letting go

Jena

New Member
i've been here for a while now, i've seen so many parents go through it and would try to be supportive and say it'll be ok, and find the light at the end of the tunnel for them cause that's what we do here, power in numbers all that good stuff! Yet odd thing is i thought id' be here with difficult child, not easy child! Yet it's easy child whose doing me in. Could things be worse, ofcourse they can always be worse. I laugh each time i say that it gets worse lol. :)

It dawned upon me as I stood in my bathroom smoking a cigarette (yes I haven't quit yet), that my feelings have changed for easy child, that there comes a time when as parents we just gotta let go and have some hope and faith in what we have tried to teach them, that sooner or later they will prevail. it's the whole horse water thing, ya know? especially when their older teens and dont' have a strong diagnosis.

Now i'm not saying open the door at home and toss them, yet at point i'm at i have services in, i didn't waste anytime doing so. I have private therapy set up, i have made alot of changes at home consequence after consequence regarding her behaviors (always did that; alot of good it did lol), and still have to handle her being with a boy who is bad news and i strongly believe has given her the fuel she needed to become who she is today.

So, i pay for the private therapist, and i deal with the in home services and still she is disrespectful, and hateful, hurtful and intolerant to anyone else that lives here besides herself her needs, wants and desires. She is already having sex and continues to do so without being on the pill and is truly making some really bad choices. Yet difference is she'll be 17 on her next birthday.

as i stand today listening to her put me down, insult who i am, the parent i've been to her, mistakes i've made, on and on it goes. I think you get to a point when you need to preserve your own self and life, the other kids in the family who are negatively affected. that's kinda where i'm at, self preservation mode. yea i'll still pay for therapy and drive an hour to get her there, i'll sit with the ppl who come to our home yet at the end of the day the feelings have changed. i never thought it could but today it did surprisingly. yea i love her, but the connections different now.

so odd. anyone else go through the disconnect and how did you cope through it??? ah... my happy posts!! :)
 
((( ))) Jena, I can relate a lot to your share. My difficult child is 16. She has not lived here since July . I have let go a lot I l tell her I love her daily but I really, really am takng much better care of me. I got to all the tdocs to maintian the limits with her:she does not go. I have gotton amazingloy calm and non-reactive. Compassion
 

Andy

Active Member
Jen, I am sorry! I have gone through that disconnect with Diva. It truly breaks my heart. The memories of a happy child turned to extreme mom hater makes me cry a lot. My Diva has chosen to listen to her "friends" to try to get through life. That doesn't work so well.

I don't have any hard evidence that she has smoked, taken drugs, or has had sex but most of her friends have (3 of her 5 girlfriends have babies). I think I may be in denial if she has - I just can't accept it still if it is true.

The disrespect she shows me and her brother and even sometimes her dad is so incrediably huge. She has fought hard and long to push us out of her life while at the same time trying to convince others that we are having nothing to do with her.

What makes it the worst is when others really fall for her pity party. If her so called adult "friends" would uphold her father and I instead of going along with her stories and whining, she would be a happier person.

Anyway, Diva is now 19 so I have pretty much cut the cord. She has made her stand of where she wants to be and she will have to live with her stupid choices such as discontinuing her education (and she has more resources than most to pay for a college education), not getting a good paying job (you can not live on $2 per hour babysitting when you are over 18 yrs old), and running around all night and into the next morning. Nothing I can do about it.

I thought my pain was intense. I know it does not compare to what you are going through. However, I do understand what you are facing.

All we can do is scream, cry, and pray. They do know what we approve and disapprove of them doing. At a certain point, we just have to stop reminding them.
 

lizzie09

lizzie
Jenna

Nice to see you again but sorry its like this

I had and still have to some degree, issues with my 22yr old easy child son

He never does anything wrong outside or with anyone but can be dismissive
and disrespectful to me at times,,,undermines my role here in the home and the fact that I am not at work outside the home. He has huge time for husband who is often away working or not involved in the day to day living

I dont know if he felt he missed out on anything because of difficult child son PWS 23yr old I dont see how as he was much loved and appreciated and difficult child had no major issues until age 19!!!

I had to practice detachment as learned here..theres a link somewhere.

your daughter is still very young so its harder to detach as she is a minor.
I found myself very deflated at times and lost some confidence but I fought back and now love him dearly as always but have stepped right back from him in lots of ways.. I know he will be fine when he matures a bit

I have no great idea what to do with her as shes so young but you must keep yourself that bit removed from her nasty behaviour....so sorry that
its like this as I know so well what it does to you..

