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Narcissistic Parents/Investment in success, performance of kids
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<blockquote data-quote="Scent of Cedar *" data-source="post: 666694" data-attributes="member: 17461"><p>Yes.</p><p></p><p>I still do that.</p><p></p><p>That is the essence of the harm in the spiral of enabling we get into when a child fails to launch.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>So, for us, and for the kids who are trapped in something awful, everything will be magnified. They don't launch successfully. We feel guilty, feel it was our parenting. We recommit to the parenting role because unless we do, the child will be endangered.</p><p></p><p>For those of us whose kids are addicted or who are ill physically or emotionally, there are a thousand missteps. It goes against everything we are not to help. Helping spirals into enabling and then, we are all in trouble. </p><p></p><p>How sad, for all of us.</p><p></p><p>The key here has to be to believe in the kids. To let go and go on and believe they will come through or they won't. Which is a hellish place to be.</p><p></p><p>But helping isn't helping.</p><p></p><p>We do need to recognize how complex our family situations are. We need to find compassion for all of us. (I am still thinking about the way I was seeing my son and my daughter, too.) Their situations are difficult, but they can do it.</p><p></p><p>I don't know how, and neither do they.</p><p></p><p>But I do know they have a better chance if they believe in themselves, if they believe in the adults that they are. Pretty impossible to do that when there is addiction or mental illness.</p><p></p><p>Nonetheless, for their own sakes, letting go is what we have to do.</p><p></p><p>Crucially, I think, we need to reflect to them that we have faith in them, in the core selves that they are, to create whatever life they want to. To whatever degree it is that a parent's interpretation of who we are informs our own interpretation of who we are, that is the thing we can do.</p><p></p><p>And nothing else.</p><p></p><p>No enabling.</p><p></p><p>That turns really ugly, really fast because it destroys the child's belief in self efficacy.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Encouragement, support, and affection.</p><p></p><p>Very nice.</p><p></p><p>Emotional hunger...I don't know how that fits in when a child is in danger. I see the difference in intensity of every negative emotion when our children are self destructing. I agree that emotional hunger is active in long term enabling. The other side is: how is it possible to stay steady state when the kids are in real danger?</p><p></p><p>That is what we are learning here: to detach from the overwhelming emotional punch of addicted kids; to stay steady state is a very hard thing to learn when they have been so hurt, and what you want to do is save them.</p><p></p><p>Ouch.</p><p></p><p>That's what we have to do though. We are learning now how to do that without blaming the kids for where they are in their lives. I am learning that. It's a very hard thing to see how these threads got so tangled. Again, I am thinking about Serenity's article on flexibility versus role rigidity.</p><p></p><p>Flexible is good. I think we are accomplishing adopting that concept of role flexibility. In refusing to parent inappropriately (money, advice, judging the kids for where they are or are not) we will come into acceptance. Remember when we thought we were losing daughter. All that stuff was gone, in an instant. I just loved that I knew her; loved and was so grateful she had been part of my life.</p><p></p><p>We can do that without losing the child.</p><p></p><p>That is the gold standard.</p><p></p><p>To love them (and ourselves) like we were losing them.</p><p></p><p>And, not to enable.</p><p></p><p>Because no one can do enabling over time without judging the person we are helping.</p><p></p><p>Not even a mom.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Which is what I do, in devoting everything in me to pulling one of the kids out of whatever it is they are into. But again, how do you just let a kid go? You don't. So, I need to stop berating myself about enabling. The harm in enabling is in the patterns established over time and in how those patterns convince us we are. All of us in a family. Everybody's concept of self and other changes. We forget to remember who each of us was before the trouble came for all of us.</p><p></p><p>It was right to do every single thing to have changed the course of events. The thing for us to remember, in defining ourselves and our kids, to ourselves and to them, is that addiction or illness pretty much mandate wild fluctuations in every member of a family. Daughter's problems did affect son. Not just in how I was affected, but in the very real ways the family emphasis on daughter relegated him to a different status in the family.</p><p></p><p>He was abandoned.</p><p></p><p>We were all right there, but everything was sad, and so desperate.</p><p></p><p>***</p><p></p><p>It is right to change course. Which we are doing, all the parents here, as we compare notes on successful outcome.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes.</p><p></p><p>That is me.</p><p></p><p>A mess.</p><p></p><p>:O)</p><p></p><p>Just a glorious, messy human after all.</p><p></p><p>Like we all are.</p><p></p><p>Now that I know that, that is what I am telling my kids, too.</p><p></p><p>I don't know. That is what it means, to say: I don't know. I love you. I like you alot. I miss you. I want you. It's fun to be with you. I don't know what to say about how to do this ~ about how to live a life. But here is the difference, now: I don't feel like a failure as a person and as a parent anymore, when I feel that way.</p><p></p><p>I feel like a human.