Too Sad To Write Much

[Michel]

I really do feel too sad to write but need to tell someone how sad I am. Earlier I talked to my son (who just turned 16) on the phone and I realized just how far away from me he is now - not just geographically but emotionally and in our thinking as well. I'm not up to relaying the long story... but I feel like I have to accept just how lost to me he is right now, and for I know not how long, and this breaks my heart. Every time I think of it, I start to cry again.

Yesterday I realized I feel like I died a couple of years ago, am no longer capable of doing anything at all, and yet I don't know how to live each day without actually living. But I have no choice but to live (for some reason, personally, I am fully incapable of considering ending my life - I literally cannot see it as an option). But how to live now that I am no longer capable of action, now that all of my relationships have ended, now that nothing that matters to me is left in my life, this I do not know.

 

[Farine]

Michel,
I read your post. I think it's important in an online environment to let the author know when something has moved the reader. You did do something important here. You have come here and wrote down how you feel. I heard you. I'm sitting here in Los Angeles, thinking how awful this situation is, how truly sad. I don't have answers other than I'll keep you company.

It may be that your son is misplaced, not truly lost. I've had hints of this from my youngest who clearly wants to grow up as soon as possible. When she flies, I don't think she'll look back for a long time. I'm trying to get myself in hand so that scenario doesn't undo me. Again, I'm sorry. Thinking of you, today..

Farine

 

[Deleted member 541]

I have been *living* without really living for so long that it has become normal for me. I know the feeling all to well..... I'm sorry, but I have no advice, just wanted you to know that you aren't alone with how you feel.....

You also have to remember that at 16, your son is now starting to seek his own independence.......He is coming into his own now....

 

[Jestadud]

Michel
I went through something similar with my lad when he was 16 or 17. He had been playing football regularly since he was 6 and I took him to all his games, I even ran a team for a couple of years. Then all of a sudden he was getting a lift to games with friends and wouldn't even tell me there was a game on. It was obvious he didn't want me there yet friends of mine were still going with their lads. I believe it was meant to hurt and it did.
My lads 24 now and we get on ok.

At that age they are right in ME time, when I think back I didn't want my parents to know where I was going, who I was seeing or what I was doing. It wasn't an end to a relationship more like a lull or pause while the balance of power shifts and the teenager becomes an adult.

But your Mum is always your Mum that can't be changed (likewise for Dads)

 

[anni]

Michel,

I just posted on the anniversary thread. I said I got through mine every year because in the end my scumbucket didn't wish me to be here and I am so I won in the end. No, it doesn't always feel that way but it's what the truth is so it's what I remind myself of. That isn't the point in your thread but I only mentioned it because you sounded so badly off today. The other thread reminded me of things which got me through, and still get me through sometimes.

As others said so well, your 16 year old is being 16 and is genuinely being distant of course because they do that. It feels more horrible for you because of the situation of course, and he's not only not with you, he's with THAT person. Kids know an awful lot more than you think they do. I'm not saying that to make it look better. That child lived through the same thing you did, and no matter who told him what, he knows the truth. He might keep it to himself but you'll see. He knows, and will tell you one day when he's much older and able to deal with it. In the meantime, even without the complicating custody situation, he's just plain 16, like everyone pretty much said.

You're doing your best, and it's probably awfully well. Please take care of yourself for your sake and his.

Anni

 

[Michel]

I have done a lot of thinking and journaling since I wrote this post, and I have had to face the fact that some of the disruption in my relationship with my son comes from extreme negative emotions in me - emotions that have nothing to do with him, that I don't directly share with him, but that get in the way in every aspect of my life. My resentment and rage and anxiety and depression, all caused by the abuse I have suffered, have become so strong that they get in the way of my being focused and open and really present for my son. And this is just not acceptable to me. So I have realized that I must begin to try to replace resentment with forgiveness, rage with acceptance. I take medication for anxiety and depression but I know of no medication that can handle moral outrage. And I love my moral outrage, which I see as the natural and fitting response of a self-respecting human being to having been viciously and gravely wronged. But I love my son more.

I do realize that forgiveness and acceptance will be processes and very hard ones for me. I'm not really sure how to be clear yet even about where I'm at with them right now. But I think I'm headed in the right direction.

Thanks to all who replied. It helps me so much to share my thoughts as I try to make things better.

 

[anni]

You are headed in the right direction, touchingly and beautifully so, if I may be forgiven for making so personal an observation.