howling for a miracle

Kyd is going to work with his father. The last time this happened a lot of bad shit went down and my sister had to drive from her college and pick him up. Pick up a shivering, crying, hurt and angry teenager. I then spent the next year dealing with the fallout. Understandably I have deep reservations about this arrangement, but per the usual Kyd has backed himself into a corner, burned his bridges, and watched his options shrink and fade. He feels he has no other choice, and from where I'm sitting I can't offer much to the contrary. 

Perhaps more importantly I have to tread very carefully with my thoughts around this. I am acutely aware of my fragility around the powerlessness I have to protect Kyd from both his own self-destruction and fragility, and the people around him who wound him more. I'm also acutely aware that I  am deeply angry with those people - Roi, my ex, my exe's family, Kyd's girlfriend, and the people and situations he chooses for himself. 

Two months ago I tried to coax Kyd into applying to live in one of the many intentional communities in the area. There are organic farming co-op living situations where you can work for your room and board. There are at least two contemplative communities. Places where Kyd could grow, be around more positive people, live more healthfully. He shot my coaxing down. And now he cries and laments that he has no options, so yes, I'm angry at Kyd too. Angry and frustrated that he keeps making the "wrong" choices and I see him hurtling down another entangled, mine infested path. 

In this case he'll be around his father - a deeply troubled man who descended headlong into drugs, alcohol, and violent relationships after our divorce. 

So I'm here, hanging by my fingernails over a pit of despair and helplessness, howling for a miracle.  

my sophie's choice

When I don't write here it's sometimes because things are going well enough that I don't need this secret space of mine. Sometimes it's because I'm frustrated that the situation is the same. 

The situation is the same. Roi is an emotionless robot (he says so himself), Kyd is emotionally unstable, Lexie is doing ok but full of anxiety and dragging her feet on leaving the nest, I want to leave but am financially dependent and despite multiple resumés having hit the inboxes of hiring managers for jobs I am qualified for I get no call-backs, and every option I consider leaves someone hurting. 

It's like a lesser version of Sophie's Choice. Roi doesn't want Kyd here at the house - at all for six months because he was too chaotic, doing drugs, not working, and not meeting Roi's standards for how much work he should be doing around the house. Same story, different day on all fronts. 

So Kyd managed to find a job and a summer apartment, but lost the job and his apartment sublet is ending in two weeks. Predictably he's now depressed and angry and wants to come home and I can't let him. Even if Roi hadn't put his foot down, or I was on my own, I'm not even sure this would be the right thing for Kyd. I have gotten him into treatment numerous times only to a) have the therapist tell me/him that Kyd is fine, b) have the "expert" tell me Kyd is the worst case they've ever seen, they don't know what's wrong, or how to help, or c) Kyd sabotages it in some way. This last time I got him into neurofeedback and he didn't show for two appointments (once because he was fighting with his girlfriend) and he was doing drugs while getting treatment. So really, is letting him come home actually going to help? 

And yet not having the option tears me to pieces. Not having the option feels every kind of wrong. 

In itself this seems enough reason to leave Roi. Yet if I leave Roi now it means going to stay with my mother or father - both options mean taking Lexie out of her school and away from her friends, her life, her boyfriend, and everything she knows. 

Hence the Sophie's Choice. Which of my two young adult children do I say, "sorry, can't help ya"? There are some who would say "BOTH" because they are both technically adults. This should end the my having to make decisions based on their needs dilemma. There are some who would say, "Kyd" because otherwise I'm enabling him. I will never understand the distinction between enabling vs. loving-kindness, but that's another post. And still others would say, "Lexie" because it's time for her to jump the nest. 

The fact that the answers differ tells me one thing. No one knows shit about shit and reality is far more complex than advice.

p.s. I realized that last line may have sounded like an aggressive swipe at commenters loving support, but it was really about the line-up of "experts" who insist that we regular folk don't know what we're doing and they do. That still doesn't make it sound any less aggressive but I have my days where I'm tired and fed up and feel completely helpless and I get angry that there seems to be no help right here, right now. 