</p><p></p><p>How cool is that?</p><p></p><p>So now, they can just be that flexible, questioning, sometimes feeling good and sometimes, feeling really bad human, too.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Oh boy, I hate this.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Yes.</p><p></p><p>But I still say I really did love being a mom. I still do. And a grandma. And a wife and etc. When troubles came. That's when I fell into all those negatives from my childhood. I could not see then that troubles come to us all. I felt guilty. That was appropriate, in the beginning. If there was something I needed to address, it was correct to look for it. </p><p></p><p>I like the way I am seeing now. I did respond correctly. Until I had tried everything I knew, I could not believe in detachment theory. While I read "detach from your child", I would not consider that detachment was valid. I now understand detachment to mean "detach from emotional flashback".</p><p></p><p>That has made all the difference.</p><p></p><p>But I really did have to try, and I did.</p><p></p><p>It is the spiral into enabling and the changed concepts of self and other it results in that is the problem, now. </p><p></p><p>So, that's a little bit of a sticky nastiness.</p><p></p><p>Ew.</p><p></p><p>That's okay. I would rather see it than not, for sure.</p><p></p><p>Just me. Just human me. Just human daughter and son and grands and D H.</p><p></p><p>My mom, and sister too, still get to be poops.</p><p></p><p>Whether they can see what they are doing or not, I do. And I don't much care for it.</p><p></p><p>roar</p><p></p><p>Where is that James Cagney clip.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Okay, so this would be me, right? That doesn't ring true. Though I will admit there was a mom who led my Brownie troop that I so admired and felt safe with. She was the reason I wanted to be a Brownie and Cub den mother.</p><p></p><p>I wanted to be that mom.</p><p></p><p>And I wanted to be that mom one of my friends had, when I was little. She was so calm and sweet. Their home was clean and welcoming, and no one cared if we made a mess.</p><p></p><p>I wanted to be that mom, too.</p><p></p><p>It's the same thing I'm still doing, if you think about it. I am wanting to be a good mom. I am learning still, how to do that.</p><p></p><p>In secret? I am proud of myself. Except for the part where the kids are so troubled. What I am learning now about being a good mom is that what adult kids need is a mom who believes that, whatever it is, they will handle it well. That good things and bad things come to all of us and that, most of the time, we all are flying by the seats of our pants and that is okay.</p><p></p><p>Human.</p><p></p><p>That feels very right to me, based on what I have learned in my life. Which is: Not to condemn ourselves when things don't turn out as we'd hoped. That was the path that messed me up. My mom's condemnation, the condemnation of that first therapist (which he should have clarified and etc). The brokenness that was already in me. But given all those things, we all did handle ourselves very well. I liked that definition of family President Obama repeated in his State of the Union address: Ours is a strong, loving family coming through challenging times.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>This is what D H says about son. This is what I had to take a look at when son did not choose education. Roar. I am still mad about that.</p><p></p><p>So we see where I have to work, then.</p><p></p><p><span style="font-size: 9px">roar</span></p><p> </p><p>Cedar</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Scent of Cedar *, post: 666694, member: 17461"] Yes. I still do that. That is the essence of the harm in the spiral of enabling we get into when a child fails to launch. So, for us, and for the kids who are trapped in something awful, everything will be magnified. They don't launch successfully. We feel guilty, feel it was our parenting. We recommit to the parenting role because unless we do, the child will be endangered. For those of us whose kids are addicted or who are ill physically or emotionally, there are a thousand missteps. It goes against everything we are not to help. Helping spirals into enabling and then, we are all in trouble. How sad, for all of us. The key here has to be to believe in the kids. To let go and go on and believe they will come through or they won't. Which is a hellish place to be. But helping isn't helping. We do need to recognize how complex our family situations are. We need to find compassion for all of us. (I am still thinking about the way I was seeing my son and my daughter, too.) Their situations are difficult, but they can do it. I don't know how, and neither do they. But I do know they have a better chance if they believe in themselves, if they believe in the adults that they are. Pretty impossible to do that when there is addiction or mental illness. Nonetheless, for their own sakes, letting go is what we have to do. Crucially, I think, we need to reflect to them that we have faith in them, in the core selves that they are, to create whatever life they want to. To whatever degree it is that a parent's interpretation of who we are informs our own interpretation of who we are, that is the thing we can do. And nothing else. No enabling. That turns really ugly, really fast because it destroys the child's belief in self efficacy. Encouragement, support, and affection. Very nice. Emotional hunger...I don't know how that fits in when a child is in danger. I see the difference in intensity of every negative emotion when our children are self destructing. I agree that emotional hunger is active in long term enabling. The other side is: how is it possible to stay steady state when the kids are in real danger? That is what we are