Can't give an inch...

[2much2recover]

I know the fact that my child is a sociopath makes people nervous, fearful and that leads people to believe the things I say relates to them - that I am saying that their child is one also. This could not be further from my mind and in fact, as I was looking through the detachment articles, most of what I posted is in alignment with that article - not the fact that my difficult child is a sociopath. I am just going to go ahead and re-post some of what I am saying and what that aligns with:
What is detachment?
Detachment is the:
* Ability to allow people, places or things the freedom to be themselves.
* Holding back from the need to rescue, save or fix another person from being sick, dysfunctional or irrational.
* Giving another person "the space" to be herself.
* Disengaging from an over-enmeshed or dependent relationship with people.
* Willingness to accept that you cannot change or control a person, place or thing.
* Developing and maintaining of a safe, emotional distance from someone whom you have previously given a lot of power to affect your emotional outlook on life.
* Establishing of emotional boundaries between you and those people you have become overly enmeshed or dependent with in order that all of you might be able to develop your own sense of autonomy and independence.
* Process by which you are free to feel your own feelings when you see another person falter and fail and not be led by guilt to feel responsible for their failure or faltering.
* Ability to maintain an emotional bond of love, concern and caring without the negative results of rescuing, enabling, fixing or controlling.
* Placing of all things in life into a healthy, rational perspective and recognizing that there is a need to back away from the uncontrollable and unchangeable realities of life.
* Ability to exercise emotional self-protection and prevention so as not to experience greater emotional devastation from having hung on beyond a reasonable and rational point.
* Ability to let people you love and care for accept personal responsibility for their own actions and to practice tough love and not give in when they come to you to bail them out when their actions lead to failure or trouble for them.
* Ability to allow people to be who they "really are" rather than who you "want them to be."
* Ability to avoid being hurt, abused, taken advantage of by people who in the past have been overly dependent or enmeshed with you.
What are the negative effects not detaching?
If you are unable to detach from people, places or things, then you:
* Will have people, places or things which become over-dependent on you.
* Run the risk of being manipulated to do things for people, at places or with things which you do not really want to do.
* Can become an obsessive "fix it" who needs to fix everything you perceive to be imperfect.
* Run the risk of performing tasks because of the intimidation you experience from people, places or things.
* Will most probably become powerless in the face of the demands of the people, places or things whom you have given the power to control you.
* Will be blind to the reality that the people, places or things which control you are the uncontrollables and unchangeables you need to let go of if you are to become a fully healthy, coping individual.
* Will be easily influenced by the perception of helplessness which these people, places or things project.
* Might become caught up with your idealistic need to make everything perfect for people, places or things important to you even if it means your own life becomes unhealthy.
* Run the risk of becoming out of control of yourself and experience greater low self-esteem as a result.
* Will most probably put off making a decision and following through on it, if you rationally recognize your relationship with a person, place or thing is unhealthy and the only recourse left is to get out of the relationship.
* Will be so driven by guilt and emotional dependence that the sickness in the relationship will worsen.
* Run the risk of losing your autonomy and independence and derive your value or worth solely from the unhealthy relationship you continue in with the unhealthy person, place or thing.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

But I never considered seriously paying for it or being on the lease.

Never be on the lease, Lil. We did a six month for difficult child son and it worked well. By the time he went off the deep end, our responsibility had been met.

But he did go off the deep end eventually.

We were just lucky on that one, I realize now.

Two or three years ago, we did the same thing for college graduated, experience in her field, person with a job and three kids at home difficult child daughter. Deposit, six months on the lease. Before those six months were up, difficult child had been evicted. We were required to pay rent remaining on the lease plus damages. Foolishly, we kept believing in difficult child and were paying her high interest credit card too to try to protect her credit while she was in treatment.

Never sign for anything.

It did not help either difficult child for us to have done what we did. It is beginning to look like this to me: If they need help with the basics of their lives, with the things they should be able to handle, they should not be helped.

Cedar

 

[InsaneCdn]

If they need help with the basics of their lives, with the things they should be able to handle, they should not be helped.

I look at it this way: if those are the things they need help with, then they need way more help than we can give them... they need professional help. We can help find ways for them to access such help, but it gets to the point where we can't be the direct help. If they really want help, then help finding help is great, and accepted, and appreciated. If they don't really want help... then what are we doing helping?

