Dear Deni
I posted to you earlier and the whole post was lost! I will make it succinct. I am sorry I have been absorbed in my own personal drama (very much like yours, unfortunately.)
I wanted to say this: You are a factor here. Your welfare and your healing. Which is to say, you deserve to be protected! You deserve to be emotionally safe. At some point our adult sons have to step up for themselves, and yes, they need to step up for us. Whether or not they do, of course, is by no means a given. But it is a moral imperative. And it is a moral imperative to us to be able to let them do this. What that means is this: it's necessary to pull back and let your son grow a spine. And for that to happen (I am speaking to me, too) we have to grow spines ourselves.
There are myriad services available for our sons. There are all kinds of mature, good, compassionate and qualified people to help guide them, to help them process their lives, to support them. There IS NO NECESSITY nor is there an imperative or is it in any way required that we participate in their treatment or allow ourselves to be browbeaten by them. I will speak here for me: I have participated in my son's developing a neural pathway that EVERYTHING comes from me and when it doesn't he can verbally beat me up to make sure that what he is CERTAIN he deserves, is forthcoming.
I do him no favor whatsoever by contributing to this pattern.
What I am trying to say is that sometimes love has to do with pulling back to support their growing in themselves. Their seeking accountability from themselves, not us. It's not only that sometimes love is "no." It's that sometimes love is silent. It's self-contained. It's deep in us. It's like a jewel deep inside our hearts. It is not about doing this or that. Or saying this or that. It's about something deeper than that. Deeper and more enduring. The problem with this I am finding, is that when I hold back, all kinds of feelings come up in me. About my history. About what I lacked as a child. About the ways I have looked to my son-to heal hurts in me.
Well. It's grown up time. I have to show up for myself. You see, I am finding that I am very much the broken person too.
I am sorry if I projected my own problems onto your situation. But if it helps anybody else, let it be.
Love, Copa
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