Sigh. I probably shouldn't be allowed on the internet right now. 

I'm in Trouble

I'm in trouble. I have been floating in this limbo with Roi for so so long. Not floating, that's the wrong imagery. Locked into it, trapped in it, wishing to flee and holding that wish down with an iron grip the way one grits their teeth and locks the tongue to the roof of one's mouth to hold back bile. 

Lexie and I speak in code: "LBR" - life before Roi. How we were dirt poor and struggling but found happiness and beauty despite it. How now we live in a luxurious home so full of light and so devoid of happiness. She wants out too. 

The trouble being, as its been, my lack of a secure job. I've sent out resumés to no avail. And every silence makes me despair but I press on. This is not the real trouble. The real trouble is when my tongue slips and the bile rockets forth through my gritted teeth and Roi is made aware of just how much I can't tolerate being with him. Because then what? He wants to dissolve but I have nowhere to go except home to my parents, ripping Lexie from everything she knows where she is. Her school, her boyfriend, her friends. And while she wants out it is not so intolerable to her that she wants to leave the geographical area. She wants us to find a sweet, bright little home nearby - but that's not within my means now. 

Amidst all of this I am still employed by Roi and I have such resistance now to that work that it makes my skull ache. Every time I sit down to do the work I want to scream and break things, throw my computer out the third floor window and watch it smash on the lawn below. Tears leak out from the corners of my eyelids and I try, I try, but in an 8-hour work day I wring out an hour's worth of work - two to three on a really good day. And Roi hates me for it, is so resentful. I get that. It makes every sense in the world that if I need money that I should at least do the work I have in front of me. Beggars shouldn't be choosers. 

And while Roi and I agreed that the best thing that could happen for this situation is for me to find a job, he squirms every time I make the littlest progress. If I take a day to job search, to send out a handful of resumés, and I feel good for a second, like maybe I can do this, he calls a meeting to talk about work and our finances. Every time. If I call him on it he twists so that I can't find anything wrong. He's just trying to do what's right, and then I feel crazy, unhinged, damaged, and helpless all over again and I have to dig my way back to a bit of stable ground to catch my breath and start the process of resistance and force anew. Strap on the nearly empty oxygen tank and hope I have enough for the dive.

Kyd is struggling again too, and he needs my oxygen tank but I can't spare a drop. 

Magical Patterns

It is late. I'm a wee bit tipsy lying here on the couch wondering where I should begin from where I left off. An hour ago I texted Kyd, a playful nudge to make contact. It's been nearly a week since I've heard from him. 

Roi kicked him out of the house, twice. That's a complicated story, and I'm still sorting through the notes to piece together how I feel about all of it, so I'll get to that later. The uncomplicated parts are that it turned out Kyd wasn't sober - hadn't been the whole time he was living with us - and he wasn't working nor looking hard enough for work. 

I was convinced it would be disastrous to throw him out into the world like this, and it was disastrous for a brief time, and then he found a job and an apartment. 

Let me pause here and notice something with you. I live in two states when it comes to Kyd. I'm either in crisis/panic/everything-is-a-complete-disaster-and-it-will-never-be-better mode, or I'm in oh-my-god-don't-anybody-move-don't-anybody-breathe-lest-this-good-thing-get-screwed-up mode. In my defense, this is clearly a response to a pattern of crisis followed by brief hope-filled reprieves that do not last. 

When I didn't hear from Kyd for a couple of days that then turned into a week - well, look, I knew, I knew that something in his new utopia had gone wrong. Mother's intuition, or whatever you call that sixth sense that partners/family members of addicts develop. But really, if a pattern repeats and repeats, is it really all that magical when one can predict what comes next? 

I don't want to be right about such things. Not these things. I want the pattern to stop existing. I really really want to be proven wrong. 

pray you never

I'm sitting at a cafe waiting to pick up Roi. He spent the weekend in New York and then extended his stay by two nights. Without asking. Certainly without respect to my schedule, or my triggers. He was decidedly unapologetic about it. Heck, he went so far as to guilt me. 

