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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 603614" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>Sweetdixie, welcome. I believe you've done the right thing. You do not deserve to be treated the way your son treats you, it is abusive. Enabling is pervasive and difficult to stop because it gets confused with love, but it is <em>not love,</em> it hurts everyone. I am glad you have an appointment with a counselor, most of us require professional help in order to learn how to detach from our adult children. You may want to read the article on detachment at the bottom of my post.</p><p></p><p>For many of us there comes a dramatic moment, such as the one you've just experienced with your son, where WE reach the end of our rope. We finally come to grips with the reality of our children and their abusive, negative, violent, unhealthy ways. It is time to change. Change is challenging on us humans, for the most part we are hard wired to resist change. In this particular case, with detachment, it involves our children and our love for them, so we have to make clear distinctions as to what enabling is and how do we stop it. You might try going to a Codependents anonymous meeting, or an al-anon meeting, 12 step groups can be very helpful and provide you with support and tools to change. </p><p></p><p>You cannot change your son. You can only change yourself. You can learn to respond differently and not respond when the situation requires that. You must learn to set clear and unbreakable boundaries that you stick to so that your son will know exactly what is expected of him and how you want to be treated. You've trained him to treat you a certain way by allowing his bad behavior, now you have to re-train him. People treat us the way we allow them to, and you've been doing this a long time, both of you are stuck in a negative pattern which is going to require work on your part to change. You will have to do the work, most often our kids don't do anything but respond to the boundaries we set forth. They have no catalyst to change, they use manipulation to get what they want. </p><p></p><p>All of that sadness and fear you are feeling is normal. Of course you would feel that. You've taken care of all of his needs for his whole life, now he will have to man-up and take care of himself. You will be surprised at how resourceful our kids turn out to be, they always land on their feet. Now is the time to take care of YOU. One of the most important and destructive components of enablers is that they focus all their energy outside of themselves, onto another, they often forget how to take care of themselves and their own needs. Part of the healing process is to shift the focus off of your son and place it onto yourself where it belongs. Find out what it is that makes YOU happy. Ask yourself what it is that YOU want. Explore these issues in your counseling appointments.</p><p></p><p>I found that placing myself in supportive environments as often as possible made this process of detaching much more comfortable and I believe shortened my suffering. I would suggest you not only go to counseling often, but go to those 12 step meetings, read books, find out if there are family anonymous groups or some kind of parent groups for you to attend. The more support you have the better you will feel and the stronger you will be so you can continue to make the tough decisions that are required for you to change this unhealthy, dysfunctional pattern you have going with your son.</p><p></p><p>You did not cause this, you cannot control it and you can't fix it. Much of what we feel is powerlessness and in order to stop that awful feeling we continue jumping in to save our children. We have to be strong enough to ride out those feelings so we can get to the other side and learn how to accept what we cannot change. This is a process. It takes time. It is NOT easy. But you can do it, you can find peace and get to a place where you can once again enjoy your life in spite of what your son, or anyone else in your life is doing or not doing. I suggest you continue posting here, it helps a lot and there are many who completely 'get' what you are going through.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 603614, member: 13542"] Sweetdixie, welcome. I believe you've done the right thing. You do not deserve to be treated the way your son treats you, it is abusive. Enabling is pervasive and difficult to stop because it gets confused with love, but it is [I]not love,[/I] it hurts everyone. I am glad you have an appointment with a counselor, most of us require professional help in order to learn how to detach from our adult children. You may want to read the article on detachment at the bottom of my post. For many of us there comes a dramatic moment, such as the one you've just experienced with your son, where WE reach the end of our rope. We finally come to grips with the reality of our children and their abusive, negative, violent, unhealthy ways. It is time to change. Change is challenging on us humans, for the most part we are hard wired to resist change. In this particular case, with detachment, it involves our children and our love for them, so we have to make clear distinctions as to what enabling is and how do we stop it. You might try going to a Codependents anonymous meeting, or an al-anon meeting, 12 step groups can be very helpful and provide you with support and tools to change. You cannot change your son. You can only change yourself. You can learn to respond differently and not respond when the situation requires that. You must learn to set clear and unbreakable boundaries that you stick to so that your son will know exactly what is expected of him and how you want to be treated. You've trained him to treat you a certain way by allowing his bad behavior, now you have to re-train him. People treat us the way we allow them to, and you've been doing this a long time, both of you are stuck in a negative pattern which is going to require work on your part to change. You will have to do the work, most often our kids don't do anything but respond to the boundaries we set forth. They have no catalyst to change, they use manipulation to get what they want. All of that sadness and fear you are feeling is normal. Of course you would feel that. You've taken care of all of his needs for his whole life, now he will have to man-up and take care of himself. You will be surprised at how resourceful our kids turn out to be, they always land on their feet. Now is the time to take care of YOU. One of the most important and destructive components of enablers is that they focus all their energy outside of themselves, onto another, they often forget how to take care of themselves and their own needs. Part of the healing process is to shift the focus off of your son and place it onto yourself where it belongs. Find out what it is that makes YOU happy. Ask yourself what it is that YOU want. Explore these issues in your counseling appointments. I found that placing myself in supportive environments as often as possible made this process of detaching much more comfortable and I believe shortened my suffering. I would suggest you not only go to counseling often, but go to those 12 step meetings, read books, find out if there are family anonymous groups or some kind of parent groups for you to attend. The more support you have the better you will feel and the stronger you will be so you can continue to make the tough decisions that are required for you to change this unhealthy, dysfunctional pattern you have going with your son. You did not cause this, you cannot control it and you can't fix it. Much of what we feel is powerlessness and in order to stop that awful feeling we continue jumping in to save our children. We have to be strong enough to ride out those feelings so we can get to the other side and learn how to accept what we cannot change. This is a process. It takes time. It is NOT easy. But you can do it, you can find peace and get to a place where you can once again enjoy your life in spite of what your son, or anyone else in your life is doing or not doing. I suggest you continue posting here, it helps a lot and there are many who completely 'get' what you are going through. [/QUOTE]
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