He was fired today

[in a daze]

He was late x 2. Cellphone alarm did not go off Saturday. Instead of setting another alarm, he set the cellphone alarm AGAIN last night. He's the type that needs to learn the hard way.

Manager claims he was not at pep rally (new store, opens tomorrow.) difficult child says he was absolutely at pep rally. Claimed family emergency made him late today because he didn't want to say malfunctioning alarm twice in a row. Didn't have proper number to notify them he was running late.

He was very upset, practically in tears.

He called manager back and asked him to reconsider. Manager told him to call him tomorrow morning.

I'm trying to detach, but I am having a very, very hard time doing so. This is just the thing I was talking to TryAgain in the other thread...my mood depends on HIS emotional state.

I knew that him being fired was a definite possibility, but so soon? This has hit me like a ton of bricks.

And since he is now probably jobless again, of course the same old story will come up...did you apply for any jobs today, Mike? No, I have no motivation, I can't sit still, I can't focus, blah, blah, blah...

I am so very sick of it all. But of course that's why I'm here.

 

[Estherfromjerusalem]

I am so sorry to read that, in a daze, and I truly sympathize. Because my difficult child is in Australia, and he also is about to lose his job because of being late for work. And I know that he has really tried. He has been going to bed so early in the evening. When I was there I was quite disoriented because most evenings I was on my own and he was already in bed. And even so -- he got up late several times. If he had been living here at home (in Israel) I would have woken him, but I certainly can't do that all the way to Australia. So now he is beginning to have financial problems while he looks for another job -- and so it goes, on and on and on . . .

I hope your difficult child's boss reconsiders and gives him another chance.

Love, Esther

 

[pasajes4]

Sorry to hear about his latest upheaval. I too am working on my moods not depending on his. One day at a time.

 

[Albatross]

Oh I'm sorry to hear that Daze. It sounded like he was really trying, with the pictures of the different meats, etc. Then the fundamentals were what got him! Maybe he can convey that to the manager and will get another chance.

I don't know how we detach at times like this; it's so hard to just take that step back and let them learn to solve problems in their own way when the answers seem so apparent to us. I hope you find a calm place for your spirit today.

 

[Kathy813]

I'm sorry, daze. I know how it feels to be hopeful and then have the hopes dashed. I am impressed that your difficult child called and asked for a second chance. I hope he gets one.

~Kathy

 

[in a daze]

I hope your difficult child's boss reconsiders and gives him another chance

Thanks, Esther. yes, it goes on and on.

Thanks, everyone. He was tryng, but like Albatross said, the fundamentals got to him.

 

[tryagain]

I felt ill when I saw the title of this thread, Dazed. I sooo hope that the boss reconsiders. Praying right now for this all to work out to your son's benefit. If somehow the boss won't budge, I just have to think that it's because there's another job out there for him that's an even BETTER fit.

As to your mood being influenced by how things go for him-it's because you are human. And a mom. Detached or not, we still have feelings. We're not robots. We just have to call upon our best judgment and instincts when these difficult children wear us down. I definitely believe in support and being on their side -without enabling them. I think you're doing a great job of that, Dazed.
I'll be checking tomorrow to see what happens. Hope you can get some rest knowing you've done all you could do.

 

[in a daze]

Thanks, TA. We have gone over what to say to the boss. Advised him to level with him on the disabilities which he did not disclose on application. Hopefully his powers of persuasion will work in his favor. I'll keep you updated.

 

[nlj]

So sorry to hear this, especially as he was trying to keep the job. I say this because I know my son would sometimes act bad deliberately because he WANTED to get fired. So I think it's positive that your son is upset about losing this job and had the strength to phone the manager back and ask him to reconsider - that takes a lot of guts. I hope he gets a second chance but, if not, I think there are positives in this and that his next job will be more successful. I hear what you are saying about his mood affecting your mood. I used to be like that, but I have worked hard to move past that and detach from allowing my son's state of mind to corrupt my own. There are so many good ideas and suggested thought processes on this site to help you do that. Thinking of you and sending positive thoughts your way.

