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Coping with grief after kicking difficult child out
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<blockquote data-quote="Signorina" data-source="post: 628286"><p>Hi Sad and Lost - I found this board much like you did. As way of background - technically, we did not kick our difficult child out. He had a surprisingly mediocre first year away at college. We had a tumultuous summer when he came home but assumed it wasn't unusual. The day before he was meant to leave for his 2nd year, we found out he was using copious amounts & perhaps dealing pot away at school and it was too big to ignore. We told him we could not send him back to school knowing that he was abusing drugs and that we decided he should stay home, get help and go to school locally. We totally did not expect that he would storm out, move out & go back to school anyway. I was heartbroken. It was unfathomable to me that we would ever be estranged from our beloved boy.</p><p></p><p>Like your son, my difficult child cut off all communication with us. There were times when I chased him - I was acting like a 13 year old girl with a crush. I stalked his cell phone records and the facebook pages of people he knew. I sent more than one desperate "I love you" text in the middle of the night - often adding "are you OK?" or a plea for him to call or text back. I literally groveled. I posted on this very board begging for a formula to get him back or a way to fix it or someone's insight into what my difficult child would do next. A few posters had difficult child's who wouldn't leave them alone- who wanted to come back home or were calling constantly and otherwise creating havoc - and I was actually JEALOUS of them. It was like my difficult child stopped loving us and I wondered if he ever really had. And losing that love & that bond made me question EVERYTHING in my life.</p><p></p><p>I knew I needed to detach and I was told gently and not so gently by my fellow board posters to learn how to do so. Over and over again. My head agreed but yet my heart would find me desperately trying to instigate contact if I hadn't heard from him in a few weeks. My sweet 14 year old son actually texted difficult child of his own accord and said "dude, call mom, she can't stop crying." (And sweet ds still denies instigating that call to this day.)</p><p></p><p>I expected things with difficult child to come to a major head - I was literally tensed for that grand moment when there would be some sort of climax and it would turn definitively in one way or the other. I was sure he would come running back to us or descend into drug addiction or get in bad trouble or become desperate or just forget we even existed. It's been nearly 4 years and we haven't had that moment. Now, I know that we never will. He is back in our lives, most often on the fringes and at 22 that's not unusual, so the hurt isn't so acute anymore. We tried to remain neutral, tried to support his positive decisions and ignore the ones we didn't like. It has been a lot of little moments and our relationship is still a work in progress.</p><p></p><p>The therapist I saw when I was trying to come to grips with it all gave me the first best piece of advice: "You need to give him the space to miss you." When I was instigating contact, when others in the family were trying to intervene, it actually empowered difficult child's standpoint and gave him the control in our relationship.</p><p></p><p>The 2nd best piece of advice was "Do Not Dial Pain" which was a phrase coined by a fellow CD member. In those times of desperation when I reached out to difficult child via phone or text, his response or lack thereof actually made me feel worse instead of better. So I did my best to stop dialing pain and tbh I didn't always succeed.</p><p></p><p>I also read Norma Bourland's essay: "Kid’s Bad Decisions Do Not Mean We Are Bad Parents"</p><p><a href="http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/178/kids-bad-decisions-do-not-mean-we-are-bad-parents" target="_blank">http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/178/kids-bad-decisions-do-not-mean-we-are-bad-parents</a> and it really spoke to me even though my difficult child has never been in the throws of addiction as her son was. She wrote in her journal <strong><em>“Each day I wake feeling an urgent need to do something, and then I realize there’s nothing I can do. The emptiness just has to be”</em></strong> and it resonated with me. I needed to let go of the notion that this was mine to fix.</p><p></p><p>Instead, I tried to concentrate on not escalating it. To be honest, the hurt and the pain and grief never went away, but somehow it became less sharp and became a part of me that I got used to.</p><p></p><p>I wish I could give you a road map of what's next. Hang in there, Take care of you and of your other relationships. Stay busy and do something you love as often as possible. I wish you peace in the days ahead.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Signorina, post: 628286"] Hi Sad and Lost - I found this board much like you did. As way of background - technically, we did not kick our difficult child out. He had a surprisingly mediocre first year away at college. We had a tumultuous summer when he came home but assumed it wasn't unusual. The day before he was meant to leave for his 2nd year, we found out he was using copious amounts & perhaps dealing pot away at school and it was too big to ignore. We told him we could not send him back to school knowing that he was abusing drugs and that we decided he should stay home, get help and go to school locally. We totally did not expect that he would storm out, move out & go back to school anyway. I was heartbroken. It was unfathomable to me that we would ever be estranged from our beloved boy. Like your son, my difficult child cut off all communication with us. There were times when I chased him - I was acting like a 13 year old girl with a crush. I stalked his cell phone records and the facebook pages of people he knew. I sent more than one desperate "I love you" text in the middle of the night - often adding "are you OK?" or a plea for him to call or text back. I literally groveled. I posted on this very board begging for a formula to get him back or a way to fix it or someone's insight into what my difficult child would do next. A few posters had difficult child's who wouldn't leave them alone- who wanted to come back home or were calling constantly and otherwise creating havoc - and I was actually JEALOUS of them. It was like my difficult child stopped loving us and I wondered if he ever really had. And losing that love & that bond made me question EVERYTHING in my life. I knew I needed to detach and I was told gently and not so gently by my fellow board posters to learn how to do so. Over and over again. My head agreed but yet my heart would find me desperately trying to instigate contact if I hadn't heard from him in a few weeks. My sweet 14 year old son actually texted difficult child of his own accord and said "dude, call mom, she can't stop crying." (And sweet ds still denies instigating that call to this day.) I expected things with difficult child to come to a major head - I was literally tensed for that grand moment when there would be some sort of climax and it would turn definitively in one way or the other. I was sure he would come running back to us or descend into drug addiction or get in bad trouble or become desperate or just forget we even existed. It's been nearly 4 years and we haven't had that moment. Now, I know that we never will. He is back in our lives, most often on the fringes and at 22 that's not unusual, so the hurt isn't so acute anymore. We tried to remain neutral, tried to support his positive decisions and ignore the ones we didn't like. It has been a lot of little moments and our relationship is still a work in progress. The therapist I saw when I was trying to come to grips with it all gave me the first best piece of advice: "You need to give him the space to miss you." When I was instigating contact, when others in the family were trying to intervene, it actually empowered difficult child's standpoint and gave him the control in our relationship. The 2nd best piece of advice was "Do Not Dial Pain" which was a phrase coined by a fellow CD member. In those times of desperation when I reached out to difficult child via phone or text, his response or lack thereof actually made me feel worse instead of better. So I did my best to stop dialing pain and tbh I didn't always succeed. I also read Norma Bourland's essay: "Kid’s Bad Decisions Do Not Mean We Are Bad Parents" [url]http://www.nacr.org/wordpress/178/kids-bad-decisions-do-not-mean-we-are-bad-parents[/url] and it really spoke to me even though my difficult child has never been in the throws of addiction as her son was. She wrote in her journal [B][I]“Each day I wake feeling an urgent need to do something, and then I realize there’s nothing I can do. The emptiness just has to be”[/I][/B] and it resonated with me. I needed to let go of the notion that this was mine to fix. Instead, I tried to concentrate on not escalating it. To be honest, the hurt and the pain and grief never went away, but somehow it became less sharp and became a part of me that I got used to. I wish I could give you a road map of what's next. Hang in there, Take care of you and of your other relationships. Stay busy and do something you love as often as possible. I wish you peace in the days ahead. [/QUOTE]
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