But then, I know this. This is Roi, and this is how he does life. It's good to no longer be surprised by his absurd behaviors. Better still to be focusing on what I want to do, where I want to go next, and how I'm going to get there. Sometimes I wonder if Roi was sensing my movement away from him and felt compelled to buy a house, not JUST because the market was right, but because unconsciously he may have thought I would never leave if there was a house.

I'll admit. I had a brief few weeks of worry about this - that I wouldn't want to leave for love of a house. 

As my last post indicates, I no longer worry about that. 

Right now the only thing I'm worried about is Kyd. Those worries could fill three volumes, but in the best summary I can give. Kyd is facing 90 days if he doesn't come up with a pretty large sum of money between now and next Thursday. This is for the DUI and accident he was in 3 and a half years ago. He's not been able to find work, nor be stable enough to look properly or present himself as a desirable employee. 

I don't talk about Kyd much. I'm not sure why this is. It seems to be wrapped in fierce motherly protection, denial wrapped in clutching hope, bottomless feelings of helplessness that don't like to be poked, the brain-crunching juxtaposition of feeling no empathy for Roi and wanting desperately for Kyd to not hurt others the way Roi has, and god knows what else.

In fact, I find I can't really talk much more about him even now when I set out to do that. 

Neurofeedback is saving my life, keeping me sane amidst what would bring the best of us to our knees. I'll just say that. And ask that whatever form of prayer or good energy you practice, if you could send some toward this corner of the world it would be much appreciated. 

three weddings and a monk

Last night I got together with a few friends from my alma mater (an all women's college) and we sat around talking about lives, politics, social issues, and of course reminiscing. At some point it came up that I wasn't at a certain event, or had left early, and I felt my stomach do the old familiar drop as I was stung by the memory of why I wasn't there. 

It was a reunion event a couple years ago, and I had set out in the early afternoon for festivities, but as the day softly receded into night I began to get anxious about how many hours Roi had been alone so when the festivities were being moved to another venue, I took the opportunity to bow out. 

I wanted to stay with my friends, but I couldn't. My head was so tragically wrapped around the addicts in my life. I hadn't always been this way, but as their disease progressed, so did mine. Or rather, in the case of Roi, as my knowledge of the extent of his disease progressed, the more sick I became. And I started missing out on things. 

Like:

I had to cancel an expense paid trip to take part in a science of mind discussion with the Dalai Lama and a dozen or two major scientists from around the world because Kyd had pulled something that made it impossible for me to go. I missed the wedding of two very dear friends because I was afraid to leave Kyd with anyone, afraid to bring him with me because of how he might act. I missed another wedding a year later for the same reason, and then I missed the wedding of someone else very close to me because I couldn't, just could not bring myself to leave Roi alone for that many hours now that his addiction had come to light.

Roi had given me ample reason to fear leaving him alone. As I uncovered transgression after transgression after transgression there were any number of things he might do with too many hours strung together without supervision. When I would go out with my girlfriends, he would call old girlfriends and lovers. When he went to meetings, he would stop at strip bars on his way home. When he was left alone for a whole day he would spend it cruising Craigslist for erotic dancers and masseurs. When he told me he would be late coming over it was because he was on the phone with a woman. When he would say he was going to bed it was only a half truth; he would get in bed and then surf porn. If I went away for more than a day he would spend that time at beaches or parties or bookstores cruising for opportunities to meet women, but also to just look at them and maybe glimpse a little more than he was intended to. 

And if I didn't go away, he did. It seemed there was always a reason he needed to be away, and it was always, always, imperative. He guilted me at every turn. To say no was to be selfish, to deny him. In his mind...in his mind it wasn't, however, selfish to sleep with a woman in Jamaica while I was at home dealing with Kyd's first major legal trouble. It wasn't selfish to have a sexual encounter with a woman in New York while I was by my son's side in the hospital. 

