Okay sister - here it is.......(ahem)
YOU have not gone backwards or done baby steps by ANY stretch of the imagination. I would call it leaping the broad jump of parental detachment if anything. So that just needs to go right out of your head. I know (not think, not believe, not ever wonder) that you have taken huge strides in walking a painful road and detaching from your children and their issues. You say you weren't the best parents....well, (scratches head, twists lip) Yeah - who among us given 20 years experience in knowing now what we wished we would have known then wouldn't OPT in spades to go back in time and do it again with the knowledge we acquired through hard learned lessons?? (I raise my hand - both of them). YOU BOTH parented to the best of your ability and that's to be applauded. When things got out of control? You sought help, you found this place and you have stayed active in participating AND offering sound advice -albeit at times truthful, yet things people really didn't want to hear - but you were courageous enough to step up and say - "THIS is bs, not good, enabling, lying....or good, right, excellent job." I mean - what more could you possibly expect out of yourself?
You my dear friend, have not in any way - failed Matt. He is a man that has issues, and problems and you did help him. You've helped him to the point of realizing if you had done any more helping? It would have been enabling then backed off, detached and allowed Matt the freedom and space he needed to fall - the only real way I think our kids learn to help themselves. I mean - he DID check himself into a hospital right? How would he have known to do that? And yes I read - he tried to hang himself unsuccessfully. So did Dude - twice - both a result of medication (Zoloft) and depression, and a cry for help.
Despite what you are going through now? You need to know from at least one other Mom with a significantly difficult and ill child that YOU ARE A GOOD MOM. You did the best you could with what skills you had at the time. You didn't purposely look at M and say "Well....I'm not going to be a good Mom today - figure it out on your own." You did that? Because you were being a good Mom. Things that hurt us with our children aren't easy to deal with . The easier thing to deal with is fixing them all the time until they get to a point where they have no abilities to fix themselves and we as parents get so tired of them - we do shut them out of our lives.....you have not done that.
You and your family are in my prayers -
Hugs & Love
Star
