This is a great thread. I am dealing with this decision every single day right now. What is supporting and encouraging? What is enabling?
It is so freakin' hard to know what to do.
This is the second week that difficult child is on the job at McDonald's. First job in about 16 months. They are giving him 32 hours a week. He is still homeless.
The McDonald's is one mile from my house, where he is training.
He has a bike that he is riding, from someone who he knows who is in jail. We got him a bike lock. That lock broke, so I got him another one yesterday. Is that supporting? Is that enabling? I have no idea.
He has not gotten a paycheck yet. He asked me for some of the money from his birthday (there was $150). I gave it to him.
He and his homeless friends stay in hotels sometimes. They sleep outside sometimes. He can't take a shower at the day shelter on the days he works because it opens after he goes to work and it's closed by the time he gets off.
Can't wash clothes there either, same reason.
So I have let him take a shower three times at my house in the past two weeks, and have washed his clothes twice. Is that supporting? Is that enabling? I have no idea.
I do know that I constantly caution myself. And now, i say some of the same things out loud to him. That takes the pressure off. I used to keep it all inside, and I would never say any of it to him, but I do today. I try to say it kindly but sometimes I hear myself, and it is very direct, strident, even harsh. I don't want to be that way, but I am at times.
What is the solution? Distance, space and time. Doing what I can live with. Cautioning myself. Working my program--reading, writing, studying how to recover from the disease of enabling. Going to meetings. Using the tools in my toolbox.
And I will admit that his dad is clearly helping him some, which I both am glad about---for myself, takes some pressure off me---and scared about---if we do it for him, he won't do it for himself.
Ugh. This tightrope is a hard one to walk.
Yesterday I said: Well, you could go to the Salvation Army right, to sleep, but it's clear that you have decided not to do that, is that correct? He said, yes, I am not going there. I asked why, is it because you are "mad" at them (due to the program he was in last year in another city with the SA). He said yes. I asked if that is false pride. He said I don't know what it is, I'm just not going to go there. So I said, well sleeping on the street must not be that bad. He said, truly it isn't. If the police would quit hassling us to move all the time, it would be okay.
So there you have it.
I cannot open my house---which I live in alone---all 3,000 square feet of it, to my son. That is a surreal thing to write and know and live. Instead, he lives on the street, and is trying to do better, it appears, working, but he is in a major transition.
If I help him more, would it really help him, or hurt him? I have no idea. Every day, I say to myself: Wait. Don't rush it. Work your program. Let time take its time. Let him handle his life. Don't solve his problems.
It is so hard. Yesterday I am on craigslist looking at rooms for rent. Ugh. Why am I doing that? Nuts.
One day at a time.
