difficult child thrown out of sober house now in Rehab. Parole???

[rejectedmom]

Not sure how this is going to affect his parole but it is what it is. Some guy bought a Fifth of Vocka in and five of them proceeded to get drunk. They all got kicked out and according to easy child/difficult child; difficult child was actualy laughing about it when he called to tell him. I was at the hospital with my father in law who was suffering through his final days so only found out about difficult child thorugh someone slipping up. Evendently they were trying to protect me from additional stress. The thing is I felt nothing when they told me. Still numb or just detached? Don't know don't care it works for me whatever it is LOL. father in law died shortly thereafter. The rehab let him come to his grandfather's funeral but he had to decline going to the dinner afterwards. He did look good though. It is the first I have seen him in over a year. He still cleans up well... such a handsome guy. Somehow that makes his life choices a bit harder to accept. I hugged him and told him I loved him and that he looked good. He behaved and was quiet and respectful and played with the grandchildren at the back of the room. When he called to tell me he was comming to the service, I had asked him to bring his sanity with him if he was going to attend. He did what I asked. For that I am very thankful.

I am still at peace with our detachment though. I love him as much as ever but do not want his chaos interfering with my health and my life. I sometimes find myslef wondering about the journey we have taken. I still have no answers as to why. i do think acceptance would be easier for all of us if we knew the answer to that question. -RM

 

[AmericanGirl]

Rejected,

I am sorry about the loss of your father in law.

I totally get your numbness/detachment for i am in the same place. I don't know why either....have concluded that the only route to sanity, for me, is to trust God has a plan and it is for my...and difficult child's...good. If i don't accept that, i go crazy. I thought when difficult child left the sober house that maybe God needed to bring him down so he would climb up. I dunno. I try to stop labeling things as good or bad cause i don't know what difficult child needs.

Thankfully, the funeral was as peaceful as possible and your time with your son wasn't chaos-filled. At least you can know he respects and cares for you enough to give you that..for an addict, that's really good.

 

[Nancy]

I'm so sorry to hear your father in law passed away. I think sometimes our bodies protect us in times pf crisis and don't allow any more stress to overwhelm us and perhaps that is why you were able to hear this news without falling apart. I too have gotten to the place where I don't expect a whole lot. It is what it is and he made the decision to drink when he could have walked away so now his choices will have consequences.

I am becoming resiged to a lot of things and I suspect you are too. Hopefully what we have tried to give our difficult child's through our guidance all these years will someday kick in and they will begin to make the right choices. I no longer want to live my life waiting for that to happen and I hope you find peace with your life too.

Hugs,
Nancy

 

[rejectedmom]

AG and Nancy, Thank you for your condolences. It was 40 hellacious days in the hospital before my FI passed. In the end it was a relief that he no longer suffered.

difficult child did try some histronics when father in law first entered the hospital and I told him to keep that away from us because the family had enough stress. Obviously he didn't listen cause he then got himself kicked out of SH and called to tell everyone. I then told my family that I didn't want him at the funeral. Daughter and hubbie didn't agree and hubbie said he could come. difficult child then expected us to go out of or way to transport him from the rehab and back again. There were many out of town relatives and a dinner planned and two sessions at the funeral home... all in one day. It was beyond difficult to do. I refused and told him to find someone else and that if he came, to please be sane. Daughter brought him. I didn't know what to expect and told daughter she would have to take him back at the first sign of trouble; but he did well. -RM

 

[recoveringenabler]

RM, I'm sorry about your father in law. You did a good job in asking your difficult child to bring his sanity, and he did. Seems as if a lot of your stress will be gone now that father in law has passed and you have set strong boundaries with your difficult child and made a strong commitment to live out the rest of your days (from another post) with the focus on YOU. Good for you.

As I was reading your post I was thinking that with our difficult child's we have to set such strong boundaries, it takes us awhile to learn how to do that. We have to make sure all the hatches are battened down, all the holes in the fence are mended, every possible opening to our mother's heart is tightly closed down with absolutely no tiny crack visible to the difficult child, or he(she) will find it and manipulate it and squeeze in and then it all begins once again. That is not something that comes naturally, it's not something we know how to do, it's something we have to learn how to do and because they're our kids, we get complacent and vulnerable with them thinking we can trust them, but, mostly, we can't trust them in a way where we can be vulnerable and open like we can with our easy child's or others whom we love and trust. It's not natural to have to close down ourselves to our kids in a way that doesn't allow them access to us in most ways, but it becomes necessary for most of us. No wonder it takes so long to go through this stuff, it's as if we have to learn a whole new kind of parenting which has no real rules or guidelines, we have to make it up as we go along. Yikes. Sigh..............

 

[DDD]

You have my sympathies. Sound like you are right on track with difficult child. on the other hand, I deeply understand how difficult it is. DDD

 

[Kathy813]

RM, I'm sorry to hear about the loss of your father in law although it sounds like it was a blessing in the end. You sound like you are doing a great job at detaching from your difficult child's choices.

~Kathy

 

[rejectedmom]

Recovering, DDD & Kathy, Thank you for your sympathy. father in law was a good man. He will be missed.

It has indeed been a long journey with difficult child. It can still break my heart if I think about it so I don't let myself dwell on it. It was good to hug him and see him looking cared for and handsome and acting appropriately. I take whatever positives I can get. I had good teachers here on the board. For that I am forever grateful. -RM