I feel sick when I write these things. But mostly now I feel a fierce, concentrated anger that has nowhere to go. So I dance for hours until my legs and neck and back ache with purified pain. I kickbox the shit out of the punching bag in our backyard. I swim until my thighs and arms burn. I hand it over to my therapist in small choking doses. I walk away from Roi and Kyd again and again with a sweeping motion of my arm as though I can wipe away the pain they bring entirely. 

discombobulated and slightly cranky

Life with Roi over the last couple of days has been decidedly un-newsworthy. There have been no discussions about how we should move forward. There have been no conversations of consequence at all. He has remained optimistically cheerful as though he can heal all that is wrong between us with a stupid grin and light conversation. 

I haven't the strength or the stupidity to open the topic. 

I did thuggishly announce on separate occasions to both Roi and Kyd that I refused to be in the middle of what is required from each for Kyd to remain here long enough to get on his feet, and to Roi's credit he talked to Kyd on his own. Kyd was not open, to his own detriment, but I cannot enter into that fray any more. Kyd belongs to me, but the house belongs to Roi, and while I have thoughts neither takes my advice so I just can't be involved. It makes me crazy when I try to solve their problems. 

You Feel Better Now, Ya Hear?

I walked into therapy, flopped on the couch and announced I had a big problem I needed to solve. Liz has the background on Kyd already so I didn't need to go into much. After I told her about events of the last few months she said, "he's really making all of this your problem, isn't he?". 

"YES!", I cried. 

Then we did the exploration thing. How does this or that make me feel, what do I get out of it - and as happens in the company of a good therapist, details came into focus. I won't bore you with every piece of it. The upshot is that I can't handle the anxiety and guilt over Kyd's situation so I pull out the "helping" toolkit and even when it looks like I'm not getting in his business, I'm getting in his business.

Not because I WANT to be in his business. In fact I feel resentful about it all. the. time. As I do with Roi, or with Lexie at times. They all expect that I'll fix the problems, even when they don't think they are. And I don't get a rush out of helping, I feel angry about it, but I do it anyway. I'm not a helper, I'm a martyr. Forever sacrificing myself expecting this will lead to love and respect. It almost never does.

Liz gave me a line to chew on, practice, and apply as needed. "That's not my problem to solve, but I'll help if you'll allow me to." The line between enabling and supporting stays elusive, but this approach helps keep it exposed to the light. I will help (support) if he allows me to -- meaning he becomes amenable to help, has the right attitude for help, and so on. 

Of course there were other tools given. Visualizations, thoughts to contemplate, other lines to use. 

At the end of the hour my anger and frustration had dissipated. I felt softer but firmer, like I could stay connected to Kyd while still keeping distance.

Again I am struck by how lucky I am to have Liz. Finding the right therapist is such a crapshoot and I just got damn lucky for once. She is always gentle, but not so sympathetic and washed out that I want to spit in her eye. She offers clear guidance without making me feel like I'm being given unsolicited orders. She is a master at balancing sympathy with stepping in before I can get fused to a particular emotion or past event.  She helps me see the good in myself without insulting my intelligence and making me forever after distrust her. She is human with me, allowing appropriate glimpses now and again into her life but without drawing me into it.

It makes me want to be her best patient ever. To come home with straight A's in therapy. I imagine my magical future filled with good fortune and rainbows and glitter, all because I was the best patient ever of the best therapist ever, and together we polish my life until it shines, never a blemish again. 

It's a childish wish, but I don't scold myself too harshly. I simply observe that childish hope as it arises and then let it float out the window.

I Officially Suck, At Least for Today

Whatever my anxiety over Kyd living here, I really needed to put it aside for the day, for his BIRTHDAY. I tried to salvage things, but every attempt just made things worse. He feels shitty, I feel shitty. I should've just gone ahead and ordered balloons that say, "Happy Birthday, it's Going to Suck". 

Seriously, I screwed up.

Internets, I Need Advice

All swirling feelings aside, I pretty much just ruined Kyd's birthday and I clearly need advice. Just know that I may take it or leave it. After all, we must always consider that advice is often given by people who don't have to deal with the consequences of their advice. 

