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General Parenting
Perspectives - The importance of recognizing conduct disorders as lifelong issues
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<blockquote data-quote="Copabanana" data-source="post: 763552" data-attributes="member: 18958"><p>Dear mindinggaps</p><p></p><p>I found your post to be brilliant and wise. So much so that I am somewhat stymied in how to respond.</p><p></p><p>I will start this way and then I will come back later after I have processed somewhat what you've written and how I feel in response.</p><p></p><p>I adopted my son as a single mother when he was 22 months and had lived in an orphanage-type situation until that time. He had been extremely deprived. Paradoxically, as a baby, I had suffered some of the same deprivation. I believed we were heaven-sent to each other I was extremely sensitive that he be stigmatized by the circumstances he had lived through (drug exposure, abandonment, etc.) and somehow I adopted the approach that love could heal. That he could be and was whole. That through intensive support and love and resources he could develop normally. In many, many ways he did. If there were problems I externalized responsibility, for example to teachers, and the school. I believed and knew our relationship was whole and loving and beautiful. If there were problems they came from outside of us. At the same time, I complied with the school's way of seeing him which was as an ADHD/Anxious type child.</p><p></p><p>What I am trying to say is that I NEVER really made room in myself, nor did I prepare him to cope with the idea that his "special" needs were okay and more than okay. Let alone did I instill in him the sense that there were resources and help and support, that he was entitled to have, and that he could access these and advocate for himself. This is to say I did not prepare him in any reasonable way to understand himself as a person with special needs and this was a solid and deserving and valid place to start. Rather I expected him just to improve, to do right, to do what I had done to make a life. What had worked for me was school and a profession. He would not or could not follow my plan.</p><p></p><p>The more he would not follow <em>MY PLAN</em> the more estranged we became, and the more lost, unmoored, and vulnerable he became. My entire relationship with him became that he follow <em>MY CONDITIONS. </em>Why? Because when he didn't I was the one who became highly anxious, completely unmoored from myself (let alone from him) brittle and rigid, and blaming. There was something in ME, not him. that could not cope with the situation nor did I seem to have faith that the situation would improve. (To paraphrase you.)</p><p></p><p>This is to say, all along I could not accept my own brokenness and therefore was completely unnerved by his needs. That I could not help him (or would not) felt like an accusation against me and my life. I became the broken one. My whole existence seemed to be undermined. (This happens to a lot of parents who come here.)</p><p></p><p>I believe now that there is brokenness in all of us. And parents (and most everybody else in this society) seem to think that there's something deeply wrong with this, and it needs to be hidden, removed, cured, treated, and gotten ridden instead of accepted as an integral and essential and even highly important and beautiful part of life and the human experience. Everybody needs some help. Everybody needs support. Everybody needs to be seen and acknowledged for who they really are. And I see that living this way, in actuality is the basis and beginning of a spiritual experience of life.</p><p></p><p>I have pretty much exhausted myself now. I don't have much else to add.</p><p></p><p>My son is homeless. In these terrible storms. I have seen him only once in the past year and it was to tell him that he MUST DO what I need him to do. To heal. I just somehow cannot accept the basic truth and wisdom that you begin with. I don't know how to move on. I don't know how to rejoin my son.</p><p></p><p>Thank you for your gifted contribution.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Copabanana, post: 763552, member: 18958"] Dear mindinggaps I found your post to be brilliant and wise. So much so that I am somewhat stymied in how to respond. I will start this way and then I will come back later after I have processed somewhat what you've written and how I feel in response. I adopted my son as a single mother when he was 22 months and had lived in an orphanage-type situation until that time. He had been extremely deprived. Paradoxically, as a baby, I had suffered some of the same deprivation. I believed we were heaven-sent to each other I was extremely sensitive that he be stigmatized by the circumstances he had lived through (drug exposure, abandonment, etc.) and somehow I adopted the approach that love could heal. That he could be and was whole. That through intensive support and love and resources he could develop normally. In many, many ways he did. If there were problems I externalized responsibility, for example to teachers, and the school. I believed and knew our relationship was whole and loving and beautiful. If there were problems they came from outside of us. At the same time, I complied with the school's way of seeing him which was as an ADHD/Anxious type child. What I am trying to say is that I NEVER really made room in myself, nor did I prepare him to cope with the idea that his "special" needs were okay and more than okay. Let alone did I instill in him the sense that there were resources and help and support, that he was entitled to have, and that he could access these and advocate for himself. This is to say I did not prepare him in any reasonable way to understand himself as a person with special needs and this was a solid and deserving and valid place to start. Rather I expected him just to improve, to do right, to do what I had done to make a life. What had worked for me was school and a profession. He would not or could not follow my plan. The more he would not follow [I]MY PLAN[/I] the more estranged we became, and the more lost, unmoored, and vulnerable he became. My entire relationship with him became that he follow [I]MY CONDITIONS. [/I]Why? Because when he didn't I was the one who became highly anxious, completely unmoored from myself (let alone from him) brittle and rigid, and blaming. There was something in ME, not him. that could not cope with the situation nor did I seem to have faith that the situation would improve. (To paraphrase you.) This is to say, all along I could not accept my own brokenness and therefore was completely unnerved by his needs. That I could not help him (or would not) felt like an accusation against me and my life. I became the broken one. My whole existence seemed to be undermined. (This happens to a lot of parents who come here.) I believe now that there is brokenness in all of us. And parents (and most everybody else in this society) seem to think that there's something deeply wrong with this, and it needs to be hidden, removed, cured, treated, and gotten ridden instead of accepted as an integral and essential and even highly important and beautiful part of life and the human experience. Everybody needs some help. Everybody needs support. Everybody needs to be seen and acknowledged for who they really are. And I see that living this way, in actuality is the basis and beginning of a spiritual experience of life. I have pretty much exhausted myself now. I don't have much else to add. My son is homeless. In these terrible storms. I have seen him only once in the past year and it was to tell him that he MUST DO what I need him to do. To heal. I just somehow cannot accept the basic truth and wisdom that you begin with. I don't know how to move on. I don't know how to rejoin my son. Thank you for your gifted contribution. [/QUOTE]
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