Hows the job????? Its nearly a year since you started after Christmas
 

Jena

New Member
hi guys!

compassion good for you, not an easy thing to do or learn as a parent. It goes against the grain of how we are to treat them, love them, etc.

andy yup i know your struggles and what you have had to go thru. yet you keep pluggin along. i just hope next summer pans out as it's supposed to.

lizzie - hi! good to see you too! yea i'Tourette's Syndrome been a while hasn't it? i was so emeshed with difficult child and lowering her off medications and easy child kicking up.

i'm sorry to hear you still struggle somewhat with yours. it never ends does it? lol funny yet kinda not :)

me, i'm not working was a long story i'll email sometime, yet i was laid off in august right before so and i went to bahamas on vacation. been dealing with kid stuff ever since, my own kid stuff! yea it'll come. easy child's recent attack was due to him and i marrying and picking our wedding date finally. so i feel as though her recent attack was over something trivial, like not being my brides maid. yea ok like id' have her stand beside me in church after all that's gone on and how she really doesn't like me anymore. told her she'd be a bridesmaid along with his daughter. that didnt' go over well. so i got it again from her.

i am detaching, i do basics now food, shelter sort of thing. if i let my guard down i find she comes after me again. as she did today. so walls' are up.
 

lizzie09

lizzie
Almost afraid to say all is well here since the last mood this time last year with difficult child once you are positive things are inclined to go BANG!

Hes just on the stabilizer (Epilim Depakote?) and I have the seroquel at hand for any problems
prn.

It great when ypu get a good spell so hopefully we can manage whatever happens next...I still feel the mood is more due to Prader Willi Syndrome than BiPolar (BP) as he has no low periods at all....I'm not worried what name is on it as we now have some control over symptoms.

Wishing you the best Jena! Hows your little daughter now?

;)
 

Jena

New Member
the youngest is better. it's taken so much work, more than i ever imagined to be honest. one things' for sure this isnt' how i pictured raising kids would be at all. she's tapering off medications, not sure it'll work but she wanted this has worked hard so we are trying to see. she's got alot of stuff though, so it may not work.

i've been pushing super hard past year with her to push her to be strong and resilient to deal with who she is. so, she's in school no accommodations for her at all even though i got the 504 and so far so good. has made friends, i keep pushing the social aspect of it i think that's huge component, keep pumping her up, pushing her to be independent. it hurts though, i still want to keep her little, the mom in me. yet i wont' always be around, so i keep that in my head.

good i'm glad it's calm with you, and yes it is hard because you wait for the sh*t to hit the fan so to speak. it's hard to just ride the waves of calm and appreciate those times, yet i guess it's crucial so we can fill our cup up again to be ready for the next storm.

def not easy. now, my new problem is keeping difficult child away from easy child because easy child is volatile and nasty and verbally abusive to her and me. so it's nto easy with tapering down off medications because difficult child is def argumentative and irritable moreso and she for ten has quite the pair how she instigates arguments with easy child yet when she does she doesn't like the result.
 

Shari

IsItFridayYet?
Even with the typical teens, you go thru this. When they are little, you drive them (or try), directing them to here or away from there.

As they grow, you become more and more like a Garmin on the dash of the car.

Did your own mom agree with all of your choices at that age? Probably not.

I'm not discounting your troubles, just want to point out that even with the best of them, there comes a point in time that you have to step back and let them fly. There also comes a time when the only thing in the world that you can potentially do is offer suggestions and pray that they take them.

easy child 1 was cake and ice cream. I didn't always agree. I made mistakes with him myself, but by 16-17 years old, I considered him to be a "practicing" adult and my role more as a mentor than a program director.

difficult child 1 was a lot tougher. He skirted the law A LOT. But even though it was different, it was the same. When he walked out that door in the morning to go to school, all I could do was pray he'd heard what we'd been teaching. I thought he was going to kill me his 17th year. I could not wait for June 30 (boot camp day). But, by the grace of God and lady luck, we made it, and the older he gets the more ok he is. Do I breathe easy now? Heck no. I can worry myself sick over him and what his future holds. But for now, he's ok, and I don't think past it.

I feel for you. I hated those years so much that I am already dreading easy child 2 and difficult child 2, and they are only 12 and 7. But, most likely, we'll at least survive it.

Sorry you're having a tough time.

Know you are not alone.
 

DammitJanet

Well-Known Member
Shari...you are right.

Jamie wasnt easy. The teen years are heck on wheels even with relatively easy kids. I was ready to duct tape his mouth and ship him UPS to boot camp. It seemed that last year was just horrible. I really think kids are made to be horrible so we arent too upset when they leave us...lol. If they were all sweet and lovely we would be devestated when they left!

With Cory it took so much longer. We were at each others throats for years. It was really bad and by the time he did leave, we were almost not even on speaking terms. Thankfully we did overcome that.
 

Jena

New Member
i know you guys have been thru so much and lived to tell the tale...... i'm learning what pulling down into the pit of your belly is like to muster up strength and i'm amazed at how draining it can be and just trying. the daily verbal attacks, the disconnecting she's done, the name calling to all of us.

and all the while watchinig her slip further and further down and nothing i can do about stopping it and helping her.

i found out last night she took the day after pill 2 days ago. she is so young and making so many mistakes, so much more than i ever made and the worst of it isnt' the mistakes it is like i said seeing her plummet further down and not having any control over being able to help her. it's a messed up feeling. she obviously has no self esteem left at all. it's just real sad.

i thought difficult child was rough, she's a walk in the park compared to this.
 
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