 

[Childofmine]

Oh Daze, I am so sorry. I can hear your fear and your disappointment. Don't go there, Daze. Don't start thinking about what if, never, always, not going to change.

Don't give in to living in the future in your mind, and awfulizing that future. We can't know the future, and what we do when we try, is we never include the pluses and the steps forward and the joys. With our difficult children, we just focus on the "it's always going to be this way."

We don't know that Daze. We aren't given that Power.

So, feel your feelings, Daze, feel them and cry and rant and do what you have to do. Then, separate yourself from what is going on with him.

He will have to figure it out, Daze. And he will, somehow, someway. It won't be like we hoped and dreamed.

I am learning (boy I am a SLOW freakin' learner) that many different kinds of people can exist in this world and do okay. It's not about what I believe, my hopes, my "standards" (Ha!), my aspirations. It's about theirs. And theirs are different from mine, and that is the way it is supposed to be.

Drive down the road, Daze. Look at all of the different kinds of houses, businesses, stores. Inside them are people making their own way, somehow. Not like we are. Like THEY are.

And some, like my son, seem to be making it in jail right now. Or on the street. Okay. It is what it is. I am working so hard to just simply accept that. Not to get in the middle of it and try to save it, fix it, do something with it. It's not mind to do with.

Ugh. This is hard, hard stuff, Daze. This is middle of the night stuff.

Your son made progress, that is what I am seeing. Is he "there" yet? No. We know he needs to find a job and he will again. I, too, think it is a very positive thing that he is calling the manager and coming clean about his disabilities.

Truth-telling. It's always good, Daze. It can't always salvage this situation, but it will build on itself, and something good will come of that, inside him.

Let's keep moving forward today, Daze. Let's do the hard work of change within ourselves. That is our job to do.

 

[BusynMember]

Daze, from first hand experience, telling employers about your disabilities doesn't work well. Often you are not hired because of it and you are told it is a different reason...but employers want to hire people who can get there on time (and this is one thing he CAN do just by getting a louder alarm) and who can do the job well.

In my experience, it is best to try to get on bonafide disability so that he not only gets some disability for himself, but is eligible for work placement services for those with disabilities. I have fought similar types of disabilities and tried relying on the compassion of employers, telling, not telling...in the end, the only thing that worked was getting labeled as disabled and getting services. My son Sonic is also getting services, but, being younger, things are much more hopeful for him.

At some point in time, some of us (not all by any means) have to admit that our adult children ARE disabled and will need help in this world. That's ok. It's not a bad thing to get help if you need help. It's a GOOD thing to know what you need and to be good to yourself by helping yourself live a better life. His problems sound similar to mine and I just kept feeling worse and worse about myself every time I made dumb mistakes and got fired. It happened a lot.

 

[Scent of Cedar *]

Oh, I feel badly for him, Daze. Like all of us, he will grow through surviving the challenges that come his way. I was so happy to read that he'd had the courage to call his manager. He is doing the right things Daze, he is standing up for himself. He stuck with the job in the first place, even though he was scared to death, scared to be labeled different, unemployable ~ those are big fears Daze, and he struck with it.

I hope he is offered the job, again.

Even if he loses this one, he has learned that there are ways to face our fears and keep trying through taking and keeping this job as long as he did.

Now, we have to wait and see what comes next.

I wholeheartedly agree that we need to try to keep our emotions separate from the day to day happenings in the lives of our kids. In a way though, it isn't fair for us to ask this of ourselves. I was working with someone yesterday who was all sort of teary-eyed. Eventually, it came out that she was distracted and sad because their son had called the night before to tell them he and his fiancee had called off their marriage. My point (and I do have one, as Elle says) is that moms do live their kids emotional lives with them.

It's what we do.

Our kids' tragedies (and triumphs ~ we celebrate those, too) are so often crucial survival issues. It's impossible to put emotional distance between those overwhelming emotions and ourselves.

But, that is the skillset we need, to survive this intact.

Pema Chodron describes a technique designed to put a space between a troubling emotion and the present moment. That is what we need to do, too. This will take less than five minutes, and can be done throughout the day. No one will know. You should come away calmer. So, here it is:

Envision the negative emotion as clearly as you can and breathe in, deeply. Envision putting a space between the emotion and yourself and breathe out slowly.

