[tybeemarie]

Indy posted a very informative article about codependency that I read with interest. I was especially struck by its phrase, "addiction to hope," which in that context meant an unreasonable hope that things are going to change in another person. Here are the exact words:

People often get addicted to hope: The hope that the person will change, adds Jeanne McKeon, EdD, a psychologist at the Center for Addictive Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. "Before anything can change, you first have to deal with that addiction to hope. You have to start setting limits. You have to figure out a plan to change things; one that makes sense. Then move through those steps -- not allowing any backpedaling."

******************************************

Interesting. I am very good at setting limits, and I am not one to allow backpedaling. But that concept of being addicted to hope has had me wondering, what is the right attitude toward hope for parents in our situation?

I think of a talk I heard the immortal Nancy Thomas gave, in which she said we had to imagine a positive future for our kids, because they can't do that for themselves. I am not really capturing her sentiment well, but that was sort of what she was saying anyway. An image of the potential they have and the future they could have.

This morning I am up early because it was nagging at me: could my daughter have regained academic eligibility this week? Is it possible she can go to volleyball practice today and the final tournaments this coming week? I should know better than to check. It has been a burden having an online account that allows parents to check. I should not have even registered, truly. But I did, and I checked, and she is still failing two classes. Are you ready for which ones? Theater appreciation and theology. Ridiculous. What made me leave my warm bed on this cold, wet morning to look? Hope.

She has progressed in some ways--and she did bring up some of her grades. At one point she was failing or had a D in all but one class, so there's that. And she is getting more pleasant at home and was even pretty good about my not allowing her to go to the fall social, which was a co-ed dance. I think she knows that she is not safe around boys. She asked if she could have someone over instead, and we planned a fun night of going to a fancy mall, getting dinner, and catching the movie Fame. The fifth girl she asked to come was able to come, THANK GOD!

This is a girl she'd been friends with in middle school, a girl who is kind and has goals for herself and has always given my daughter good counsel. I gave them as much privacy as I could so my daughter could spill her guts about her idiotic decisions regarding grades, behavior (she's gotten 9 detentions in 6 weeks, and will serve a 3 hour suspension after school on Tuesday, I see), and her insane crush on a 16 year old Gangster Disciple. We all had a great time. It was nice to see her so animated, so happy. It was nice to see the sweet girl that's inside my daughter come out for a while.

In the past, I've been too giddy to see the sweet girl, and have given tiny, incremental bits of freedom. Which she blows with her stupid decisions. Would you believe that when she came with my youngest daughter and me to a children's hospital to get the youngest's cast off, when my youngest and I went in to see the doctor, she found the one teenage boy and had his baby sister on her hip! This was in less than 20 minutes! Ai yai yai!

Anyway, most of my parenting mistakes were born of hope, of mistaken beliefs that there had been more progress than I thought, or that my kids have more judgment than they have. Certainly my oldest has very poor judgment.

Hope is painful. Hope makes my heart hurt. I KNOW my daughter could be at least a passing student, and the star of her volleyball team. So it is very sad to me that instead she has to come home and pretend to study in her bedroom. I know there is good stuff inside her, and so it is all the more depressing to see the sullen, extraordinarily dumb, and alarmingly boy-crazy THING she is much of the time. Hope has never worked out for me where she is concerned.

And yet, we are taught that hope is one of the fruits of the spirit. Part of saying the rosary is offering a Hail Mary for the gift of hope. I don't want it! No, thank you! Hope is the salt in my wounds. Hope is the bubbly champagne that leaves you with a killer headache the next morning.

I am going to the Midwestern Conference on Childhood Sex Abuse in the hopes of learning new things that will help me help my kids. I know I will learn a lot, but how much do I help my kids, really? It will perhaps help me understand them, so I can be more centered and compassionate and loving with people who are a big, fat pain in the ***, and that is useful. But they have to do the work themselves, and it takes the time it takes, and for whatever reason, they simply have to screw up their lives.

I was thinking back to my daughter's first year and a half at our primary school, 4th and 5th grades. She was quite the behavioral problem and academic failure extraordinaire. Take just one behavior, her poor physical boundaries. She used to hang on her fellow students terribly, made them SO uncomfortable, and appeared crazy. I talked to her, I coached her, I modeled appropriate behavior, I got books on friendship, I talked to therapists, you name it. Nothing changed. The kids themselves came together as a group and said to her, "We like you, and we'd like to be your friend, but we don't like you hanging on us, can you please stop?" Over time, yes, and then she switched to hitting them. SIGH! By sixth grade she'd stopped that behavior. Then she stole money from me to give to a disturbed boy who'd just been traumatized by the death of his mother and two siblings. But I digress. The point is, NOTHING I did made a difference there. She simply HAD to be inappropriate until she got it out of her system.

