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Parent Emeritus
Moving toward grief and depression
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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 757554" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>This is my quandary in a nutshell. I long to love my son and to be near him. However my real son is not a person I enjoy being around. </p><p></p><p>This creates cognitive dissonance, because the two realities cannot be reconciled. </p><p></p><p>1.<em>I want to be with my son, who I love.</em></p><p></p><p>2. <em>When I am with him, I am sad, frustrated, mad, and feel abused (because he behaves in ways</em> I don't like.)</p><p></p><p>The challenge for each of us is to find a rational way to reconcile these two dissonant cognitions. </p><p></p><p>We arrive to this board, in the weeds. I will speak of my own situation. The way I was trying to reconcile the two cognitions was to change him and his life, by X ing out the part of #2 which is in parens. If I can just get him to act better I could feel better, and not be sad, mad, etc. Life would be restored and I would feel whole.</p><p></p><p>I am here to tell you that doesn't work.</p><p></p><p>The very difficult challenge here is to find a way to love and to be realistically protected. The best I have come to is this:</p><p></p><p><em>I want to be with my son who I love when and if he chooses to treat me with loving respect. I feel sad that for now we are not able to be together. I will pray for that day to come. </em></p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 757554, member: 18958"] This is my quandary in a nutshell. I long to love my son and to be near him. However my real son is not a person I enjoy being around. This creates cognitive dissonance, because the two realities cannot be reconciled. 1.[I]I want to be with my son, who I love.[/I] 2. [I]When I am with him, I am sad, frustrated, mad, and feel abused (because he behaves in ways[/I] I don't like.) The challenge for each of us is to find a rational way to reconcile these two dissonant cognitions. We arrive to this board, in the weeds. I will speak of my own situation. The way I was trying to reconcile the two cognitions was to change him and his life, by X ing out the part of #2 which is in parens. If I can just get him to act better I could feel better, and not be sad, mad, etc. Life would be restored and I would feel whole. I am here to tell you that doesn't work. The very difficult challenge here is to find a way to love and to be realistically protected. The best I have come to is this: [I]I want to be with my son who I love when and if he chooses to treat me with loving respect. I feel sad that for now we are not able to be together. I will pray for that day to come. [/I] [/QUOTE]
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Moving toward grief and depression
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