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Family of Origin
Family of Origin (FOO) Support Thread Part 2
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 662924" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>SWOT used always to post to us that having a mental illness does not excuse personal responsibility. You are his mother, Copa. If you say those words to him, he will hear you. My son does things like this, too. Lectures me on how I don't understand his situation. (I need money. That's his situation.) It is self pity, and should not be encouraged. Whether the chemicals the kids are using were prescribed or are from the street, there is going to be a period of adjustment on both sides of having taken the medication. Their brain; they reap the benefits, and they are the adult responsible if the benefit was not all they'd hoped. That does not give them the right to act like jerks. Like me Copa, you need to stand up to your son.</p><p></p><p>I know your son's situation is different than my son's. But I dislike your son's disrespect for you and M, and I dislike the way your son hurts you.</p><p></p><p>Anger is one thing. Your son's nastiness is compounding the hurt in an already heartbreaking situation.</p><p></p><p>You're his mom, Copa. You need to tell him to stop.</p><p></p><p>I had to do that with my son, too. It took me so long a time even to see that I could say "Stop it." </p><p></p><p>But I did it and posted on P.E. right away and I was so glad I did it, Copa. It was a beginning of a change in my son because it was a beginning of a change in the way I saw him. If I don't respect my own son enough to hold him to a certain standard in his interactions with me, what kind of mother am I?</p><p></p><p>We forget that our sons are little boys inside.</p><p></p><p>They are bigger than we are, now. They look like men. </p><p></p><p>That is scary.</p><p></p><p>HOW DARE HE.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would have done the same, Copa. Joy turned to shame and to pain...but that is your boy. How could you just put him back on the street? </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I would have been, too.</p><p></p><p>Your son is so mean, Copa.</p><p></p><p>Who had to clean that mess?</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I think what you are describing here is emotional flashback, Copa.</p><p></p><p>This shame and confusion and the guilty certainty that we should have been able to ~ well, to make that family dinner I am always posting about ~ that is the feeling of emotional flashback.</p><p></p><p>This is a good place to begin then, Copa. In all that reading I did yesterday morning, one of the things mentioned was that daughters of borderline disordered moms, having been broken into responsibility for the behaviors of their crazy mothers, fall immediately into responsibility for what their adult children do, too.</p><p></p><p>A double whammy. Past and present trauma.</p><p></p><p>Because I am breaking through that where my FOO is concerned Copa, I know you can do it, too. Once we break through that initial mother-lode of guilty responsibility for what our mother's did, we are free of that sick, almost pathologic certainty that we are responsible for what our kids do.</p><p></p><p>Maybe that is true. I have only been this healthy since yesterday.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p></p><p> </p><p>Is son playing a game with M? The game being: She may be your woman <em>but I am her son. She loves me more than you. She will do what I say. You, M, will never have her without me. I can do whatever I want ~ to you, and to her ~ and she will never, ever, turn from me. But she will turn from you M...so watch yourself, boy.</em></p><p></p><p>If son goes to that city, Copa? Then you and M need to stay where you are.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>To be his mom Copa, and to love him; to teach him to respect you so he can respect himself. Every man who is good in the heart of him respects his mother. It has nothing to do with the mom. It has to do with the kind of man a son is.</p><p></p><p>Weak and blaming, or strong and self-sufficient.</p><p></p><p>It is working for my son. Changing the way I see me changed the way I see him. Changing the way I see him...either that will help him or it won't. I would be remiss as his mother, knowing the other, frightened mom way did not work, not to try strength.</p><p></p><p>For the sake of my son's manhood, Copa.</p><p></p><p>The way I see it is that if my son sees me in that hateful, disrespectful, blaming way that he sees me <em>and I go along with it</em>, how can he ever, ever know it is a deeply wrong thing for the heart of a man, to disrespect his own mother?</p><p></p><p>My son will see me as he chooses. But I can refuse to agree with him.</p><p></p><p>You can too, Copa.</p><p></p><p>He is wrong. My son was (or is, if he should continue or go back to the worst of the old days) wrong to use the wounds my mother inflicted to dominate and break me, now.</p><p></p><p>But once my son made that horrible choice? I am the only one who </p><p>can tell him how wrong, how terribly weakening, such a choice is, for him, and for his manhood.</p><p></p><p>M will agree with me on this, I am thinking.</p><p></p><p>M is a man. He will know whether I am correct in my thinking on this aspect of being a mother to a son.</p><p></p><p>As SWOT posts for us Copa, having a mental illness does not mean we are not capable of responsible thought and action unless we choose to use our illness as an excuse to be weak and despicable.