborhoods, whatever the weather. It's a confusing, painful mess. There are no simple answers; there is a cold, clear-eyed decision to survive it that each of us makes. For me, and for most of us here I think, that decision was made out of desperation, out of a wild kind of "maybe this will work." Turning away, disclaiming responsibility, carries its own set of consequences. If your loved one is harmed (and this does happen ~ it happened to me), the roil of emotion is unbelievable. I could know I was right in what I had chosen for myself...but the consequences in real life, the consequences to real, living people that we love, are very, very hard to face. Our situations are difficult. [I]This is not of our doing.[/I] We must not blame ourselves or those who have not yet walked where we have walked and come, out of desperation and a crazy kind of hope, to detachment. It is the situation we all find ourselves in that is bad. Not the enabler, whose only crime is loving some troubled someone and becoming trapped in something she cannot see her way out of because the person she is trying to help will continue making bad choices. Not the difficult child, though he or she is the only one who can change her situation. It is important for us to remember, for the sake of our own humanity, that we would help them if we knew how. To learn that helping isn't helping, to believe it enough to survive the hellishness of saying "no" only happens over time. If we have come to that point, we should say a prayer of gratitude every night of our lives for having come through it. For those who have not reached that extreme edge we have had to crawl out onto, we should, we "should" and we must, feel compassion, not judgment. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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