I need to get this re-posted to me about... 2 years from now.

 

[Lil]

He called today in quite the mood. Notwithstanding my "everything is going pretty well" yesterday, which it is, he is SO freaking moody. One little thing happens and it grows and grows until it's out of proportion. His biggest fear, as best I can tell, is getting kicked out of the shelter. Although I had said he would have to cold-cot...it has occurred to him that he can't. He works nights. He'd have no place to sleep in the daytime. I must admit, this has me very concerned. He has a job now, but it will be a while before he will have money enough to get an apartment, even an efficiency. There are no "rooms" for rent in out town, so an efficiency in a poor neighborhood is as good as he'll do.

I have to admit, a six month lease sounds kind of good to me. If he didn't pay, we'd not be out that much...and by then it would be warm weather. Jabber may go nuts at the thought, but there's one for rent right now at less than $300 a month, just over a mile from where he works.

 

[2much2recover]

Zipping my lip and biting my tongue until it bleeds on this one!

 

[Lil]

We all want the same things...for our kids to get their heads out of their butts. We have different ideas on whether any action on our part is a good thing or bad thing, that's all.

 

[InsaneCdn]

What does the shelter suggest? They may know of other resources...

 

[HeadlightsMom]

Lil -- Always wanting the best for you and I think whatever the decision and whenever it hits, you will know what to do. Trust your gut. Our goal as parents is always to teach our kids as much autonomy as possible. Sometimes that's full autonomy. Sometimes not. Depends on diagnoses. You're sharp and my heart is with you! (and, by the way, I love your little moticon huggables!)

InsaneCdn -- GREAT points! True, true, and true that! And when you get that note to yourself in 2 years from now, will you please forward it to me? I need it as often as possible, too! LOL!

 

[HeadlightsMom]

Ability to allow people, places or things the freedom to be themselves.

Thanks for this repost. The more I look at it, the more I think it pretty much all boils down to this one, above. Nailed it!

Thing is, yes, we can allow people the freedom to be themselves. But I'd add an addendum.... We also need to be allowed the freedom to be ourselves. Sometimes, disengaging with difficult child's (to whatever level may be necessary) is the only way for both parties. Sad, sometimes, but true.

 

[2much2recover]

If you are unable to detach from people, places or things, then you:
* Will have people, places or things which become over-dependent on you.
* Run the risk of being manipulated to do things for people, at places or with things which you do not really want to do.
* Can become an obsessive "fix it" who needs to fix everything you perceive to be imperfect.

Zippy do dah..............

* Can become an obsessive "fix it" who needs to fix everything you perceive to be imperfect.

RU?

* Will be easily influenced by the perception of helplessness which these people, places or things project.
* Might become caught up with your idealistic need to make everything perfect for people, places or things important to you even if it means your own life becomes unhealthy.

OK I tried LOL
But I only re-posted what is already on this site under: Detachment : http://www.conductdisorders.com/community/threads/article-on-detachment.53639/

 

[Lil]

What does the shelter suggest? They may know of other resources...

Excellent point. I don't know. That's what I'm planning on suggesting tonight. He has to sit down and really have a talk with the main guy there and explain things. He's got to get a place and even before that he has to get a place to sleep days! He was falling apart on the phone and part of it probably is he's just tired! He gets to bed about 4:30 a.m. and wake-up (for most folks) is 6:30. He has a chore to do at 8:00. He said the lights are on, window blinds up, people in and out, and he can't sleep. There has to be something that can be done about that...but he has to ask. This is like him not asking for food when he was bell ringing and missing meals. We kept telling him to ask. He insisted asking would do no good, "It's against the rules". When he did though...guess what, he usually got food. Because they are they're rules and they can bend them darnit! Why someone who is so morally sketchy is so set on the rules is beyond me.

OK I tried LOL

Pain in your tongue get to be too much you poor thing? LOL!!!

In all seriousness, I understand completely....and what you put isn't wrong. I admit to an unhealthy need to fix things...and a very probable inability to do much at all to actually fix them. Really, thank you for reposting that. I do occasionally need a kick in the pants.

