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I just had a light bulb moment and now I don't know what to do
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<blockquote data-quote="susiestar" data-source="post: 377068" data-attributes="member: 1233"><p>I am not entirely sure I understand your thinking on this. Basically you are saying that because of your PTSD, you were a bad mother and difficult child interpreted all of the times that you reacted strongly to things he did in a way that said he was bad. That difficult child thinks he is bad, and then made bad choices, based primarily on the unspoken messages that you sent him because of your PTSD.</p><p> </p><p>You are going WAY overboard. Take a few steps back. </p><p> </p><p>Yes, having PTSD in all likelihood did color your actions and reactiong to things that happened at you raised difficult child. It may even have had a big part to play. </p><p> </p><p>NO, your PTSD after treatment did NOT cause your son to ignore all rules you set, to begin smoking at around age 12 and stealing cigarrettes from you, it did not cause him to steal your credit card and use it. Your treated PTSD did not make him think he was such an amazing person that he deserved everything he wanted. And THAT is what his behavior said. It said I want this and you better get it for me because I deserve it and am going to make you miserable, steal, destroy property, etc... if you don't let me do what I want.</p><p> </p><p>Your treated PTSD is not the reason he held a knife up at you and threatened you, it is NOT the reason he chose to use drugs, drink, sneak out of the house, steal, or do the other things he has done.</p><p> </p><p>It is NOT the reason he cut the pants you were wearing to steal the money you needed to pay to keep food on the table.</p><p> </p><p>Selfishness, entitlement and HIS OWN CHOICES did those things.</p><p> </p><p>Just like my brother did NOT beat me because my mother had not dealt with the things she learned from her alcoholic father, he did NOT use the threat of molestation to make me behave because my father is an untreated Aspie (want to talk about some strange messages passed on to kids? Have an aspie for a parent!). Bro did NOTtry to sell me in exchange for a 6 pack because our mother had untreated PTSD from all the years of living with an alcoholic father after he mother died and many other close relatives died in the next decade, all before we were born.</p><p> </p><p>I have known you for a couple of years. I KNOW that you are, and were, a dang fine mother! You did ALL that you could to love, protect, and cherish your son while teaching him right from wrong and communicating your values and teaching him personal responsibility, even when a lot of really stupid or sick or just foolish others tried to put all the blame for everything that happened since the second of his birth on your shoulders.</p><p> </p><p>You did NOTHING to purposely convey to your son that he was bad, worthless, or otherwise useless. In fact you worked pretty darn hard to convince him of exactly the opposite - and did as good a job as many, and better than some, would do in the exact same situations.</p><p> </p><p>There may be things that your PTSD did to influence your behavior. There may be things that being in the military did to influence your behavior. There may be things that being sober most of the time did to influence your behavior.</p><p> </p><p>Your son is easily old enough to own the responsibility for his choices. in my opinion that is one thing the judge meant when he said that he would NOT reduce difficult child's charges to misdemeanors after difficult child cut the pockets of the pants you were wearing to steal money from you. The judge was sending a very clear message that difficult child did this, and that difficult child is responsible for doing it, and that he has to pay the consequences.</p><p> </p><p>Trying to get ANYONE to let difficult child out of detention is ill advised and likely to do FAR more harm than good to difficult child and to you. It will truly send a message to difficult child that he isn't responsible for ANY of his choices because they were all made because you had ptsd.</p><p> </p><p>I know you are struggling very very hard to find some sense and logic in your situation, esp with the bizarre messages the juvenile justice system has thrown at you over and over. Your searching is understandable. It is very hard to accept that there really is not rhyme or reason for what happened to you and difficult child. You got caught in a storm of incompetence on the side of the various people assigned to help guide you and difficult child through this (def attys, GAL, first PO, judge, etc), which collided with the storm of family dysfunction which has told you for years that you are the problem that causes all the bad stuff in the lives of everyone related to you. These storms allowed your difficult child to adopt a common attitude that he can do what he wants and no one can stop him - and he was right. He was able to choose to do some really bad stuff and with-o any support there was no way humanly possible for you to stop him. You truly did all you could.</p><p> </p><p>It is really really easy for a researcher to look at some proble, PTSD, adult child of an alcoholic, etc... and find data to support a conclusion that if you have this and get treatment your disease will make you send X message. If you have it and don't get treatment you send Y message. Then they can say that that message will result in bad behavior or good behavior or mowhawks or dang near anything else they want. </p><p> </p><p>It truly is not hard to make almost anything seem statistically significant and to write a paper that sounds very believable about it. Did you know that pickles cause cancer? 99 % of Russian soldier who were treated for cancer while in the military ate pickles 2-3 times each day. Sounds like it is worth looking into, esp if you add some more jargon and sciencey sounding sentences.