learning here: to detach from the overwhelming emotional punch of addicted kids; to stay steady state is a very hard thing to learn when they have been so hurt, and what you want to do is save them. Ouch. That's what we have to do though. We are learning now how to do that without blaming the kids for where they are in their lives. I am learning that. It's a very hard thing to see how these threads got so tangled. Again, I am thinking about Serenity's article on flexibility versus role rigidity. Flexible is good. I think we are accomplishing adopting that concept of role flexibility. In refusing to parent inappropriately (money, advice, judging the kids for where they are or are not) we will come into acceptance. Remember when we thought we were losing daughter. All that stuff was gone, in an instant. I just loved that I knew her; loved and was so grateful she had been part of my life. We can do that without losing the child. That is the gold standard. To love them (and ourselves) like we were losing them. And, not to enable. Because no one can do enabling over time without judging the person we are helping. Not even a mom. Which is what I do, in devoting everything in me to pulling one of the kids out of whatever it is they are into. But again, how do you just let a kid go? You don't. So, I need to stop berating myself about enabling. The harm in enabling is in the patterns established over time and in how those patterns convince us we are. All of us in a family. Everybody's concept of self and other changes. We forget to remember who each of us was before the trouble came for all of us. It was right to do every single thing to have changed the course of events. The thing for us to remember, in defining ourselves and our kids, to ourselves and to them, is that addiction or illness pretty much mandate wild fluctuations in every member of a family. Daughter's problems did affect son. Not just in how I was affected, but in the very real ways the family emphasis on daughter relegated him to a different status in the family. He was abandoned. We were all right there, but everything was sad, and so desperate. *** It is right to change course. Which we are doing, all the parents here, as we compare notes on successful outcome. Yes. That is me. A mess. :O) Just a glorious, messy human after all. Like we all are. Now that I know that, that is what I am telling my kids, too. I don't know. That is what it means, to say: I don't know. I love you. I like you alot. I miss you. I want you. It's fun to be with you. I don't know what to say about how to do this ~ about how to live a life. But here is the difference, now: I don't feel like a failure as a person and as a parent anymore, when I feel that way. I feel like a human. How cool is that? So now, they can just be that flexible, questioning, sometimes feeling good and sometimes, feeling really bad human, too. Oh boy, I hate this. Yes. But I still say I really did love being a mom. I still do. And a grandma. And a wife and etc. When troubles came. That's when I fell into all those negatives from my childhood. I could not see then that troubles come to us all. I felt guilty. That was appropriate, in the beginning. If there was something I needed to address, it was correct to look for it. I like the way I am seeing now. I did respond correctly. Until I had tried everything I knew, I could not believe in detachment theory. While I read "detach from your child", I would not consider that detachment was valid. I now understand detachment to mean "detach from emotional flashback". That has made all the difference. But I really did have to try, and I did. It is the spiral into enabling and the changed concepts of self and other it results in that is the problem, now. So, that's a little bit of a sticky nastiness. Ew. That's okay. I would rather see it than not, for sure. Just me. Just human me. Just human daughter and son and grands and D H. My mom, and sister too, still get to be poops. Whether they can see what they are doing or not, I do. And I don't much care for it. roar Where is that James Cagney clip. Okay, so this would be me, right? That doesn't ring true. Though I will admit there was a mom who led my Brownie troop that I so admired and felt safe with. She was the reason I wanted to be a Brownie and Cub den mother. I wanted to be that mom. And I wanted to be that mom one of my friends had, when I was little. She was so calm and sweet. Their home was clean and welcoming, and no one cared if we made a mess. I wanted to be that mom, too. It's the same thing I'm still doing, if you think about it. I am wanting to be a good mom. I am learning still, how to do that. In secret? I am proud of myself. Except for the part where the kids are so troubled. What I am learning now about being a good mom is that what adult kids need is a mom who believes that, whatever it is, they will handle it well. That good things and bad things come to all of us and that, most of the time, we all are flying by the seats of our pants and that is okay. Human. That feels very right to me, based on what I have learned in my life. Which is: Not to condemn ourselves when things don't turn out as we'd hoped. That was the path that messed me up. My mom's condemnation, the condemnation of that first therapist (which he should have clarified and etc). The brokenness that was already in me. But given all those things, we all did handle ourselves very well. I liked that definition of family President Obama repeated in his State of the Union address: Ours is a strong, loving family coming through challenging times. This is what D H says about son. This is what I had to take a look at when son did not choose education. Roar. I am still mad about that. So we see where I have to work, then. [SIZE=1]roar[/SIZE] Cedar [/QUOTE]
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