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Did I do the right thing?
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 558665" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>JKF, I understand how you feel, it <strong>IS</strong> the right thing to do, however, it<strong> DOES</strong> feel wrong. I made the exact same choice this past year and it felt horrible and in fact opened the door for even more consequences for my difficult child which bailing her out could have prevented. I spent many a sleepless night pondering my choice. Let me tell you this, as time went on and I continued to make those very hard choices, each step took me further away from not only enabling my difficult child and feeling better about myself, but feeling on any level that I was responsible for her actions. Over time I felt much better<em> and</em> she made it through her consequences. It was a process and it was very hard. I doubted myself every step of the way and it felt awful because you are going against all your instincts to love, protect, nurture, and take care of. The big difference, of course, is that our children have chosen to live in a world where they assume no responsibility for their actions, so the choice then falls onto our plates..............do we continue taking care of them and paying a high price for their choices, or do we disconnect from their choices and allow natural consequences to evolve. I chose the latter and lived through my heart exploding with sorrow and guilt.<em> We both lived through it. </em></p><p></p><p>My difficult child, like many of our difficult child's lives in an altered universe of mangled realities which is crazy making to us and forces us, ultimately, to choose to either live in that mangled reality with them or get the hell out. Choosing to live in that reality with them has a very high cost, <strong>our sanity and our health. </strong>The only choice you CAN make is to remove yourself from it, stay connected in a loving way but disconnect from the impact of their choices. In between you feel bad, you go through the agonies of the damned trying to figure out what you could have done, what you should have done, what you can do. Only to land where most of us live, in the land of the living where we know we didn't cause it, we can't control it, we can't fix it and we can't change it. </p><p></p><p>You did very well. You made all the right but difficult choices. For better or for worse, you are now a card carrying member of this select group of WARRIOR parents who've made it through the worst parental nightmare and lived to tell the story. Sigh. A group not one of us wants to be in, yet, here we are. You are far from alone, look around here, we're still standing, we've picked up the pieces of our lives and motored on. We're all at different stages of the detachment process, we're all struggling along doing the best we know how, loving our kids from every conceivable distance.... some up close and some very far away, but always loving them. We're now turning around and extending a hand to the next mom who shows up with tears in her eyes and a big hole in her heart. </p><p></p><p>My way to get through was to find a therapist lead support group for codependency issues, talk to a therapist privately, go to Codependents anonymous groups, read books, vent and write on this board pretty regularly where I found kindred spirits who <em>got it</em> on every single level and helped me find my way through. You'll find your way too, you've already made all the really tough choices, now you have to come to grips with those choices and learn to live with them, with the knowledge that you did the very best you could under terrible circumstances, you did it with grace and dignity and tremendous love for your son. You done good Mom. take some deep breaths, have a glass of wine, take a bath, relax, get support and keep following your very well developed, loving instincts. Good job! (((HUGS)))</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 558665, member: 13542"] JKF, I understand how you feel, it [B]IS[/B] the right thing to do, however, it[B] DOES[/B] feel wrong. I made the exact same choice this past year and it felt horrible and in fact opened the door for even more consequences for my difficult child which bailing her out could have prevented. I spent many a sleepless night pondering my choice. Let me tell you this, as time went on and I continued to make those very hard choices, each step took me further away from not only enabling my difficult child and feeling better about myself, but feeling on any level that I was responsible for her actions. Over time I felt much better[I] and[/I] she made it through her consequences. It was a process and it was very hard. I doubted myself every step of the way and it felt awful because you are going against all your instincts to love, protect, nurture, and take care of. The big difference, of course, is that our children have chosen to live in a world where they assume no responsibility for their actions, so the choice then falls onto our plates..............do we continue taking care of them and paying a high price for their choices, or do we disconnect from their choices and allow natural consequences to evolve. I chose the latter and lived through my heart exploding with sorrow and guilt.[I] We both lived through it. [/I] My difficult child, like many of our difficult child's lives in an altered universe of mangled realities which is crazy making to us and forces us, ultimately, to choose to either live in that mangled reality with them or get the hell out. Choosing to live in that reality with them has a very high cost, [B]our sanity and our health. [/B]The only choice you CAN make is to remove yourself from it, stay connected in a loving way but disconnect from the impact of their choices. In between you feel bad, you go through the agonies of the damned trying to figure out what you could have done, what you should have done, what you can do. Only to land where most of us live, in the land of the living where we know we didn't cause it, we can't control it, we can't fix it and we can't change it. You did very well. You made all the right but difficult choices. For better or for worse, you are now a card carrying member of this select group of WARRIOR parents who've made it through the worst parental nightmare and lived to tell the story. Sigh. A group not one of us wants to be in, yet, here we are. You are far from alone, look around here, we're still standing, we've picked up the pieces of our lives and motored on. We're all at different stages of the detachment process, we're all struggling along doing the best we know how, loving our kids from every conceivable distance.... some up close and some very far away, but always loving them. We're now turning around and extending a hand to the next mom who shows up with tears in her eyes and a big hole in her heart. My way to get through was to find a therapist lead support group for codependency issues, talk to a therapist privately, go to Codependents anonymous groups, read books, vent and write on this board pretty regularly where I found kindred spirits who [I]got it[/I] on every single level and helped me find my way through. You'll find your way too, you've already made all the really tough choices, now you have to come to grips with those choices and learn to live with them, with the knowledge that you did the very best you could under terrible circumstances, you did it with grace and dignity and tremendous love for your son. You done good Mom. take some deep breaths, have a glass of wine, take a bath, relax, get support and keep following your very well developed, loving instincts. Good job! (((HUGS))) [/QUOTE]
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