 

[2much2recover]

We single moms (I raised mine for a few years on my own too) with only's DO have a tendency to be much more enmeshed with our children than others - WE ARE the original momma bear!

 

[Jabberwockey]

abber may go nuts at the thought,

Damned straight!

 

[Lil]

Well...it was just a thought.

Dinner actually went okay. He griped. And griped some more. He did not suggest coming home, which I was actually afraid of after today. He didn't ask for money again. I may possibly have gotten thru to him on the phone it wasn't going to happen. He talked about Xmas presents for us. I told him under no circumstances was he to buy us junk...he needs to open a bank account and save money for an apartment. He wasn't too phoo-phoo about the talking to the head guy at the shelter...though he did say he didn't think there was anywhere else he could sleep...but he's worried more about getting kicked out over some minor infraction and not having any place to sleep days. I mentioned a really cheap ($260) efficiency apartment neat his work...he didn't like that...but really, why does he need a bedroom?

Whatever...up to him. He did ask about buying the car he used to drive. I pointed out that owning a car means having the expenses of car payments, gas, maintenance and insurance and he'd be better getting a place where he can walk for now. I don't think we're comfortable selling him the car now. If he'd been on his own and doing right for the last year...but that's not what has happened.

 

[Lil]

Oh! Forgot the best part!

At one point, talking about getting apartments and he mentioned how much better it would be if he could fine a "reliable" roommate...he pipes up with, "I wouldn't live with anyone at the shelter. I couldn't trust any of them!"

I really wish there had been a camera taking a photo of my face. I'm pretty sure it was like:

He couldn't live with someone who might do him wrong..........wow.

 

[2much2recover]

Rah, rah, sis, boom bah!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

We can help find ways for them to access such help, but it gets to the point where we can't be the direct help

That's the hellishness of our situations. Even knowing better...how do you not help your own child, your own grandchildren? And when finally, you reach that point where you get it that the time and money and focus taken from your life and turned onto theirs has never worked but they again need more help than you can possibly afford to give them...that is the hellishness of our situations.

But they still need, they still want, they still waste time and money and life focus.

Trying to know how to live with ourselves, whether we help or whether we do not help, that is why we are all here, learning how to do this without destroying ourselves. No one wants to parent the way we have to learn to parent.

But if we do not learn, if we refuse to see, we remain innocents at our own peril.

***

Over time...while I love my children, as I let go of my sense of responsibility for where they have taken their lives, I am beginning to really dislike the nature of our interactions. It isn't any more the keen hurt of all those questions about why this happened. Nor is it grief over shipping money out instead of gifts because we no longer know our children or grands well enough to have a clue what they want.

I know them well enough to know that what they want is money.

And I know them well enough to know that no matter how much we send, that money that was ours will disappear. It will be just gone. Nothing to show for it, at all.

It will only be that we have less money.

There is no joy in helping, or treating someone special ~ none of that.

Just gone money.

Christmas is an excuse to send money I now refuse to send any other time. The Christmas money we send has gone from being a joyful expression of loving to a kind of blood money, a kind of celebration by rote.

There.

All the right things have been done.

And while that tears at my heart, it is true. So it does not tear at my heart, anymore. Once you accept the truth as the truth, it doesn't hurt anymore.

Truly, it is what it is.

It isn't even knowing full well we will be alone on the holidays watching from the outside while friends and neighbors host their successful adult children, their well tended grandchildren.

That used to kill.

Now it is expected, and I no longer feel that I have to replace those missing faces with other faces, any faces, anything not to think about what has happened to all of us.

No.

I am thinking about running down to Key West with husband for Christmas.

***

Because of a discussion on Watercooler, I am now reading: Dangerous Personalities.

Written by an FBI profiler whose intention is to inform the average person about the dangerous personality types any of us might be victimized by...the book actually describes what it is to be victimized by our own children very well.

It is this writer's contention that such personality types do not change.

Cedar

.

 

[2much2recover]

It isn't even knowing full well we will be alone on the holidays watching from the outside while friends and neighbors host their successful adult children, their well tended grandchildren.
That used to kill.
Now it is expected, and I no longer feel that I have to replace those missing faces with other faces, any faces, anything not to think about what has happened to all of us.