</p><p></p><p>We all have challenges. Just as my mom could have done better but chose not to, your son can do better. Total lack of control would have been to smash the oranges on the walls and the floor.</p><p></p><p>Your son cut them in half first.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Could it be true Copa that if M were to leave you, son would have you exactly where he wants you?</p><p></p><p>Emotional flashback, full time.</p><p></p><p>This is the son who taunted you with your own brokenness at the hands of your father.</p><p></p><p>Trampling sacred ground, Copa.</p><p></p><p>Shame on your son, to hurt you that way.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes.</p><p></p><p>Your son is triangulating, Copa. He is threatening M to his face under your nose. M cannot take the authority of the man of the house. Your son knows this, and taunts M with it. Son wants M gone.</p><p></p><p>Then you will be vulnerable and pliable and manipulable.</p><p></p><p>Without M; without that man who loves, and completes, and brings you happiness and as tried so hard with M, in spite of everything.</p><p></p><p>M knows what son is doing, Copa.</p><p></p><p>But he is powerless to stop it.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>He is, Copa. He loves you. He cannot be a man, cannot protect and see you cherished and insist that you be cherished.</p><p></p><p>All these things, your son has caused.</p><p></p><p>So he can make M leave and have you to himself, weakened and wide open.</p><p></p><p>Read on the site, Copa. That is what troubled adult kids, male and female alike ~ that is what they do. Triangulate and move in on the weakened mother. I couldn't stop, wouldn't see it, either. That is why my D H sold houses, moved us away, took me on vacation, sent me on vacation, let me do whatever I wanted and insisted on that 5:30 Happy Hour without anyone else there and without phone calls.</p><p></p><p>We were losing our marriage, Copa.</p><p></p><p>I have posted before that I hated my D H in that time. He came to hate me, too.</p><p></p><p>Most of us on the P.E. site have lost our marriages, Copa.</p><p></p><p>That's why.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I was you, Copa.</p><p></p><p>M will pull you through. Your son will pull you down.</p><p></p><p>Choose the life with M, Copa.</p><p></p><p>Remember that blackgnat spent time in an Intensive Care unit with a bleed in the brain courtesy of her son.</p><p></p><p>And she took him back.</p><p></p><p>And it didn't help.</p><p></p><p>We all need to remember where mother love can take us, Copa. That is why we work here so hard. We need to be stronger than we are to help our kids. We need to see through our own eyes, not theirs.</p><p></p><p>I would not side with your sister, Copa. </p><p></p><p>You are coming through this beautifully. These things we go through with our kids are not survivable. There is too much pain.</p><p></p><p>That is why we have to change.</p><p></p><p>One way or another, we are not coming through this the same. </p><p></p><p>SWOT and nerfherder and Belle and IC and Seeking and Confused and I ~ we all are right here, Copa. We are not siding with your sister. Your sister would have broken already, had she been forced to live through loving a self destructing boy.</p><p></p><p>You are strong.</p><p></p><p>Strong enough.</p><p></p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 662924, member: 17461"] SWOT used always to post to us that having a mental illness does not excuse personal responsibility. You are his mother, Copa. If you say those words to him, he will hear you. My son does things like this, too. Lectures me on how I don't understand his situation. (I need money. That's his situation.) It is self pity, and should not be encouraged. Whether the chemicals the kids are using were prescribed or are from the street, there is going to be a period of adjustment on both sides of having taken the medication. Their brain; they reap the benefits, and they are the adult responsible if the benefit was not all they'd hoped. That does not give them the right to act like jerks. Like me Copa, you need to stand up to your son. I know your son's situation is different than my son's. But I dislike your son's disrespect for you and M, and I dislike the way your son hurts you. Anger is one thing. Your son's nastiness is compounding the hurt in an already heartbreaking situation. You're his mom, Copa. You need to tell him to stop. I had to do that with my son, too. It took me so long a time even to see that I could say "Stop it." But I did it and posted on P.E. right away and I was so glad I did it, Copa. It was a beginning of a change in my son because it was a beginning of a change in the way I saw him. If I don't respect my own son enough to hold him to a certain standard in his interactions with me, what kind of mother am I? We forget that our sons are little boys inside. They are bigger than we are, now. They look like men. That is scary. HOW DARE HE. I would have done the same, Copa. Joy turned to shame and to pain...but that is your boy. How could you just put him back on the street? I would have been, too. Your son is so mean, Copa. Who had to clean that mess? I think what you are describing here is emotional flashback, Copa. This shame and confusion and the guilty certainty that we should have been able to ~ well, to make that family dinner I am always posting about ~ that is the feeling