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Does Detachment = No Contact?
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 623507" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>For me, detachment is about detaching from, about putting space around, my emotional responses to my kids. The situations they find themselves in are so horrifying that I want to do anything to take the pain away, to give them another chance, to give them back their lives.</p><p></p><p>That did not work. </p><p></p><p>I am so flummoxed by the pain of what happened to all of us. For the past twenty years, I have run around behind my kids, loving them, propping them up, putting things back together. When they were not strong enough, I believed that they could do it for them; believed they could beat this thing, believed they were better than what they were doing, believed that they were special, believed they had a unique contribution to make to the world.</p><p></p><p>That did not work.</p><p></p><p>Given the time, money, and energy expended, both my kids should have completed graduate and doctorates and had the world to explore, with money and time and education.</p><p></p><p>We were so sure that was how it was meant to be that we never saw this other reality as real, even when it was barreling right at us.</p><p></p><p>Even when it was barreling us over.</p><p></p><p>And when we did finally see it? We didn't believe it. We could not conceive of what it meant to be an addict. Surely <u>our</u> children, so bright and funny and well-spoken, could reason their ways out?</p><p></p><p>That is not what happened.</p><p></p><p>While I was busy wasting time trying to figure out how to be a better parent, or trying to find the wound, the weakness I had unknowingly created in my child...the addiction bit in, put out roots.</p><p></p><p>Every civilized, time-wasting thing we tried turned eventually into what the kids really wanted, what they really needed, once the addiction was seated: and once you take the psychobabble away, what they wanted was somewhere, and some way, to practice their addictions.</p><p></p><p>And so, while I was whistling in the dark and looking the other way, while I was listening to the finer, gentler way to "help" the kids...I pretty much lost them both.</p><p></p><p>I wish I had come at them like a fury.</p><p></p><p>Looking back, I wish I had recognized addiction for the terrifyingly destructive force it is. I wish I had never wasted all those years blaming myself, trying to be a better parent, trying to be gentle and civilized and kind and all those things that mattered to ME. </p><p></p><p>Addiction is a terminal disease. </p><p></p><p>You do not have forever to change things for your child. While we might feel we are accomplishing something by gunning our motors and trying to get some ground under the kids...the addiction is getting its hooks in deeper.</p><p></p><p>Their identities as addicts become more real to them with every treatment, with every slip back. Eventually, the addict identity takes on a concrete reality beside which the dreams you hold for them, the dreams they held for themselves, pale into nothing and are gone.</p><p></p><p>There was a time when it looked like everything might be going to turn out all right for my children. When we saw the telltale signs again, the signs that the addiction was back, was growing? </p><p></p><p>BOOM.</p><p></p><p>Denial set in.</p><p></p><p>We didn't believe it, we believed it had to be something else, something that involved us, our parenting, our something, anything, anything but drugs. That is what the experts are telling us, right? Get to the bottom of it. Find and dispel the dysfunction.</p><p></p><p>The dysfunction is drug use.</p><p></p><p>Addiction kills.</p><p></p><p>It will kill your child.</p><p></p><p>At the least, it will change his or her life into something ugly and unrecognizable and so, so sad.</p><p></p><p>My children, your children ~ all had such potential. All had parents committed to seeing them succeed, had parents determined to see them flourish. We would not be here on this site, still trying to find the magic solution, if we had not been incredibly attentive, aware, loving parents. Whatever the dysfunctions in our families ~ and all families have some dysfunction ~ we were great parents, extraordinary parents...or we would not be here, today.</p><p></p><p>I did not see that for the longest time. I felt so responsible. That is the thing addiction does, too. Responsible parents never give up. </p><p></p><p>We never give up.</p><p> </p><p>A responsible parent can no more wink and turn a blind eye to the addict's self-destructive tendencies in her child than she would were the child suffering from any other terminal illness.</p><p></p><p>And addiction is a terminal illness. </p><p></p><p>As I've posted before, I chose detachment when I read about another mom or two who had tried it and found their children turning their lives around, found their children thinking again about who and how they were meant to be. I began to see how twisted, how truly ill, interactions in my family had become over the years, as I turned a blind eye to the reality of addiction, to what it was doing to my children, so I could "help" them recover their lives. </p><p></p><p>Addiction comes back and comes back. When you see the signs, it is too late to wonder. No matter what they say, no matter how vehemently they deny it, no matter how venomously they blame you...addiction comes back.