So, here's the background (this will be long). Kyd started being "in trouble" in middle school. What I didn't know then was that he had already started using drugs. As he got older, the trouble kept getting bigger and nothing I said, or anyone else (professional and non-professional) said made a difference. Somewhere in there Kyd also started drinking and did a stint in rehab and AA, but soon dropped sobriety not believing he was an alcoholic. A year and a half ago we were at the tail-end of a series of drunken, late night episodes, each episode more dramatic and terrifying than the last. Lexie and I were honestly beginning to fear for our safety. 

I suggested a return to AA which he refused and in light of that, and his refusal generally to stop drinking, I set a firm boundary that if he came home drunk again he would have to move out. Just a few weeks later, he came home falling-down drunk and after he slept it off and sobered up I sat him down to enforce the boundary. 

He spent the next several weeks couch-hopping and seething with resentment towards me. Finally he landed a living situation with a new best friend who took him in rent-free until he got a job. Kyd spent the next several months (8-10?) without much effort to actually get a job (as far as I can tell) and continued to live rent-free with a small group of roommates, all of whom worked. Meanwhile, he returned home every couple of months for a few days so I could drive him to court so his probation for a DUI could be reviewed. The court was becoming increasingly impatient with Kyd's lack of employment, and therefore inability to pay court fees or restitution. 

A couple of months ago Kyd was here for a court appointment and when it was time for him to go home he informed me that they were all being evicted because his roommates hadn't paid the rent. He was more or less informing me that he was staying with us until his girlfriend graduated (June) at which time the two of them had a roommate situation lined up that they could afford. I was able to convince Lexie and Roi to let Kyd stay and that it would be temporary.

It is now July and that living situation has fallen through and Kyd is expecting to continue to live with us. Meanwhile he has not consistently done the one chore he was assigned (the dishes), did land a job but it doesn't pay enough to live independently, and has stopped looking for another job. He sleeps all day until it's time for work, uses my laptop without asking, uses and takes whatever he likes, and gets a ride to work every day but never offers to chip in for gas. He also makes a mess and when asked to pick up after himself cops an attitude and picks up only a few things. He flat out refuses to pick anything up if it isn't his. 

In other words, he's acting kind of like an entitled brat. 

Roi is growing impatient with the situation and we don't have a room for Kyd so he sleeps on the couch and generally occupies the living room. 

As I said in an earlier post, I get that the math doesn't add up and it's really quite impossible for Kyd to live on his own with his current income. So I talked with Roi and he agreed that if Kyd contributes a fair amount to rent he can stay. 

So, when I proposed this idea to Kyd, who was feeling cranky and pressured about having to move out, he said to me, "I'm not going to pay fucking rent to sleep on the couch". He wants us to convert one of the offices (Roi's business is here) into a room, AND he will do only HIS dishes. OR, if he has to pay rent, Lexie must pay equal rent too. 

I explained that Lexie has one more year before she transfers to a 4 year college, but if she were to drop out of school she would have to pay rent. Also that she does chores, has to contribute to the cost of the car she drives, and pay for gas that is not school-related. And finally, that she understands she must continue to progress forward and contribute to the household without attitude. 

He feels he is being treated unfairly. I feel he is acting like an insufferable brat, and I am FRUSTRATED that every attempt to make this a workable situation is met by contempt from him. I don't want to have to force him to leave, but things cannot continue like this. Every time I think I've come up with a workable solution, or at least a jumping-off point, we just end up in an argument.

Advice?

Dead Zone and Why Do I Open My Big Fat Mouth?

It's been a tough few days. For some reason I'm losing my footing. It could be the days on end of rain which never works well for me. But if lack of sunshine were the only thing the solutions would be simple.

For months I've been becoming more and more dysfunctional in my work, but these last few weeks I have been borderline non-functional. Last week I clocked zero hours. For someone who wants financial freedom this is counter-intuitive self-sabotage. At the same time, my work is with him and for him. I can't separate it in my head. Still, that doesn't explain it fully because I have my own little side gig and that has been suffering too. I can do nothing but a few chores and read and write, mostly on this topic though I'm doing writing elsewhere that is unrelated. What work I do get done is forced and painful. One email to a client and I feel impossibly exhausted and drained. 