of emotional flashback. This is a good place to begin then, Copa. In all that reading I did yesterday morning, one of the things mentioned was that daughters of borderline disordered moms, having been broken into responsibility for the behaviors of their crazy mothers, fall immediately into responsibility for what their adult children do, too. A double whammy. Past and present trauma. Because I am breaking through that where my FOO is concerned Copa, I know you can do it, too. Once we break through that initial mother-lode of guilty responsibility for what our mother's did, we are free of that sick, almost pathologic certainty that we are responsible for what our kids do. Maybe that is true. I have only been this healthy since yesterday. :O) Is son playing a game with M? The game being: She may be your woman [I]but I am her son. She loves me more than you. She will do what I say. You, M, will never have her without me. I can do whatever I want ~ to you, and to her ~ and she will never, ever, turn from me. But she will turn from you M...so watch yourself, boy.[/I] If son goes to that city, Copa? Then you and M need to stay where you are. To be his mom Copa, and to love him; to teach him to respect you so he can respect himself. Every man who is good in the heart of him respects his mother. It has nothing to do with the mom. It has to do with the kind of man a son is. Weak and blaming, or strong and self-sufficient. It is working for my son. Changing the way I see me changed the way I see him. Changing the way I see him...either that will help him or it won't. I would be remiss as his mother, knowing the other, frightened mom way did not work, not to try strength. For the sake of my son's manhood, Copa. The way I see it is that if my son sees me in that hateful, disrespectful, blaming way that he sees me [I]and I go along with it[/I], how can he ever, ever know it is a deeply wrong thing for the heart of a man, to disrespect his own mother? My son will see me as he chooses. But I can refuse to agree with him. You can too, Copa. He is wrong. My son was (or is, if he should continue or go back to the worst of the old days) wrong to use the wounds my mother inflicted to dominate and break me, now. But once my son made that horrible choice? I am the only one who can tell him how wrong, how terribly weakening, such a choice is, for him, and for his manhood. M will agree with me on this, I am thinking. M is a man. He will know whether I am correct in my thinking on this aspect of being a mother to a son. As SWOT posts for us Copa, having a mental illness does not mean we are not capable of responsible thought and action unless we choose to use our illness as an excuse to be weak and despicable. We all have challenges. Just as my mom could have done better but chose not to, your son can do better. Total lack of control would have been to smash the oranges on the walls and the floor. Your son cut them in half first. Could it be true Copa that if M were to leave you, son would have you exactly where he wants you? Emotional flashback, full time. This is the son who taunted you with your own brokenness at the hands of your father. Trampling sacred ground, Copa. Shame on your son, to hurt you that way. Yes. Your son is triangulating, Copa. He is threatening M to his face under your nose. M cannot take the authority of the man of the house. Your son knows this, and taunts M with it. Son wants M gone. Then you will be vulnerable and pliable and manipulable. Without M; without that man who loves, and completes, and brings you happiness and as tried so hard with M, in spite of everything. M knows what son is doing, Copa. But he is powerless to stop it. He is, Copa. He loves you. He cannot be a man, cannot protect and see you cherished and insist that you be cherished. All these things, your son has caused. So he can make M leave and have you to himself, weakened and wide open. Read on the site, Copa. That is what troubled adult kids, male and female alike ~ that is what they do. Triangulate and move in on the weakened mother. I couldn't stop, wouldn't see it, either. That is why my D H sold houses, moved us away, took me on vacation, sent me on vacation, let me do whatever I wanted and insisted on that 5:30 Happy Hour without anyone else there and without phone calls. We were losing our marriage, Copa. I have posted before that I hated my D H in that time. He came to hate me, too. Most of us on the P.E. site have lost our marriages, Copa. That's why. I was you, Copa. M will pull you through. Your son will pull you down. Choose the life with M, Copa. Remember that blackgnat spent time in an Intensive Care unit with a bleed in the brain courtesy of her son. And she took him back. And it didn't help. We all need to remember where mother love can take us, Copa. That is why we work here so hard. We need to be stronger than we are to help our kids. We need to see through our own eyes, not theirs. I would not side with your sister, Copa. You are coming through this beautifully. These things we go through with our kids are not survivable. There is too much pain. That is why we have to change. One way or another, we are not coming through this the same. SWOT and nerfherder and Belle and IC and Seeking and Confused and I ~ we all are right here, Copa. We are not siding with your sister. Your sister would have broken already, had she been forced to live through loving a self destructing boy. You are strong. Strong enough. Cedar [/QUOTE]
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