Letter to difficult child

[Landshark]

Virtual hugs. I am on the same path and I've taken strength from your letter.

 

[Childofmine]

I have learned that every incident brings up all the old business.

That is so true. Even as hard as we work, and as much as we progress, and all we have learned and now know and believe, we have to go all the way back to the beginning and remind ourselves of all of it in order to stop doing what comes via our mommy DNA and genetics and the sight of our own child---even a grown one---slumped asleep in a chair at a day shelter.

It is a conscious decision to stop the old behavior and do the new behavior. It is a decision. And that takes energy, and strength, and purpose and support and the sure belief that NO OTHER WAY has done a single thing to help either of us, and at least this way, one of us has experienced some peace.

f you are indeed in the FOG, it is not a step back or 1000 steps back, it is an internal fight to NOT behave in the old ways while the NEW ways attempt to gain strength...........it is a battle going on inside of you which produces the FOG, a place of non action and internal turmoil as your maternal desires clash with the truth of the situation. It is a part of recovery, it is not a relapse, it is actually, in my opinion, a positive progression............even though it feels really bad right now.

I am so glad you wrote that. I was so upset with myself, even at the same time I was trying hard not to stuff down the enormous pain I was feeling, the absolute wrenching loss, and the unrelenting fear and the never ending sadness and the fact that I was so raw and so torn that I felt if you touched my arm it would bleed. That is exactly how I felt for about 18 hours. I still don't understand why that, and why now, but that is the truth of how I felt.

we are sincerely doing the best we know.

I am trying hard to use, every minute, what I have learned and what you have taught me, each of your stories, the same stories as mine, trying the same things I did, and NONE OF IT WORKED.

Because when I am torn and bleeding once again, my weak mind says, well maybe this ISN"T the way after all, maybe I have been wrong for the past four years, because I cannot stand this pain and I have to do SOMETHING to stop it. It's my pain, and I see it, but I still want to do something for him so it will make me feel better. That is exactly what it is about, at that moment.

The situations we all find ourselves in are customized, personalized, exquisitely attuned torture.

Torture is the right word, Cedar. Exquisite torture.

We are not on the field but our children are and they are their own worst enemy.
Who do we go after? Who do we attack? What do we change?
We are powerless.
The child we love more than ourselves is his or her own worst enemy.

I felt like I was frantic, turning and twisting, looking for something, anything to help myself. I was desperate for something.

I wonder if this is how THEY are when they are searching for their next substance. It is an awful feeling.

That is what we are all up against, here.
That genetic imperative to save the child.

Yes, it is embedded in us, we moms.

I have been there so many times with that, with me bleeding all over the place and him worried about whether or not he has enough Doritos for his lunch.

Oh Alb, Yes! It is so stupid when we write it and see it in black and white, but that is me.

I wanted to give you an update since the last time I posted. I went to Al-Anon Thursday night---it was a comedy of errors, but also grace shone through. I was making the pasta salad here, doing household chores, and planned to go to the 6:30 AlAnon meeting. I truly didn't want to go, I just wanted to isolate here in my safe place, alone, but I KNEW I needed to go. I knew it was the next right thing to do, because I have learned that.

So at 6:15 I went to glance at the schedule to see what book would be used, and I saw that the meeting started at 6 instead of 6:30. Oh my gosh, I was going to be really late, so I flew out the door. When I got there one familiar member was standing in the parking lot and she said one other person had come but left because it was just the two of them. I said, well, do you want to have a meeting anyway, just the two of us? Because i really need a meeting. And she said yes, so we went inside and I said, let's call the other person who just left and see if she wants to come back. So I did, and she did, and so we began the meeting a good 35 minutes late.

It was such a gift. The other person is a long-time police officer who is there because of her mother in her late 70s who is addicted to pain pills. The mother lives half the country away. The other person is in a marriage with an active alcoholic, and she goes to 5 meetings a week. I ended up chairing---nobody had signed up---so I said, well if you don't mind if I cry through it all, I will chair.

As the meeting went on, I felt myself quietening inside. I wasn't "okay" but I was better. I was able to talk at length about my situation and my pain and my despair and my shock that difficult child was out of jail NOW and back to the street.

When I left that meeting, I was better. The rest of the evening at home was calmer and I just ate something and watched TV. Went to bed and slept pretty good for about 6 hours.

Friday was an up and down day. I ran as usual, mowed and did the outside work---it was really hot and humid here and I kept feeling weak and dizzy.

difficult child had asked me to pay for his Effexor refill--which meant the $30 copay and the $20 rx. I said I would. I also decided to---he did not ask---to pay his June payment of the minimum $20 on his fines. I also decided to---he did not ask---to give him $2 for two bus trips.