</p><p></p><p>I am losing one of my children right now, right this minute. It is going to be a protracted thing. The addict's lifestyle is taking her, eating her alive, piece by battered piece.</p><p></p><p>Know what goes first?</p><p></p><p>Integrity.</p><p></p><p>Another child is not speaking to me, is judging me so harshly because I will not pretend with him that a little addiction is okay.</p><p></p><p>A little addiction will kill him as surely as a big addiction will. It just takes longer.</p><p></p><p>That's how I know all this. </p><p></p><p>I DID all the things parents with younger children are trying to do to help their children. Addiction is a killer. A diagnosis of bipolar once a child has used drugs or alcohol to extreme is a different kind of bipolar than outright mental illness in my opinion.</p><p></p><p>And it is no excuse.</p><p></p><p>Addiction will kill your child, bipolar or not.</p><p></p><p>There is a chance that you can change that. If coddling, money, treatment, support, pretending everything was fine just fine worked?</p><p></p><p>My family would be whole and healthy, today.</p><p></p><p>It isn't a question of love or attention, it isn't a question of whether a childhood was perfect or whether a parent was divorced. Like Brene Brown says, we humans are born hard-wired for conflict. We are incredible survivors, well fitted to the task by an evolutionary process that burnt out the weaknesses.</p><p></p><p>Addiction, readily available drugs, centralized school systems where parents do not have ready access ~ all these things are part of what happened to our families. Our kids are not bad. </p><p></p><p>They are addicted.</p><p></p><p>Each of us will make her own decision about how best to help her child. That is as it should be. </p><p></p><p>I am telling you what I have lived through, and what I have learned. As our children age, as their addictions take true hold, their behaviors toward us are horrifyingly, eerily similar. </p><p></p><p>That is not your child you are dealing with. That, what you see and hear, the hatred, the desperate greed, that is the face of the addiction.</p><p></p><p>Your child is trapped in there somewhere.</p><p></p><p>From my perspective near the end of this twisted, evil trail, what a parent needs to do if she hopes to save her child is to fight that addiction with every weapon at her disposal. If you destroy your child's self esteem in the process, if your child has to taste life on the streets, spend time in prison ~ whatever it is...at least you will still have a child.</p><p></p><p>A whole, healthy child, strong enough to rebuild, to reclaim his or her life.</p><p></p><p>Think about it like this: Celebrities have money, fame, treatment after treatment, excellent support systems and aftercare, have everything to live for, everything to come back to.</p><p></p><p>But their addictions kill them, too.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 623507, member: 17461"] For me, detachment is about detaching from, about putting space around, my emotional responses to my kids. The situations they find themselves in are so horrifying that I want to do anything to take the pain away, to give them another chance, to give them back their lives. That did not work. I am so flummoxed by the pain of what happened to all of us. For the past twenty years, I have run around behind my kids, loving them, propping them up, putting things back together. When they were not strong enough, I believed that they could do it for them; believed they could beat this thing, believed they were better than what they were doing, believed that they were special, believed they had a unique contribution to make to the world. That did not work. Given the time, money, and energy expended, both my kids should have completed graduate and doctorates and had the world to explore, with money and time and education. We were so sure that was how it was meant to be that we never saw this other reality as real, even when it was barreling right at us. Even when it was barreling us over. And when we did finally see it? We didn't believe it. We could not conceive of what it meant to be an addict. Surely [U]our[/U] children, so bright and funny and well-spoken, could reason their ways out? That is not what happened. While I was busy wasting time trying to figure out how to be a better parent, or trying to find the wound, the weakness I had unknowingly created in my child...the addiction bit in, put out roots. Every civilized, time-wasting thing we tried turned eventually into what the kids really wanted, what they really needed, once the addiction was seated: and once you take the psychobabble away, what they wanted was somewhere, and some way, to practice their addictions. And so, while I was whistling in the dark and looking the other way, while I was listening to the finer, gentler way to "help" the kids...I pretty much lost them both. I wish I had come at them like a fury. Looking back, I wish I had recognized addiction for the terrifyingly destructive force it is. I wish I had never wasted all those years blaming myself, trying to be a better parent, trying to be gentle and civilized and kind and all those things that mattered