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Son called to be picked up from a dangerous situation-I refused. Sorry-VERY long!
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<blockquote data-quote="recoveringenabler" data-source="post: 596268" data-attributes="member: 13542"><p>Blackgnat, I agree with everyone else, you have done everything you possibly can for him, regardless of any mental illness or personality disorder or diagnosis, he is an adult and his choices are his and the consequences are his. The best advice I can give you, which is a direct result of my own experience with my adult difficult child, is to keep yourself distant from your son's shenanigans and seek as much support as you can...........a great source of support for parents of kids who have mental illness is NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. They have parent groups which will offer you tools and support. If you can, find yourself a therapist, ASAP, having done this kind of enabling for so long and alone, you need a lot of nourishing, caring, informative, tender and continual support. You need it now and you need it for awhile. I have some experience with this and I know the level of depletion, exhaustion, resentment, guilt, sorrow, hurt and overwhelm an adult like your son can bring to you.</p><p></p><p>Let me answer your questions directly, <u><strong>NO it will not be your fault if he dies</strong></u>. It will be a choice that he makes or something that happens to him. You are not to blame for any of his choices. There is NOTHING you can do. You cannot control another person. You cannot control another person's choices. You are powerless to change him. You cannot fix him. You cannot heal him. You did not create this. If he has a mental illness, he can seek help and he doesn't, even when one of those medications made him feel normal. My difficult child makes the same bad choices over and over as well, there is nothing I can do. I know how painful and weird that is, but all you will do is drive yourself crazy trying, and trying, and trying and trying.............and nothing will change. Nothing will change until your son decides he will change. <em>You cannot make that happen, no matter what you do.</em></p><p><em></em></p><p>You absolutely did the right thing by not picking him up. If I were you I would RUN to the nearest therapist, support group, 12 step codependency group, NAMI parent group. anywhere where the focus of my life is going to be ME. Learn tools to detach. You may want to read the article at the bottom of my post here on detachment. Set strong boundaries around how you WANT to interact with your son, and if you don't want to interact, don't answer the phone. Let it go to voice mail and don't listen to it. Step back from this lunacy, and then step back some more and keep stepping back. You deserve to have a life without all this drama and trauma. You cannot make a difference in the life of another who does not want to change. So let go.</p><p></p><p>You are being held hostage by your son. Don't allow it anymore. You can make that choice. It's your life, take it back. And do it now. </p><p></p><p>*Thanks for writing the whole story down, it helped to understand and I hope it helped you to vent too. Keep posting. We're here. ...........HUGS.............</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="recoveringenabler, post: 596268, member: 13542"] Blackgnat, I agree with everyone else, you have done everything you possibly can for him, regardless of any mental illness or personality disorder or diagnosis, he is an adult and his choices are his and the consequences are his. The best advice I can give you, which is a direct result of my own experience with my adult difficult child, is to keep yourself distant from your son's shenanigans and seek as much support as you can...........a great source of support for parents of kids who have mental illness is NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness. They have parent groups which will offer you tools and support. If you can, find yourself a therapist, ASAP, having done this kind of enabling for so long and alone, you need a lot of nourishing, caring, informative, tender and continual support. You need it now and you need it for awhile. I have some experience with this and I know the level of depletion, exhaustion, resentment, guilt, sorrow, hurt and overwhelm an adult like your son can bring to you. Let me answer your questions directly, [U][B]NO it will not be your fault if he dies[/B][/U]. It will be a choice that he makes or something that happens to him. You are not to blame for any of his choices. There is NOTHING you can do. You cannot control another person. You cannot control another person's choices. You are powerless to change him. You cannot fix him. You cannot heal him. You did not create this. If he has a mental illness, he can seek help and he doesn't, even when one of those medications made him feel normal. My difficult child makes the same bad choices over and over as well, there is nothing I can do. I know how painful and weird that is, but all you will do is drive yourself crazy trying, and trying, and trying and trying.............and nothing will change. Nothing will change until your son decides he will change. [I]You cannot make that happen, no matter what you do. [/I] You absolutely did the right thing by not picking him up. If I were you I would RUN to the nearest therapist, support group, 12 step codependency group, NAMI parent group. anywhere where the focus of my life is going to be ME. Learn tools to detach. You may want to read the article at the bottom of my post here on detachment. Set strong boundaries around how you WANT to interact with your son, and if you don't want to interact, don't answer the phone. Let it go to voice mail and don't listen to it. Step back from this lunacy, and then step back some more and keep stepping back. You deserve to have a life without all this drama and trauma. You cannot make a difference in the life of another who does not want to change. So let go. You are being held hostage by your son. Don't allow it anymore. You can make that choice. It's your life, take it back. And do it now. *Thanks for writing the whole story down, it helped to understand and I hope it helped you to vent too. Keep posting. We're here. ...........HUGS............. [/QUOTE]
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Son called to be picked up from a dangerous situation-I refused. Sorry-VERY long!
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