SO and I talked about this at length Friday morning---he was FINALLY back from Chicago and I went over to his house for coffee after running so we talked about it all. He said difficult child was well-taught for years that other people will take care of things so what he sees is difficult child always sitting back and waiting for someone else to take care of things again.

I know I have been and still am a part of that. We talked about my doing these things and also spelling out to difficult child that there will be no more payment on the fines after this---regardless of anything---and no more payment for RX after this.

I wrote it in a letter to difficult child, and took it to the day shelter and dropped it off with the social worker. difficult child came back there whle I was there and so SO and I both saw him for a few minutes. I also told him the same thing. In the letter I said, let's wait and talk to each other again next Thursday (day before the Fourth).

So I was able to live with that. I can really tell myself that I should not have done any of it, and that is very likely 100 percent true. But I couldn't live with that, at that moment, in the state I was in.

But having done that, I can with a clear conscience state that I will not do it again, and I will not. I have vascillated about the fines because if he doesn't pay the minimum of $20 a month then he will have to pay $6000 to get his driver's license reinstated. It may come to that anyway, but I have done all I am going to do on that.

difficult child told easy child that he is going to try to get into a program that is 28 days and then a halfway house for six months---in a big city 30 miles from here. He told easy child that "I don't really need rehab but I do need to start over again and so this would help me do that."
He also told easy child that his court-appointed attorney prepared him to be sentenced to the full four years on Wednesday in court. For some reason, he was reprieved from that, but when I called the court office yesterday and finally got the information, it is written in his sentence that he will serve the full term if arrested again.

So he has a strong deterrent not to re-offend. Who knows if that is enough for him to do something different.

I am much better. I went to another Al-Anon meeting last night at 5. I am going to another today at noon. Another tomorrow at 9 a.m. I am going to go to a string of meetings next week until we go out of town on Thursday for the Fourth weekend.

I am regaining myself.

Part two on next post...

 

[Childofmine]

part two contd.

I still haven't heard from my family of origin, including my sister. I emailed them Wednesday night to say difficult child is out of jail, and that's all I know. SO said this---and it may be true---they have been very supportive of you and your decisions but they may not truly agree with your position on difficult child so they are maintaining some distance themselves.


I am sure, if you have no program and no real experience with this, that is hard to hear of a mother doing all of this that I am doing and have been doing, and then to see difficult child continuing to do the same and worse. On the surface, to others, it looks like the immediate family is doing the wrong thing.


So, I am just letting time take its time with my family. It hurts me that my sister could not even have responded via email to me to say SOMETHING. And that there has been no communication from my mother, my father and my brother.


But right now, I am not going to reach out to them because I am still reeling and I need to regain myself before I can cope with other people and their "stuff", whatever it is. I would not respond well. I know that. So I am just keeping my own counsel with that right now, and it is getting easier. I wanted to force a showdown with my sister desperately on Wednesday night and all day Thursday but I knew and I know that I was mainly putting my own tremendous sense of helplessness onto that situation so I could control SOMETHING. So I didn't do it.


I slept okay last night---woke up multiple times, but immediately said, God, I give him to you. You take him. I can't. Please put your arms around him and keep him safe. I visualized that, and then I went back to sleep. That sounds overly simplistic and I don't know how it worked, but it did. I need sleep right now in order to keep moving forward.


Thank you for bearing witness to me over these days, especially these days. I am trying to be fully present with myself during this time and to somehow learn from this. I am very grateful for your presence, your warmth, your care and concern.

 

[helpangel]

in my opinion just as long as not there by yourself you got enough people to have a meeting. My boss use to argue that and I can appreciate paying for room rental & a respite worker to watch the kids while I met with one mom wasn't best use of the funds but it was grant money designated for that purpose and that one mom who showed up to that meeting came every month and really needed that contact, I was all she had in the world at that moment in time.

It amazes me that the details very different but this internal conflict both of us are going thru is very similar. At this point it's silly for me to try to advise anyone else, just wanted to let you know I'm still here reading along and am amazed at how well you are doing. I'm trying to shed this 1000 layers of heavy armor and find a nice flexible lightweight bullet proof vest to replace it.

sending hugs and positive energy

Nancy

 

[Albatross]

You take him. I can't. Please put your arms around him and keep him safe. I visualized that, and then I went back to sleep. That sounds overly simplistic and I don't know how it worked, but it did.

And it does. I don't know how, but it does.

That was such a beautiful testament to your strength and your ability to reach out to get and give the support you need.

I so hope he does follow through with the 28-day rehab (that he doesn't need) and the rest of it. Just admitting he needs a new start at least leaves a little opening for something to sink in.

 

[Childofmine]

It helps to know we are not alone. You will get through this.