That's it.

Take as many breaths as you want to ~ even one will help.

When you feel the pointlessly negative emotions returning (and they will) remember that this kind of emotional turmoil is not helpful. Do the breathing practice again, intending to put that little bit of space between yourself and the immediacy of your pain.

This technique helped me.

It was simple and easy enough to try.

For me, that is what detachment was all about. A practice of learning to detach from the overwhelming emotional connection I have around my kids.

I did learn to recognize the harmful, repetitive, worrisome emotions, and to separate from them to a degree. I did learn to comfort myself with the Serenity Prayer when I would wake up in the night, worried and afraid. (It's too hard to remember all the things we are supposed to do for our mental and emotional health in the middle of the night. I would be lying there like, beating myself up because I couldn't remember whatever stress reduction technique it was I was supposed to employ in the iddle of the night!)

Cheesh.

Repetition of the Serenity Prayer helped with that.

I really hope your son is offered his job back, Daze. He sounds like such a sweetie.

It seems so wrong that he should have to suffer this way. But this is the only way he can learn to be a man, Daze. He will come through this stronger inside, whatever the job situation is. I am so proud of him that he stuck with it even though he was so scared he would not measure up.

Cedar

 

[SeekingStrength]

Daze,

I was so sad last night when I read your son was fired, I couldn't think of anything to say. As Cedar said, he does sound like such a sweetie. I hope he understands it was his being late that got him fired - something he CAN fix. That hurt you feel for your son, when he IS trying and the worry that it will put him back a few steps....knowing that success in this job would mean so much.

Darn, I feel your hurt for him..went through that with my youngest easy child son. He was fired from his first job. He got off to a bad start by not showing up one day (until after the manager called him to remind him he was on the schedule). He lasted about a week. This was at a Little Caesar's Pizza place. Who gets fired from those??? It took a while before he got the nerve to apply again --and that time, a good friend's uncle owned the Subway franchise. With that second job, he tried so hard that I was afraid he would get let go because he was making himself too frazzled. He eventually got the hang of it, stayed 2+ years and got a different job.

Meaning (i think) that it took messing up to make my son realize he HAD to get it together to keep a job. Employers do not coddle, especially when so many folks are looking for work.

now, gfg32 on the other hand, i have no idea how many jobs he has been fired from ----and for reasons not so "innocent"....

 

[recoveringenabler]

IAD, I'm sorry. This is clearly the place to go when you feel "so sick of all of it." We are all in various stages of being "so sick of it," so we understand.

Just want you to know I am here too, reading along and waiting for your update.

 

[in a daze]

Well, here I am at 4:30 in the morning, woke up and couldn't go back to sleep. I am in tears as I write this, because you are all so kind, so understanding, and you are all here for me now. I was in that dark place on Monday, cried on and off all day. Yesterday I held it together for work, felt a little better. I talked to my therapist last night, which really helped me.

My son called the manager back. It was opening day at the new store. He told him he couldn't deal with him at that moment and ended the conversation. I'm sure the guy is stressed out as it's the first day of the new store and the last thing he wants to deal with is some guy begging for his job back.

My son would not return my phone calls or texts yesterday until 7:30. I was very worried. He had been in his room all day in a deep depression. He said he was safe, no need to go to ER. I called the house manager and he was going to talk to him. Declined to call therapy center to talk to therapist on call or call his therapist and leave message.

In my experience, it is best to try to get on bonafide disability so that he not only gets some disability for himself, but is eligible for work placement services for those with disabilities. I have fought similar types of disabilities and tried relying on the compassion of employers, telling, not telling...in the end, the only thing that worked was getting labeled as disabled and getting services. My son Sonic is also getting services, but, being younger, things are much more hopeful for him.

