This was a tough weekend with DS2. Really tough. I'm finding it hard to find love for him...really hard. He's come to a point of simply trying his darndest to ruin things. Mostly my house and my soul. He said "I didn't want a family". That was just a plain statement for him. When I answered "well, you have one and we are not going to let you hide from us"...he just stared at me blankly.
He wants me to leave him alone...not just in a typical tween way...but in totality. He wants the good stuff - vacations, birthday parties, day trips - but he's unwilling to live with what he considers the bad stuff - expectations, rules, boundaries. He told me that I should NOT care if he learns anything in school. Really, I have stopped caring...it's not something I can control. That does not stop it from making me sad for him. I know I'm not supposed to live in the 'what about the future?' part of life - but I find it hard not to.
What is his future? Being chronically disorganized (a term placed on him by his teacher and dead on in my mind) seems like a hard thing to live with. I look at small things like paying an electric bill...forget the fact that I wonder where the money will come from...but the actual physical task of getting the mail, opening it, getting a checkbook and writing a check - then remembering to mail it off in time. OK, we can hope for online bill pay...but there is the whole concept of setting that up as well. Of course, there are millions of adults that aren't OCD crazy like me...billions even. They survive...
But, the ones that don't. What is that thing that made them not make it? I have seen a show called Intervention. It's about drug/alcohol dependency and the complete chaos it presents, not just for the addict, but for the family. I firmly believe that mental illness can function the same way. An unattached person creates a world of chaos for all around him/her. It seeps into every moment of every day. When things are going good, I'm bracing for when they go bad again.
I have hopes for him. I wish he had hopes for himself.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
I would recommend that you find a school for kids with ADD and learning disabilities. They teach a lot of the skills you say he lacks, and they are used to kids with low motivation and low self-esteem. Our son did well there and then fell apart when we thought he was doing well enough that we could mainstream him again.
ReplyDeleteAs an adult, our son faces many of the issues you fear. He is terrible with money, has been in trouble with the law purely because he doesn't bother to fill out and send in paperwork, and has had issues with drugs and alcohol. But he is holding down a job as shift manager in the food services industry, and apparently doing well. He is able to support himself.
The hurtful thing we Moms have to realize is that we are part of his problem. The anger he felt toward his birth mother has transferred to us, even though all we've tried to do is love him. Once away from us, he doesn't feel as much anger. (That comment came from my son.) Now that he no longer lives with us, we have a cordial relationship as long as I treat him like a casual aquaintance and don't offer any comments on his life. Even though you don't feel the love on the surface, deep down you still love him, and it will always hurt a little that your relationship with him is so different than with your other children. But there are some things we can't control, and sometimes love is not enough.
I read the previous comment and one sentence made me think. It gave me hope. Maybe it's only on the surface I don't feel the love. Maybe deep down I do. Maybe.... But can that go for her as well? Or is she not capable of feeling love...only faking it and tricking me. Our therapist told me to be thankful for the other children I do have that DO love me and to cherish that and not worry about M's lack of love. She basically said 2 out of 3 is not so bad. That's a tough one.
ReplyDelete