We have to feel the feelings on our own, without anybody else, but just knowing people who truly, truly understand are there, and they are witnesses to our immense pain, and we don't have to overexplain because they already know, such a gift. Such a gift. This board, and Al-Anon, gives me this, and I could not do it without both.

My heart aches for you and your precious son.

Thank you, Echo. I know, my heart aches for you and for each person who spills his pain or her pain on this board about our children. It is so very raw and real and once we are in this life, we can't go back to a life full of posturing and falseness and masks and half-truths. We are looking into the face of true reality, and in this case, the face of Hell, and it changes us forever.

After I got back from the shelter this morning, while I was getting ready for my meeting, difficult child called multiple times and texted multiple times. The issue: The World Cup and where did I think he could watch it, and could he come here to watch it, and then did I have a radio I could loan him to listen to it.
That was a shot to the system. It penetrated the FOG immediately. This, the World Cup he is thinking about, while on the way home from the shelter I was sobbing so hard I could barely see to drive.
I am more upset about him than he is. Never, never, never a good place to be.

I am quoting myself because here, this was seminal for me. This woke me up, and helped me move forward. When we see reality, see a situation for what IT IS, even in a flash, we need to pause and let it penetrate us, because that is where the truth is. That is what we really need to deal with, not our mommy fantasies of woulda, shoulda, coulda. Those keep us stuck.

But it isn't really. It is there, buffering the damage, keeping us from reaching the bottom, speeding us in our return to the surface and clean air.

You were so right and so wise here, Echo. Thank you for telling me that, when I most needed to hear it.

t is an internal fight to NOT behave in the old ways while the NEW ways attempt to gain strength...........it is a battle going on inside of you which produces the FOG, a place of non action and internal turmoil as your maternal desires clash with the truth of the situation. It is a part of recovery, it is not a relapse, it is actually, in my opinion, a positive progression............even though it feels really bad right now.

RE, you too. Thank you. I don't EVER want to not feel my love and my reaching out for my son, because it is truly myself at my most human but it hurts so profoundly to be that real and recognize that reality.

Of course it would, you are looking at the truth and your hope is dying............that is an extremely difficult thing to face and yet, in my experience, we have to face it

Yes, true acceptance, radical acceptance, puts hope aside for a while. It puts the desperate waiting for a sign, any sign, of change, aside, and just accepts life on life's terms, the ugliness, the messiness, the inconsistencies, the intentions but not the actions...all of it. There is still hope, but it is not the focus, for now. I don't know where it goes, but it can't be front and center with radical acceptance. It is in conflict with radical acceptance.

But when our kids go off the rails, by their own choice, we eventually hit a wall called hope which begins to look as if our expectations are NOT going to be met. This is the truth. This is what is. This is an important point in our own healing............ we finally let go, we surrender to what is, we accept............but usually before we do that.............we end up in the FOG, holding on and letting go and holding on and letting go.......and it hurts like the dickens.

I do see this now. I see myself walking, walking, walking through the pain to get to the other side. More steps toward true acceptance, I hope and I pray.

We are all over the place emotionally and the landscape keeps moving keeping us continually shaken. However, it does end COM, it really does..............

I am so much better now. So much better. I am very thankful for your guidance and the fact that you have walked this ahead of me and can show me the way.

now all you can do is...........let go.....

Yes.

just rest COM, rest in the knowledge that this too shall pass and you will be just fine..........and your son will find a way to listen to the World Cup and you will laugh again................I promise.

Yes.

I would like to use a lot of that letter and send to my son.

Please do, Annie, and let's credit Echo with much of the original content.

at least he made it easy in this way, in terms of how much you "should" be worrying about him. Certainly no more than he is worried about himself. I think you should consider this a gift.

It was a gift and it was a wakeup call that penetrated and helped the FOG start to lift, that day.

We all have different types of pain, but all have in common that a beloved child is breaking our hearts, causing us concern on a good day and horrid grief on a bad one. And we all have our caring souls in common, such treasures are these.

Yes.

There is no silence like that one, is there.

It is such a lonely silence. Thank God for you all to walk with me through it.

You are battle weary, Child.

Oh yes, that is such a profound state that I continue to be in. I'm just so very, very, very tired of this. So sick and tired. That is why I am willing to fight for change. That is how we MUST be before we are willing to do the hard, hard work of change on OURSELVES.

*************************************

Just a small update: difficult child just called, in the middle of my writing this post. I had asked him not to call me until today. And he did not, until today. No communication since last Friday. That was very good for me, and I was able, for the most part, to let it all go, and just work on healing myself in this past week, thanks to you, and Al-Anon and time itself.

We had a very nice conversation. I am glad he called.

