Great post Dixie! I haven’t had the battles you speak of, but I’ve always told my kids “I do the best I can with what I have”..

So I guess I opt out of whatever drama is going on and take care of myself (sign me: ex-codependent)

stacey – i know, hon…and yeah, i agree it’s much harder for the parent, who is already taking responsibility for themselves and how the kid is doing and everything else that’s going on. the kid can just direct some handy rage your way and will be all to happy to agree it’s your failings that brought things to a head. but as long as your shouldering that responsibility, the kid can continue to evade it. the responsibility has to be married to the control or you remain stuck.

opting out initially feels like giving up on your kid, abandoning your parental role. that was the guilt for me. it was a hard climb to decide it’s not my job to solve my kid’s problems–especially those they obviously have no current interest in resolving. more to realize that my attempts at help were making the situation more comfortable to maintain. it contributed and that was something i couldn’t be okay with.

it IS a process. charting a course for yourself centering around what you do have control over does bring some relief. you’re in mourning. mourning eases with time and perspective.

(((hugs)))

{{{Rosemary}}} – That’s HUGE. I’m very, very glad sharing some of my experiences is helpful to you.

much love, from another mom who gets it.

this is fantastic… still processing…

Dixie: ((hugs)) thank you for the hugs and understanding. I liked your other post on coping too. Oh, and when I called my daughter back, she didn’t pick up the phone. But guess what, I had anticipated that! She wants to talk when SHE wants to talk and if you don’t go along with her needs, you are “punished.” I don’t expect to hear from her now for several days.

Stacey, I’ll take those hugs and return them. I understand the jail thing all too well. “You have a collect call from an inmate at…” Uh-huh. Been there several times throughout her teens/early twenties. I took the calls. Spent thousands, etc. Nothing like seeing your kid in a jail uniform. Heartbreaking, and for me, so guilt-inducing. I mean, it has to all be my fault, right? Why even Jackie O thinks so…

Yesterday, this quote from Jackie O was posted: “If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do matters very much.”
No disrespect to the poster as these words are already burned onto my brain, but I burst into tears whenever I read that quote. I grew up in the ’60s and admired that woman, took those words to heart. Breaks me to hear them now. So, I am to blame for all of my daughter’s actions, Jackie? It’s how I raised her? And nothing else I’ve done in life means anything because of how she turned out?

I’m so sorry your son is in jail, Stacey, and you’re going through this. My therapist at the time of my daughter’s incarcerations said, “Save yourself.” I pass this along to you because I don’t think I’ve ever been able to do it even to this day. My marriage would have ended anyway, but I think my inability to cope with my daughter hastened its demise.

So save yourself, take care of yourself and also–from the therapist–do what you can live with.

I wish you well, and I hope the jail time helps your son. (Sorry, don’t know the situation)

rosemary, that therapist has some damn good advice.

Dixie, she was wonderful. She saved my life. Literally. I think I must have worn her out though as she retired during the course of my therapy! I love her to this day.

Stacey, without oversharing and rambling on, thank you for the link to that article in the NYT. I printed it out. The whole thing could have been my story…it IS my story. Right down to my telling my daughter two years ago that “I love you but I don’t like you very much.” She didn’t speak to me again until this past May. We’re still in touch with my trying to implement all things I’ve been told and learned about how to talk to her, how to deal, how not to take it personally. I need to do this because I DO love her despite everything, and I love my granddaughter and want to be a part of her life.

I have a wonderful son (okay, he has some faults) and the fact that he was/is normal, intelligent, loving is what kept me from suicide sometimes when my daughter was ruling the family. The therapist I referred to would tell me “Look at your son. You are not a bad parent. Treat Daughter as if she were an alien because you cannot understand her. No one can. You can only save yourself.”

Thank God for this part: “The central pitch of any child psychiatrist now is that the illness is often in the child and that the family responses may aggravate the scene but not wholly create it,” said my colleague Dr. Theodore Shapiro, a child psychiatrist at Weill Cornell Medical College. “The era of ‘there are no bad children, only bad parents’ is gone.”

Of course a parents who are sexually abusive toward a child or beat a child, etc., must be held accountable for dysfunction in children. But those of us who have tried everything, gotten in debt, agonized, and wept endlessly about a child who is wired wrong from the get go should at least have some of the guilt lifted from their shoulders.

And good point about Jackie o!!!! Hey, you’ve helped me get over that!

DAMN IT, I WENT ON TOO LONG! This topic really is my hot button though. Anyway, may God bless you and your family, Stacey. You will get through whatever this situation is with your boy being in jail, and you will love him no matter what, I’m sure. I’ve prayed for you.