</p><p> </p><p>No one tells you that the Russian Army served pickles at every lunch and dinner, and included them in every combat meal. Or that the same % of all soldiers who did NOT have cancer also ate pickles that often.</p><p> </p><p>Right now, finding studies like this one, applying them to difficult child, talking about finding a way to get the judge to end his sentence because it is your fault sure seems like you absorbed your family message really really really well - so well that you don't even see how it is behind this.</p><p> </p><p>ALL of your life you mother has sent the message that YOU are the problem, that NO ONE in the family would have behavior or other problems if it wasn't for YOU. that no matter what you did or do, how hard you work, how much therapy you have, how many wonderful things you do, how great a friend you are, that YOU are STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR CAUSING ALL THE BAD STUFF.</p><p> </p><p>Please. klmno, take a few steps back and see how this is just taking ALL of those HORRIBLE messages from your mom and wrapping yourself in them like a giant blanket on a bitter cold night. </p><p> </p><p>YOU ARE NOT THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE THINGS YOUR CHILD CHOSE TO DO. </p><p> </p><p>YOU ARE NOT THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHERE YOUR CHILD IS RIGHT NOW.</p><p> </p><p>YOU DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AS HIS PARENT THAT CAUSED HIM TO MAKE THE CHOICES HE CHOSE TO MAKE.</p><p> </p><p>Please keep telling yourself these things. You were not the perfect parent but you were better than a heck of a lot of them that I know of. You didn't drink yourself under the table every day, or even just often enough to become and alcoholic, you didn't beat him senseless every time he looked at you, you didn't make him starve, or wear rags, or in any other way abuse him. </p><p> </p><p>You are a good mom. If you take responsibility for his choices, it leaves him totally able to walk out of juvie, do whatever he wants, and tell everyone that it is YOU they should go after.</p><p> </p><p>IF all it takes to destroy a child is to have major PTSD that you get treatment for, how do we explain all the children who had parents who beat them, who dealt drugs, who killed others, who did all manner of unspeakable acts and illegal acts - and grew up to be decent people anyway? </p><p> </p><p>If all it takes is having treated PTSD to make a child choose bad behavior, my kids are all totally sh** out of luck, because their mom has a LOT more wrong than that - adult grandchild of an alcoholic, sibling of an alcoholic, aspie tendencies, sensory problems, raised by an undx'd aspie, raised by a mother who lost her own mom when she was a child, and I could go on so much more. So could many of us.</p><p> </p><p>The bottom line is this. You love your son and have loved him every day of his life. You did the best you could with the tools and knowledge you had at the time. You looked HARD for new and better tools and knowledge all the time, and each time you had better tools/knowledge, you used those to raise him. </p><p> </p><p>At NO TIME did you EVER wake up and ask yourself, "What can I do today to mess my child up in the absolute worst way possible?"</p><p> </p><p>It is time to work on forgiving yourself. To let yourself off the hook. You really didn't cause all of difficult child's problems, or anyone else's. I promise.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="susiestar, post: 377068, member: 1233"] I am not entirely sure I understand your thinking on this. Basically you are saying that because of your PTSD, you were a bad mother and difficult child interpreted all of the times that you reacted strongly to things he did in a way that said he was bad. That difficult child thinks he is bad, and then made bad choices, based primarily on the unspoken messages that you sent him because of your PTSD. You are going WAY overboard. Take a few steps back. Yes, having PTSD in all likelihood did color your actions and reactiong to things that happened at you raised difficult child. It may even have had a big part to play. NO, your PTSD after treatment did NOT cause your son to ignore all rules you set, to begin smoking at around age 12 and stealing cigarrettes from you, it did not cause him to steal your credit card and use it. Your treated PTSD did not make him think he was such an amazing person that he deserved everything he wanted. And THAT is what his behavior said. It said I want this and you better get it for me because I deserve it and am going to make you miserable, steal, destroy property, etc... if you don't let me do what I want. Your treated PTSD is not the reason he held a knife up at you and threatened you, it is NOT the reason he chose to use drugs, drink, sneak out of the house, steal, or do the other things he has done. It is NOT the reason he cut the pants you were wearing to steal the money you needed to pay to keep food on the table. Selfishness, entitlement and HIS OWN CHOICES did those things. Just like my brother did NOT beat me because my mother had not dealt with the things she learned from her alcoholic father, he did NOT use the threat of molestation to make me behave because my father is an untreated Aspie (want to talk about some strange messages passed on to kids? Have an aspie for a parent!). Bro did NOTtry to sell me in exchange for a 6 pack because our mother had untreated PTSD from all the years of living with an alcoholic father after he mother died and many other close relatives died in the next decade, all before we were born. I have known you for a couple of years. I KNOW that you are, and were, a dang fine mother! You did ALL that you could to love, protect, and cherish your son while teaching him right from wrong and communicating your values and teaching him personal responsibility, even when a lot of really stupid or sick or just foolish others tried to put all the blame for everything that happened since the second of his birth on your shoulders. You did NOTHING to purposely convey to your son that he was bad, worthless, or otherwise useless. In fact you worked pretty darn hard to convince him of exactly