Something Star said

[KTMom91]

I was reading the post on the teen board by maya67, and when I read this comment of Star's, it made me cry.

Death of your dreams is sometimes harder than death of an actual person.

You're so right...everything I had hoped for when Miss KT was born, is so unlikely to happen because she is the way she is. There is some closure when someone passes, but there is no closure to the confusion and chaos she brings along wherever she goes.

I hadn't thought of it this way before. This was truly a revelation to me.

 

[klmno]

That is really sad. When I testified to the judge about difficult child's issues, I compared it to a child going blind (among other things at different points). Anyway, I tried hard to make the point that it is a disappointment to the parent- not that we don't love them or want them anymore- but that they aren't able to live up to the potential we saw in them and that they can't have the life we wanted them to have.

But, there is always a lingering hope with a difficult child that can't be there when someone dies. in my humble opinion. And, it seems difficult child's teach us rewards in other ways that we never expected. I think the difference is with a difficult child, it is a grief that is ongoing, but with a death, it is clearly over and we have to move on.

Just a thought...

 

[Nomad]

Along very similar lines...someone here once posted this quote (thank you) and it almost made me fall to my knees:

If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream.

Martin Luther King Jr.

So very true.

 

[Star*]

KT,

In my life from marriage to now; and all the abuse I endured for 13 years and through the birth of my son and staying positive and 'settling' for less and less every day and giving up dream after dream with seemingly no end in sight for the pain - the pain of so many things for me and my enduring optimism to just continue to settle for the next best thing - you can't imagine how much I felt like I gave up.

When I sat in the therapists office and told him how I managed to survive by always thinking that something good would happen tomorrow, tomorrow, tomorrow and it didn't matter that I gave up this and this and this and this, that I was thankful for what I had - it hit me. While I was thankful for what I had - I had given up - all of my dreams - ALL of them. My choice on some - fate on most. THe therapist asked me if I had any dreams now. I thought - and I said "You know - I've gone from holding this little healthy baby, beautiful boy and day dreaming about him in a few years playing ball, going to school, being home room Mom, doing PTA, a school play, a home made gift in class,....to just hoping he could get through 1 hour of school without me loosing my job. I lost 2 due to his behaviors. As a separated single Mom - a 40k a year job with an expense account was wild. I lost it. And then I would think - okay if we can just get a long at home. I took a leap of faith and stayed home to work and my Father passed away suddenly.....I had pictures of Dude playing with him - and they went away so quick. And all the things I had hoped for in my marriage, my dreams of my own 25th anniversary - family that cared and loved.....ended up being a man who beat me, a family that despised me, and divorce after 13 years of torturous hell. It left me unable to function.

I know that there was no way to fix or chance what has happened. What is done is done. But I had not made peace with the uncountable amount of things I had day after day given up. And every time some new dream fashioned out out bits and pieces of the old dream - maybe this time I shouldn't shoot so high, maybe I shouldn't shoot at all - I should just be lucky for what I have and shut up about it all and keep plugging away - and one day it was school pictures--I had paid for them - I bought a shirt - and Dude wore it out the door - I have only 3 years of school pictures ever. and No sports - no grandparents outtings, hardly any good memories and just this once I wanted this picture - and dude changed shirts at school, wore a black t shirt messed up and gelled his hair and gave the camera a hateful look - and THAT was what I got and THAT was more that I could do. Just once - JUST ONCE - could something just ONE BLOODY THING please just be what I hoped for? And no. Never - or seemingly never and I had that to carry around.

When the therapist heard what I was describing he said that in some ways the death of a dream is harder than the actual death of someone because with dreams we're always reinventing from fragments of other dreams and trying to pull it together and when that dream doesn't come to fruition - we're depressed and sometimes we don't even know why. And that was my why. Despite being happy for what I had - I had bottled up years and years of giving up even (to me) the tiniest thing over and over so much that when I was asked what are some of my dreams I laughed and said "I have no dreams left." I meant it. I still do to a degree.

When you feel that even the smallest wish, hope or desire is not worth wishing or hoping or desiring - we loose spark. As humans we need these day dreams or goals to pursue to have something to live for and go for. When you take away our will to hope - it creates depression.

I wasn't depressed for what I had - a healthy child who was severely mentally ill. I was depressed for NOT having any dreams left. Once I realized that? I was able to get a perspective on why life seemed so mundane to me. When I got affirmation that my dreams had died and along with it a small part of me - I was able to move past that place and realize that it was ok to be sad about all of the things I never got to have. I guess I just needed permission to let my dreams die and deal with that.

I'm better now - I'm not so clingy for the past or hoping that even something realistic could happen with Dude - I'm only in control of me. So now I'm working on having dreams of my own. What would Star like to do with her free time? What would Star like to own in a year? They are attainable goals that I have control over. As far as my dreams with Dude? I am not able to do that yet.

Of course I think 'loosely' that someday he'll be a stand up person, and not so angry. That he will find a way to take care of himself, support himself, and look out for himself. And that is only a hope - I haven't dreamed or played a movie in my head about what I see Dude and I doing at all. I can't. Not yet. I've allowed myself to be hurt too many times and before I go making up crazy "My felon son could get his record expunged, go to college and be one of those late blooming veterinarians?" Now I just have hope that he can get a GED, pay off his fines, stay out of jail, and continue with good health.

Thanks what it meant to me. I hope this helps you understand so you aren't so down about it. It's a tool - It helps you realize that there is an up from down where you feel you are but have to be so tough day in and day out to survive a difficult child you forget that it's okay to be angry and okay to have hope. I love my son more that I did the day he was born despite all we've been through. Nothing can change that. That isn't a dream.

Hugs
Star

 

[klmno]

I don't blame you for feeling the way you do, Star. You have evry right.

 

[Star*]

klmno-

Yeah - I guess - Maybe the important thing for me was just hearing someone say out loud - "You know Star, it's OKAY to have dreams, but make them realistic." Seems like something you would assume everyone does - and like I said I didn't shoot the moon - but what I found out is that I only have control over me - and trying to put a square peg in a round hole and pushing and pushing didn't do anyone (me or Dude) any good. I was killing myself just trying to get ONE thing in my head to match reality in my life.

Now - I'm able to just sit and think - Dude has his dreams and I have mine and I don't make speculations anymore. I deal with what is. With a difficult child it's a way better attitude to carry in your heart. And when something does come along that is surprising and good? It's a bonus and makes a good memory. I like that better than trying to forcefully create a memory to come and being disappointed that it never happens.

Hugs
Star

 

[totoro]

SO true... to only be able to shed a bit of this honesty on to the people who make the decisions in our children's lives.
For the courts, the schools for relatives... to feel what it is to lose these dreams. To have to build back up what little you can, and call it what you will, hope, dreams, strength, crazy...
To be constantly stripped and squashed of all hope is one of the most degrading and animalistic feelings I think one can have...
No-one can get it, no-one can understand until they themselves have been beaten and stripped of all hope and dreams... and left to somehow build them back up, if at all possible.
Some do, some can't... it is impossible for a mind to even start to hope again.
Star you are so right on with your attitude!!! I had to explain this to husband... not to give up his hope and dreams for K... because he has no idea what it is to sink so low, all he has lost is a dream of what he thought he wanted for our daughter. Not for himself.
How does one ever know what their child is capable of? Mental Illness or not???
He just has to change his expectations for her... for now.
DREAMS and HOPE... sigh.
I have a hard time with this one also....