The holidays are coming soon and I have always invited my difficult child for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinner, however,this year we have a clear disconnect in place where I've requested she please keep away until she has a job and is in some kind of counseling. That's been working as well as can be expected, I haven't floundered. On occasion we communicate briefly via email, so sometimes I know she is okay. The rest of the time I have no idea what is going on with her. It's been a real practice to just let it all go and not dwell on her and her life, but I've done well with it.
So here come the holidays. Do I invite her for the holidays? Do they override the disconnect? Her birthday is Dec. 4th, how do I handle that too? I talked to SO and he said, "well maybe by then she will have a job or be in therapy." But, if she isn't, do I leave her out there alone on holidays? Yikes, that hurts my heart a lot. I don't think my SO and granddaughter want her here, although I haven't asked them about their feelings, but it's usually negative. I'll ask them about that. If they don't want her to come over for dinner and be with us for those 3 days, Thanksgiving, her birthday and Christmas, geez, I already feel weird about it. My heart would be very heavy knowing we are all together and inside a circle of love and family and she would be outside and left out. Everyone has abandoned her and I know that isn't my fault nor anything I can do anything about, AND, sometimes it's been because of her own actions, but sometimes it hasn't. I also know she isn't as big of a 'mush head' as me so she doesn't experience things in the same way, she's tougher than I am in that way. Am I exaggerating this? I don't know. Any thoughts? What do you do on holidays with your 'detached' difficult child's? I don't know what to do. Any help or suggestions, experiences, insights or ideas would be appreciated.
I do really well for the most part and then every once in awhile, this all hits me in a certain way and it just hurts ...............it's amazing how deep a mothers love really does go, the depth is incalculable and in these cases, with our difficult child's the sorrow can be harrowing. Sigh.............I know many of you understand this in ways we all wish we didn't. Thanks for being there............
So here come the holidays. Do I invite her for the holidays? Do they override the disconnect? Her birthday is Dec. 4th, how do I handle that too? I talked to SO and he said, "well maybe by then she will have a job or be in therapy." But, if she isn't, do I leave her out there alone on holidays? Yikes, that hurts my heart a lot. I don't think my SO and granddaughter want her here, although I haven't asked them about their feelings, but it's usually negative. I'll ask them about that. If they don't want her to come over for dinner and be with us for those 3 days, Thanksgiving, her birthday and Christmas, geez, I already feel weird about it. My heart would be very heavy knowing we are all together and inside a circle of love and family and she would be outside and left out. Everyone has abandoned her and I know that isn't my fault nor anything I can do anything about, AND, sometimes it's been because of her own actions, but sometimes it hasn't. I also know she isn't as big of a 'mush head' as me so she doesn't experience things in the same way, she's tougher than I am in that way. Am I exaggerating this? I don't know. Any thoughts? What do you do on holidays with your 'detached' difficult child's? I don't know what to do. Any help or suggestions, experiences, insights or ideas would be appreciated.
I do really well for the most part and then every once in awhile, this all hits me in a certain way and it just hurts ...............it's amazing how deep a mothers love really does go, the depth is incalculable and in these cases, with our difficult child's the sorrow can be harrowing. Sigh.............I know many of you understand this in ways we all wish we didn't. Thanks for being there............