to ME. Addiction is a terminal disease. You do not have forever to change things for your child. While we might feel we are accomplishing something by gunning our motors and trying to get some ground under the kids...the addiction is getting its hooks in deeper. Their identities as addicts become more real to them with every treatment, with every slip back. Eventually, the addict identity takes on a concrete reality beside which the dreams you hold for them, the dreams they held for themselves, pale into nothing and are gone. There was a time when it looked like everything might be going to turn out all right for my children. When we saw the telltale signs again, the signs that the addiction was back, was growing? BOOM. Denial set in. We didn't believe it, we believed it had to be something else, something that involved us, our parenting, our something, anything, anything but drugs. That is what the experts are telling us, right? Get to the bottom of it. Find and dispel the dysfunction. The dysfunction is drug use. Addiction kills. It will kill your child. At the least, it will change his or her life into something ugly and unrecognizable and so, so sad. My children, your children ~ all had such potential. All had parents committed to seeing them succeed, had parents determined to see them flourish. We would not be here on this site, still trying to find the magic solution, if we had not been incredibly attentive, aware, loving parents. Whatever the dysfunctions in our families ~ and all families have some dysfunction ~ we were great parents, extraordinary parents...or we would not be here, today. I did not see that for the longest time. I felt so responsible. That is the thing addiction does, too. Responsible parents never give up. We never give up. A responsible parent can no more wink and turn a blind eye to the addict's self-destructive tendencies in her child than she would were the child suffering from any other terminal illness. And addiction is a terminal illness. As I've posted before, I chose detachment when I read about another mom or two who had tried it and found their children turning their lives around, found their children thinking again about who and how they were meant to be. I began to see how twisted, how truly ill, interactions in my family had become over the years, as I turned a blind eye to the reality of addiction, to what it was doing to my children, so I could "help" them recover their lives. Addiction comes back and comes back. When you see the signs, it is too late to wonder. No matter what they say, no matter how vehemently they deny it, no matter how venomously they blame you...addiction comes back. I am losing one of my children right now, right this minute. It is going to be a protracted thing. The addict's lifestyle is taking her, eating her alive, piece by battered piece. Know what goes first? Integrity. Another child is not speaking to me, is judging me so harshly because I will not pretend with him that a little addiction is okay. A little addiction will kill him as surely as a big addiction will. It just takes longer. That's how I know all this. I DID all the things parents with younger children are trying to do to help their children. Addiction is a killer. A diagnosis of bipolar once a child has used drugs or alcohol to extreme is a different kind of bipolar than outright mental illness in my opinion. And it is no excuse. Addiction will kill your child, bipolar or not. There is a chance that you can change that. If coddling, money, treatment, support, pretending everything was fine just fine worked? My family would be whole and healthy, today. It isn't a question of love or attention, it isn't a question of whether a childhood was perfect or whether a parent was divorced. Like Brene Brown says, we humans are born hard-wired for conflict. We are incredible survivors, well fitted to the task by an evolutionary process that burnt out the weaknesses. Addiction, readily available drugs, centralized school systems where parents do not have ready access ~ all these things are part of what happened to our families. Our kids are not bad. They are addicted. Each of us will make her own decision about how best to help her child. That is as it should be. I am telling you what I have lived through, and what I have learned. As our children age, as their addictions take true hold, their behaviors toward us are horrifyingly, eerily similar. That is not your child you are dealing with. That, what you see and hear, the hatred, the desperate greed, that is the face of the addiction. Your child is trapped in there somewhere. From my perspective near the end of this twisted, evil trail, what a parent needs to do if she hopes to save her child is to fight that addiction with every weapon at her disposal. If you destroy your child's self esteem in the process, if your child has to taste life on the streets, spend time in prison ~ whatever it is...at least you will still have a child. A whole, healthy child, strong enough to rebuild, to reclaim his or her life. Think about it like this: Celebrities have money, fame, treatment after treatment, excellent support systems and aftercare, have everything to live for, everything to come back to. But their addictions kill them, too. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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