He was very enthusiastic about all World Cup events. He actually saw the US/Belgium game from someone (who he said just got their disability check)'s hotel room. He talked long and animatedly about Spain, Portugal, Germany, details I don't know much about but I was glad to listen and participate a little bit. He played four years of soccer in h.s. and so he has always been a soccer fan and has always followed the World Cup closely.

Anyway, that gave us a good, neutral conversation topic.

He told me about all of his efforts to get his Effexor, which were many, finally went to the ER and got 7 of them last week and today is getting into a doctor for a visit and to get more. Went to both probations---local and state. Has called a program in a major city 25 miles from here about their 28 day rehab and halfway house program. He said they sounded like it is a possibility and to call them back today after he saw both probations. He said the probation officers said to go there and just have them fax the paperwork.

He said he has also called multiple halfway houses and most of them require a week's deposit before you can go there, so he is pursuing this one first.

I said: Sounds like you are making some progress and that's great.

I also suggested he call the place where he went for rehab (oh, so long ago) that I paid for, because as an alumni they will help and they have a series of halfway houses in another surburban city.

He said: I don't want to be in a halfway house here in this town. But I don't want to be too, too far away either.

I said: I think that is good thinking on your part.

I didn't offer to pay for anything. (I wanted to offer to pay the first week of a halfway house, but I refrained). So, I said, well, I'm glad to hear from you and let's talk next week.

I don't want to read too much into all of this, but it SOUNDS good and promising.

Time will Tell. Like SO always says, we'll know in about two weeks after he's released from jail if anything will be different this time.

I am not going to get all twisted up. I am going to lean in, enjoy my weekend and turn him over to my Higher Power again (and again).

HE Has to walk this path, now. Please pray for me, him and all of us. Thank you, my friends, for just being here. Happy Fourth!

 

[BackintheSaddle]

Hello COM- this is Backinthesaddle (BITS)...I've been quiet for quite a while, trying to find a 'way' for myself in all this pain and loss, but reading on a regular basis...you've helped me in the past so I wanted to reach out to you now to reassure you that all the work you've done isn't lost...it's still there..it's just easier sometimes to revert back to the former 'Mom's we were because our child is right there in front of us, and what else are we supposed to do? I've been reading any book I can find and am really appreciating one called "When Parents Hurt" by Coleman...it's about our situations and something I highlighted in it last night seemed like someting that might remind you or how far you have come and that you may have taken a few steps back but it'll be so much easier this time to move a little forward--

"I have seen the most grounded and healthy of my friends completely undone when faced with their children's ongoing disdain. They find themselves locked into a relationship where the daily message is that there is something really, really screwed up about them. While some parents are able to parry these assaults with relatively little injury, many parents feel bloodied and bruised by the battle."

Seeing your son, him in the same state of mind, was another battle and I'm so sorry he's still in the same place of not wanting to take responsibility for himself. But you can get past this....and I have faith that you will!

 

[Childofmine]

Thank you BITS. I am glad you are here, and I hope you are doing okay and are finding that way you talk about.

I feel off a steep cliff last week but I am so much better today. I feel like I have regained myself and I am out of town for the weekend for a few days, thankfully.

Different scenery. It is good.

I feel like I am grounded and healthy for the most part, but my son can completely undo me still. I don't know if that will ever change and maybe it's a reminder that I am still fully human (with all of the frailties of being human).

I am grateful that he is not mean and verbally abusive for the most part (there have been times!). And he is respecting my stated boundaries right now.

Who knows BITS? I can't know his future and I will always be his mother. But I am today much more focused on my own life than ever before in my life and that is a gift and a blessing. I want to continue to learn how to do that and that is a full time job.

Warm hugs for you. Glad you are here.

 

[tryagain]

COM, just saying hi and checking on my friends here. It sounds like you're doing an astounding job at coping with situations anyone would find overwhelming.

The brave words from you, Recovering, Cedar, Albatross, and the other mainstays here touch me in places deep within.

I needed to read posts telling of strength & bravery today. I had a rough week with difficult child due to her poor judgment and naive outlook. Twice.

Once from her inability to see that when she naively trusts guys to "respect" that she has a boyfriend overseas & invites them over as "pals", they probably don't see it that way and then there is trouble when she rebuffs them. And once from a costly scam while looking for a new apartment mate.

In my case, the binding ropes of difficult child's battle with bipolar demons and recent suicide attempt constrict me. I felt this week that I was caught in that noose, with subsequent tightening the more I mentally struggled to deal with difficult child's maddening lack of judgment & immaturity.

If not for the reminders here to BE PRESENT IN THE MOMENT, the terrors that might occur in the future would surely cause me to wriggle until the noose took its toll.

Thanks, all. Blessings and peace this day!