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<blockquote data-quote="Kathy813" data-source="post: 656403" data-attributes="member: 1967"><p>Wow, so many wonderful, wise responses. Wendy, your sons are following the Difficult Child rulebook. Threats of suicide are a very common method that they use to manipulate and guilt us into doing what they want. My Difficult Child used to do it on a regular basis.</p><p></p><p>The less you let it bother you the less likely he is to use it. No one can promise you that he won't really kill himself but you need to remember that he can kill himself just as easily by an accidental overdose with the drugs he can buy if you give him the money.</p><p></p><p>Just a warning . . . in my state, it is <u>not</u> illegal to threaten to commit suicide. I would call the police and they would come to my house and tell me that there was nothing that they could do if it was just a threat and I was the only person that she said it to. There had to be at least one other witness or she actually had to hurt herself . . . how screwed up is that.</p><p></p><p>Therapy really helped me be able to detach from my Difficult Child's chaos and substance abuse. As COM said in an earlier post, I chose to separate my life from hers and her life choices. At this point, I have cut all communication with her until I see a real change in her behavior. Her words mean nothing to me.</p><p></p><p>Your son(s) will up the ante the more that you detach. I liken it to training a puppy. There is something called extinction training where the dog will get more and more frantic trying to get you do what it wants until it finally realizes it won't work. It is called an extinction burst. Each time that you give in and reward the bad behavior you have to start the entire cycle over again.</p><p></p><p>You are actually helping your sons by not rewarding the bad behavior but they won't see it that way and will try to figure out ways to make you give in. That is where setting boundaries becomes so important. It may take cutting off all contact for a little while or practicing the sayings that COM mentioned.</p><p></p><p>It is time for you to let go and start living your own life. Start building up your savings again and don't give them another penny.</p><p></p><p>We understand because every one of us have been in your shoes and made the same mistakes. It took years for most of us to get to this point of detachment. Start with baby steps and you will get there, too.</p><p></p><p>~Kathy</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Kathy813, post: 656403, member: 1967"] Wow, so many wonderful, wise responses. Wendy, your sons are following the Difficult Child rulebook. Threats of suicide are a very common method that they use to manipulate and guilt us into doing what they want. My Difficult Child used to do it on a regular basis. The less you let it bother you the less likely he is to use it. No one can promise you that he won't really kill himself but you need to remember that he can kill himself just as easily by an accidental overdose with the drugs he can buy if you give him the money. Just a warning . . . in my state, it is [U]not[/U] illegal to threaten to commit suicide. I would call the police and they would come to my house and tell me that there was nothing that they could do if it was just a threat and I was the only person that she said it to. There had to be at least one other witness or she actually had to hurt herself . . . how screwed up is that. Therapy really helped me be able to detach from my Difficult Child's chaos and substance abuse. As COM said in an earlier post, I chose to separate my life from hers and her life choices. At this point, I have cut all communication with her until I see a real change in her behavior. Her words mean nothing to me. Your son(s) will up the ante the more that you detach. I liken it to training a puppy. There is something called extinction training where the dog will get more and more frantic trying to get you do what it wants until it finally realizes it won't work. It is called an extinction burst. Each time that you give in and reward the bad behavior you have to start the entire cycle over again. You are actually helping your sons by not rewarding the bad behavior but they won't see it that way and will try to figure out ways to make you give in. That is where setting boundaries becomes so important. It may take cutting off all contact for a little while or practicing the sayings that COM mentioned. It is time for you to let go and start living your own life. Start building up your savings again and don't give them another penny. We understand because every one of us have been in your shoes and made the same mistakes. It took years for most of us to get to this point of detachment. Start with baby steps and you will get there, too. ~Kathy [/QUOTE]
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