the opposite - and did as good a job as many, and better than some, would do in the exact same situations. There may be things that your PTSD did to influence your behavior. There may be things that being in the military did to influence your behavior. There may be things that being sober most of the time did to influence your behavior. Your son is easily old enough to own the responsibility for his choices. in my opinion that is one thing the judge meant when he said that he would NOT reduce difficult child's charges to misdemeanors after difficult child cut the pockets of the pants you were wearing to steal money from you. The judge was sending a very clear message that difficult child did this, and that difficult child is responsible for doing it, and that he has to pay the consequences. Trying to get ANYONE to let difficult child out of detention is ill advised and likely to do FAR more harm than good to difficult child and to you. It will truly send a message to difficult child that he isn't responsible for ANY of his choices because they were all made because you had ptsd. I know you are struggling very very hard to find some sense and logic in your situation, esp with the bizarre messages the juvenile justice system has thrown at you over and over. Your searching is understandable. It is very hard to accept that there really is not rhyme or reason for what happened to you and difficult child. You got caught in a storm of incompetence on the side of the various people assigned to help guide you and difficult child through this (def attys, GAL, first PO, judge, etc), which collided with the storm of family dysfunction which has told you for years that you are the problem that causes all the bad stuff in the lives of everyone related to you. These storms allowed your difficult child to adopt a common attitude that he can do what he wants and no one can stop him - and he was right. He was able to choose to do some really bad stuff and with-o any support there was no way humanly possible for you to stop him. You truly did all you could. It is really really easy for a researcher to look at some proble, PTSD, adult child of an alcoholic, etc... and find data to support a conclusion that if you have this and get treatment your disease will make you send X message. If you have it and don't get treatment you send Y message. Then they can say that that message will result in bad behavior or good behavior or mowhawks or dang near anything else they want. It truly is not hard to make almost anything seem statistically significant and to write a paper that sounds very believable about it. Did you know that pickles cause cancer? 99 % of Russian soldier who were treated for cancer while in the military ate pickles 2-3 times each day. Sounds like it is worth looking into, esp if you add some more jargon and sciencey sounding sentences. No one tells you that the Russian Army served pickles at every lunch and dinner, and included them in every combat meal. Or that the same % of all soldiers who did NOT have cancer also ate pickles that often. Right now, finding studies like this one, applying them to difficult child, talking about finding a way to get the judge to end his sentence because it is your fault sure seems like you absorbed your family message really really really well - so well that you don't even see how it is behind this. ALL of your life you mother has sent the message that YOU are the problem, that NO ONE in the family would have behavior or other problems if it wasn't for YOU. that no matter what you did or do, how hard you work, how much therapy you have, how many wonderful things you do, how great a friend you are, that YOU are STILL RESPONSIBLE FOR CAUSING ALL THE BAD STUFF. Please. klmno, take a few steps back and see how this is just taking ALL of those HORRIBLE messages from your mom and wrapping yourself in them like a giant blanket on a bitter cold night. YOU ARE NOT THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR THE THINGS YOUR CHILD CHOSE TO DO. YOU ARE NOT THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR WHERE YOUR CHILD IS RIGHT NOW. YOU DID ABSOLUTELY NOTHING AS HIS PARENT THAT CAUSED HIM TO MAKE THE CHOICES HE CHOSE TO MAKE. Please keep telling yourself these things. You were not the perfect parent but you were better than a heck of a lot of them that I know of. You didn't drink yourself under the table every day, or even just often enough to become and alcoholic, you didn't beat him senseless every time he looked at you, you didn't make him starve, or wear rags, or in any other way abuse him. You are a good mom. If you take responsibility for his choices, it leaves him totally able to walk out of juvie, do whatever he wants, and tell everyone that it is YOU they should go after. IF all it takes to destroy a child is to have major PTSD that you get treatment for, how do we explain all the children who had parents who beat them, who dealt drugs, who killed others, who did all manner of unspeakable acts and illegal acts - and grew up to be decent people anyway? If all it takes is having treated PTSD to make a child choose bad behavior, my kids are all totally sh** out of luck, because their mom has a LOT more wrong than that - adult grandchild of an alcoholic, sibling of an alcoholic, aspie tendencies, sensory problems, raised by an undx'd aspie, raised by a mother who lost her own mom when she was a child, and I could go on so much more. So could many of us. The bottom line is this. You love your son and have loved him every day of his life. You did the best you could with the tools and knowledge you had at the time. You looked HARD for new and better tools and knowledge all the time, and each time you had better tools/knowledge, you used those to raise him. At NO TIME did you EVER wake up and ask yourself, "What can I do today to mess my child up in the absolute worst way possible?" It is time to work on forgiving yourself. To let yourself off the hook. You really didn't cause all of difficult child's problems, or anyone else's. I promise. [/QUOTE]
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