Hi Elsi, I am so sorry for the stress and worry you are feeling. I have been right where you are so many times, not only for my two daughters, but for my grandchildren. It got to the point where I was so overwhelmed with anxiety, guilt and grief that I had to give it all to my higher power. I felt and still feel so much better after praying for my two to find their true potential, for them to be safe.
There is nothing else I can do.
I have no control over their choices. Their living with me was impossible, they just sank further into darkness and sucked our household in to the chaos of it.
I could not convince them to make better choices, nothing I said or did made a difference.
I did not give up on them, I gave in to the notion that I could fix them.
They have got to have the want and will to live decent lives. From within themselves.
I still have times when my heart just hurts. I think it is important to honor our feelings and let them flow through us. It is a grieving we go through of the hardest kind, because there are so many unanswered questions and thoughts going round and round. I sequester myself in these moments, allowing the grief to to work it’s way to tears and more prayer.
If prayer is not your way, there is meditation. Deep breathing and staying present.
One of our dear members suggested lighting candles for our wayward adult children.
I find that movement helps me, early morning walks when the stars are shining. Gardening and going to the ocean. Posting here helps to work through the fear and worry. Most of all being kind to yourself is so important. It is a hard road we walk and takes so much out of us.
Our adult children have it in them to make better choices. When we house, rescue, shelter them from lifes consequences, we are actually prolonging their issues. Liberating them to stand on their own two feet, to learn from their mistakes, comes from
deep seated love. We are telling them that they are capable to take care of themselves.
We will not be around forever to pick up the pieces.
I nearly erased what I wrote below, lest it offend anyone. Because it comes from a part of me that is angry over the many years I have dealt with this.
There are resources available for our adult kids. Instead, they would lay it all before us. It is grossly unfair to expect ones parents to clean up mess after mess, not lift a finger to help oneself, continue to numb it all away with drugs, or alcohol and excuses. This is not what we taught our kids, and it is not how we would treat our own parents.
Our adult kids would live in comfort off of us indefinitely, if we let them. Whine about their lives, but do nothing to move forward. All that talk about not being capable, the no contact, it feels as if designed to keep us in the fog, worried with frenzied thoughts. Unable to live our lives because we are so sad and fearful for theirs.
I am sorry, Elsi, I don’t mean to sound cold and uncaring. It’s just that our adult kids know how to “poke us in the eye.” Tug away at our heartstrings until
we go right down the rabbit hole with them. Whether it be truly how they feel, or manipulation, or a bit of both, it is heart wrenching for us as parents, and, well, just plain cruel. I am sorry. I have been riding the emotional roller coaster for awhile, just wanting things to change for them.
It would be such a relief if only my two would admit to their addiction, they aren't even in that stage yet.
My getting off the roller coaster cannot be dependent upon their choices. I write this here to remind myself of this.
Our hearts and minds cannot live in them. We have to find ways to get back into ourselves.
I think this is key, not only for us, but for them. We wish for them to find themselves, to be complete. I think our doing this too, is key for both to be well. Maya Angelou wrote that words have power, I think thoughts and emotions do too. I believe we are so interconnected with our children, our stress and worry for them, takes over their responsibility for their choices and consequences. The more we allow it to infect us, the less it does them. I have often gone off the deep end with fretting and handwringing, and it is just another Tuesday for them. This may sound a bit, what is the word? Mystical? There are numerous times where my thoughts have been so intent on my two and one of them will pop up on the radar again. So, I try to think good thoughts, that they are out there finding themselves, that this journey they are on, however painful it is to watch, will one day lead them to their true potential.
I relate it to Eckhart Tolle-
“He stopped studying for his doctorate, and for a period of about two years after this he spent much of his time sitting, “in a state of deep bliss," on park benches in
Russell Square, Central London, "watching the world go by.” He stayed with friends, in a
Buddhist monastery, or otherwise
slept rough on
Hampstead Heath. His family thought him “irresponsible, even insane."
Can you imagine what his family must have been going through?
Viktor Frankl taught this
(the media thingee isn't working-here is the url for the video-
Search for meaning
His flying instructor had said – “If you are starting east wishing to land at a point somewhere west and you have a cross-wind, you will drift and land in a different spot. So, you need to “crab” or head in the direction opposite to that of the wind so you land in the spot that you actually want to land at.”
Frankl explained that he felt this held for people, too. If you take a person as he/she really is, the default negative “crosswinds” in our mind make him/her worse. If we overestimate people, however, we promote them to what they really can be.
“Be an idealist, because, then you will wind up as a realist. As Goethe said, if we take a man as he is, we make him worse. But, if we take man as he should be, we make him capable of becoming what he can be.”
‘If you presuppose in a man – whoever it may be – that there must be a spark of a search for meaning, you will elicit it from him and let him become what he is capable of becoming.’ | Viktor E Frankl
If I practiced this every day, then I would not be angry or upset, in despair at each new turn in my twos lives. I would not allow their circumstances to affect me so deeply, because I know they have great potential.
Cedar wrote often that we can find mentors, such as Maya Angelou, Frankl, Tolle, heroes to look up to and find the answers we are seeking, when we cannot find them within ourselves, to help light our way through this journey. She used to post here, I miss her wisdom and hope her absence means that her life is full.
Thank you Elsi, for bringing me back to this place. It is hard to practice when our kids are out there doing God only knows what.
I am reminded that I have to know what
my meaning is in all of this. That I can love my two to the moon and back, but it doesn't mean that I have to be so emotionally tied and devastated around their choices and consequences. That I don't have to over extend myself in trying to fix them, because they are quite capable.
Time to get busy and tie down loose objects and be ready for whatever this storm may bring. It is relatable to what we go through with our beloveds. Their lives, a maelstrom of choices, we try to remain steady state, not allow our emotions and reactions to become caught up in the ever swirling winds of their consequences. The "what ifs" of their lives akin to the ever changing weather reports and trajectory of the hurricanes path.
I do forgive myself for the times when I do get caught up, I am only human.
You guys have helped me so many times when I have lost my way, come to my senses. Writing here, is a reminder that we have no control over our adult children's lifestyles, like this storm.
But, we do have control over ourselves.
It is a continual lesson.
Much love and hugs to you all, and you dear Elsi.
You are a welcome voice in our little corner.
Leafy