That "dead zone" that Estes talks about in WWRWW -- it's like I entered the killing room, saw what I needed to see there, but when I came out I got stuck in the dead zone around it. A place that is totally without light, without sound, without feeling. There is nothing to get hold of here. 

Meanwhile, Roi has stepped up his recovery to a meeting a day, working with his sponsor, and participating in a daily email group for sex addicts. I see visible changes, and to be honest I think this may be contributing to my having fallen into the dead zone. I don't want hope right now. Not now.

On a different, but always related topic, Kyd has come to stay for a few days. When he's here his girlfriend is often here too, and I get to see them interact, and I'm becoming increasingly disturbed by what I see. Nothing horrible, but an emergent pattern. They rarely fight, and have never fought in my presence. Mostly they talk, wrestle, play, watch movies, and joke around. It's the joking that's bothering me. Kyd tends toward those "jokes" that are semi-insulting. The kind of jokes you find in emotionally abusive relationships. I see no other evidence of overt emotional abuse. Other than the joking he treats her kindly, compliments her, listens to her, and generally obviously cares about her a great deal. 

But this need to poke with barbs wrapped in the scapegoat of a "joke" is problematic for me. It means that he needs to make sure she stays attached to him because he is the one who will define her. Even compliments, if this is the dynamic, are part of this. He often talks about how she says he treats her better than any boyfriend she's had, or how he supports her and encourages her. He wants to secure himself as her everything, he wants to secure himself by defining her. 

I tried to talk to him about it. Told him that I see that sometimes she doesn't always seem to like his "kidding around" and I gave him a recent example. He explained it was because she's a Pisces and this means she sometimes takes things too personally. WTF? 

It didn't go well after that and perhaps I should've known better. We're now giving each other a wide berth while we let the words between us settle. When he rejected wholesale my suggesting this was mildly emotionally abusive, I dug my heels in, which in turn prompted him to do the same. Nothing was accomplished.

I have no idea what to do about it, so I guess I do nothing. 

Like Telling Water Not to be Wet

Let's get a little housekeeping admin out of the way.  I've decided on names for the main characters in this story.  My son, who is 18, will be referred to as The Kyd, or Kyd for short.  He is named after Kydoimos, the spirit of the din of battle, confusion, uproar, and hubbub.  Though this doesn't capture all that he is, particularly all of his positive attributes, it works for writing.

My daughter, who is 17, will be called Lexi for no particularly reason other than I heard the name recently, and I liked it.

Back to our story:

The first time I met someone who truly understood what I was going through with Kyd it was a recovering alcoholic.  Kyd had just come back from a month in detox and rehab after nearly killing himself by driving extremely intoxicated, but things were getting tense at home fast.  Kyd was attending AA and staying sober, but he was struggling with feelings of anger and depression.  It was at an AA meeting that he met Jes.  Jes was a young man in his early 20's who had already lived as fast and hard as a person can live in that short amount of life, but he had seen the light of sobriety and took the 12th step quite seriously.

Jes had started a sober house nearby and invited Kyd to come and live there.  I was nervous and relieved all at once.  I didn't know how to help Kyd, didn't know how to keep him sober or how to pull him back from the jaws of a mood swing that could come out of nowhere.  I had only just discovered how far back Kyd's alcohol and drug use had gone, and I was still reeling from trying to make sense of whether Kyd was "just an addict" or if he was self medicating mental illness.  Whatever the answer, I didn't have it, couldn't find my way to it, and was exhausted with the years of chaos we had already been through.

In a leap of faith and desperation I let Kyd go.  I drove him to the sober house and met Jes.  We talked a little on our own, and as I told him a little background he could see how worried I was.  I kept talking about how I knew I was supposed to "let go", and I was trying....and then he said, "Telling a mother not to worry is like telling water not to be wet."

"Yeah," I said quietly.