Hi MWM, he is already on SSI. He contacted Office of Vocational Rehab and had appointment in January. She said since he was moving to north side she would sent his paperwork over there. He called them a week or two ago and they said they would have someone call him. No call yet. I think the funding for these State of Illinois agencies is not good, as the state's fiances are a mess. You may be right as I have a good friend whose daughter is dyslexic and has hearing loss. She disclosed her disabilities and they hired her, but they would not accomodate and fired her. She got her job back after the parents intervened, but then would not give her any hours when she called. So they were playing games with her. She ended up getting an internship with Disney so they did not bother pursueing the matter.

He has private insurance through my husband, but if all this does not work out he may have to go on Medicaid and then a social worker can case manage him and get him some services. Many of the social service agencies here in the city have job supports for the mentally ill.

I told him I was going to come up and take him to lunch tomorrow and maybe we'd walk up to that office, which is not far from him.

Pema Chodron

Cedar, what book by this author do you reccomend?

I am going to read your posts again, everyone. Your words are such a strength and comfort to me. Thank you so much.

 

[SuZir]

Do I remember correctly and having a job was mandated by the program he is in? Is there any lee way that would allow him to wait till he can work with those assisted programs to get a job? I'm afraid that these kind of experiences, especially when he really tried, even if managed some aspects of it insufficiently, can be really hard for his self esteem and can hinder any later attempts to get work. It really seems like he would need more assistance and more sheltered work environment for the beginning. And delis, especially new stores, are often not that at least without very through job coaching and assistance from some outside program for people with disabilities. They tend to be tough even for perfectly 'normal' young people with little work experience.

 

[BusynMember]

Daze, there IS a waiting list, but good that he is already on disability. Poor kid. I feel for him. Once he gets into Vocational Rehab, they can see what kind of job would be a good fit for him. The money is tight and the job market socks right now, but I'm glad he is on disability. When his mind clears, he has a path to services.

That's a big plus.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Oh IAD, I'm sorry you were up so early. I think most of us here can relate to that early morning ruminating and sadness. I'm glad you were able to talk to your therapist. Can you balance out your care for your son with equal care for you? That makes a difference for me, if I do nurturing and kind, supportive, caring things for myself especially when there are events happening which require more energy from me.

I'm sure Cedar will be along to answer your question about Pema Chodron as well, here are the books I've been reading by her which have brought me so much comfort. When things fall apart; Comfortable with Uncertainty, Living Beautifully and I'm in the middle of The places that scare you. For me, she speaks to what we are forced to deal with here, facing so much fear and pain and she puts it in a context which makes sense to me, provides me with some tools, more spiritual in nature, which make the journey we are on have some meaning in our own ability to keep our hearts opened and filled with compassion, even in the most trying times.

You're a warrior Mom IAD, like so many of us here, you face the dragon every day, you fall down, get back up and do it all over again. I don't know why this is our particular fate, but I do know the level of courage and profound love it takes to walk this path. As we do here, we have circled our wagons around you. You are not alone, we're all right here.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Oh, IAD, MWM recommended this book and I've found it helpful: When your adult child breaks your heart by Young and Adamec.

 

[in a daze]

Do I remember correctly and having a job was mandated by the program he is in? Is there any lee way that would allow him to wait till he can work with those assisted programs to get a job?

The house that he is in SuZir has this requirement to get a job or volunteer within a certain amount of time but this is not enforced. The program sounds more structured than it actually is. There are all kinds of rules on the website about daily meetings and being out of bed by 9 AM yet my son says he sleeps in and has blown off the meetings on some days with no consequence until I told the house manager about it. We chose this program because of the convienent location to transportation and jobs and proximity to his uncle and sister, and more lenient in terms of curfew and visitation than the last one he was in. It's a nice place and the rent is decent, but I am frustrated at the lack of structure. So I'm sure it won't be a problem if he's out of work.

You're a warrior Mom IAD, like so many of us here, you face the dragon every day, you fall down, get back up and do it all over again. I don't know why this is our particular fate, but I do know the level of courage and profound love it takes to walk this path. As we do here, we have circled our wagons around you. You are not alone, we're all right here.

You move me to tears, again RE. I am so grateful for all of you on this site.

I'll check out the book by Pema Chodran tonight. I've already read When Your Adult Child Breaks Your Heart...I found it helpful also.