Many years ago I had a "Holiday conversation" with myself that went like this: "Self, would you rather be by yourself (with husband) or surrounded by a make believe happy holiday with a bunch of dysfunctional people"? I made the right choice for me - said NO to the dysfunction reality and never looked back.
I was the one in the family, for many years after my mother passed that did everything for the Christmas Holidays with no real appreciation from anyone so I don't miss it. Now that I am disabled and not up to doing the kind of Christmas I used to do, no one has stepped forward to take over - hell they don't even call me for the holidays. Not that I feel bad!

 

[Jabberwockey]

Lil Active Member
New
Oh! Forgot the best part!
At one point, talking about getting apartments and he mentioned how much better it would be if he could fine a "reliable" roommate...he pipes up with, "I wouldn't live with anyone at the shelter. I couldn't trust any of them!"
I really wish there had been a camera taking a photo of my face. I'm pretty sure it was like:
He couldn't live with someone who might do him wrong..........wow.

You forgot to mention that he didnt even seem to notice the look!

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

We all want the same things...for our kids to get their heads out of their butts. We have different ideas on whether any action on our part is a good thing or bad thing, that's all.

As our lives continued downhill with the kids, the one thing that sustained us was knowing we had done every single thing to change the situation for our kids and for ourselves. That is how I came to this understanding I am coming to just lately. I know all the things we have done, I know how very deeply we did care, how focused we were and how hard we tried.

It has been expensive, it has been heartbreaking. But I know with every fiber of my being that we were committed to making this right.

At the end of the day, when things turn out badly, that is the one saving grace. Knowing we did all (and way more) that we knew to do.

We are talking about our own lives, here. We all do reach a place (with support) when we know we have done all we can. That knowing is what makes it possible to turn away when it is either turn away or go down the tubes with the kids still demanding and blaming and guilting us into submission.

We have to be able to meet our own eyes in the mirror.

For the rest of our lives, we have to be able to meet our own eyes in the mirror.

It is said, here on the site, that if we change our responses, our children sometimes change.

That was an important piece for me. I am not sure I could have said no to more money or to moving home or taking grandchildren in or anything else, had I not heard the successful stories of parents who did, finally, choose to stop accepting responsibility for the weird way things turn out for our difficult child kids.

And when the parents stopped, the kids changed.

What I see now Lil is a place for you to demand that your son pick himself up and do the things you require him to do for the sake of his own life. Because of the position he has placed himself in, you are in a position of power.

Now may be one of the few times you can impact his life by holding strong. Demand that he do what is right for his own life, or give in, and play this same downward spiraling game again and again. In my experience, the consequences to the parent become more severe, with less room to choose as time goes on. Once there are grandchildren involved...boy, that's tough.

Part of this for me, now that I think about it more deeply, is that, as I said, I can look into a mirror and know we did all we could. The other part though, and that is where you and Jabber are right now, is...might this have resolved sooner, if I had known to set a line in the sand and stand by it?

There was a time, when we finally got it that difficult child son was not acting out because we had parented badly, but was in fact, addicted to drugs, when we might have forced treatment. He refused, of course. Instead of standing strong and refusing to have anything to do with him until he did accept treatment, we brought food, we paid fines, we encouraged and researched and pleaded and made lists of expectations.

That did not work.

We used to buy frozen broccoli, chicken, other foods that were healthy and balanced. We visited our son twice a week. We gave no money. Only the things he required. To this day, he roars on about the broccoli and the chicken. He blames
his lack of recovery on husband because after paying impound and reinstatement fees and who knows what else (in addition to driving three hours one way twice a week) husband had not given difficult child cash to take the bus to the DMV.

Who knows what really happened there.

difficult child wound up moving home.

And it was bad, for us.

And it was expensive to get him out and on his own again.

So, looks like I have done an about face, here.

If I had it to do again, I would bite the bullet and stand strong.

Nothing, not one penny, not one cup of coffee or package of frozen broccoli, until I saw what I needed to see for the sake of my son's own life.

I'm sorry this is happening. But it is something happening to you. The issue has to be how to make it stop. And I have heard stories from parents here on this site that once they stopped giving, the kids picked up.

But they had to stop giving, first.

Ouch, I know.

Cedar