Is anything different from this scenario? I don't think so. I think hoping it will be different because of anything I do is crazy and is not based in reality. What makes a difference is my being consistent and loving and strict. A place to be while she is a crazy person and beyond. That is really too bad, because I am an action person, and I would vastly prefer that my prodigious efforts resulted in change of some kind. It does not. My job is much harder. It is to love the unloveable. It is to be a sad observer of the COMPLETE STUPIDITY AND DYSFUNCTIONALITY that I do not understand at all.

I am almost done reading a book called, "Who Am I Without Him?" by Sharon G. Flake, which is a collection of short stories about teenage girls and their feelings about boys. Our therapist recommended it. Ai yai yai! I think it was better when I had less information. It is so disturbing to consider how little girls think of themselves, how all-consuming getting a boyfriend at all costs is, how essentially degrading this can all be. Ughhhh....Well, it doesn't engender feelings of hope, so it's got that going for it. But I digress.

Hope--has it ever served anyone well on these boards? It's like that song, War. "HOPE! HUH! What is it good for? Absolutely nothing! Say it again!" I think I'd like a hope-ectomy. Because it's hard to get rid of! You would think after all this slogging through failure and more failure, hope would die off. BUT NO! It is still stubbornly there, giving birth to more and more and more disappointment and sadness and even shock! How am I shocked by anything? Because I hope like a crazy person! How do I stop this? UGHHH!!!!!

[crick]

I'm so sorry you are feeling like this and struggling. Not because I think it's wrong or without validity, but because you are the one that offers so much hope and love to others. You ARE that voice of Hope, Tybee. More than you realize I think.

Every time I read all of the SNPTF's struggles on here, I think "How do they not give up?" Or "If they have given up a bit on expectations or goals for the future, how do they keep going?" The answer is...Hope.

How does that hope not die off completely? When so many of you deal with the things you do and your children continue to make the choices they do?

Love...
Resilience
Courage
Strength
Support

For whatever reason, God is not allowing you a Hope - ectomy (love that word...lol) and he keeps finding all those little ways to remind you of how far you've come, how far your children have come and isn't showing you the complete future right now.

Hang on to those reminders because those are your results and accomplishments of the hope you've had all along. Without hope your children would not be where they are today....even if it's not where you want them to be.

Without hope or your continued action, your friends here would have one less support system and friend. What a huge loss that would be!

Sometimes I think you have to get off the ride for a bit, grieve, vent, get angry, and then you get back on and keep going. Take those breaks from insanity and find that one place of complete normalcy to draw strength and will to keep going when you get back on that ride. And sure, what the experts say about addiction to hope makes sense too. We can't keep hoping for the same results with behavior that never changes or patterns that keep repeating. Setting limits on things isn't easy to do with your love and expectations for your child, and yet...of course sometimes we have to find a way to do that. Yet I refuse to believe that it's an addiction for all of you here. In my mind, Hope in this world is like air, and you need it to survive.

Lastly..

Hope like a crazy person because your children need it, your friends need it and yes, you need it too.

((HUGS))

[soultea]

Very well written. I totally understand and I guess hope is what keeps us going, getting up in the morning. But I am starting to learn the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. I don't mean I am not trying new things but I am getting to a point where I can't do it anymore. It's sad to say but I am resigning myself by saying someone else can do this better than I am. Maybe I am a quiter, maybe I am a realist. I just don't know anymore.

[Indy]

Wow! It's as if you got in my head and wrote many of my thoughts! But you always write them so much better than I can!

I have been thinking about all of my sons. I have been thinking about where they are now and where they are going. Some of them are on a good track...some are still on that downward spiral. Hope is a hard thing to have on a daily basis when you are dealing with 3 of them being homeless. Hope is hard when you have a son come to visit and a laptop comes up missing after they leave. Or when another one comes, S's PSP (handheld video game) comes up missing.

I have found that I have lost myself in their lives. The drama is beyond overwhelming. Sometimes, it is to the point of debilitation. I can remember days where I didn't even leave my room. Hope was gone. There are still times I wonder what I am going to do...then I remember, I have to step back and let them deal with it. I do more for the younger ones. I am trying to get back into some things I liked before I had 10 sons. There comes a day, when I will not have "youngers" to take care of. I have to have a life after the boys are moved out and one now to keep my sanity.

Tybee, you have always been someone I admired and looked to for advice. You have been a voice of stability and objectiveness for many years for many of us here. I know we (the collective we) will get through this as well.

[momraine]

I was actually thinking about that today, but thinking about it from a different perspective. See a girl I used to teach is getting married today and I am not able to be there. This girl is a wonderful kid. In 8th grade I was teaching her Sunday School class. I asked these girls what they wanted to study. (there were two shy boys in the class, but they rarely talked, though one's mom later told me he talked to her about everything we talked about in class) They wanted to read and discuss the Old Testament. So we did. Each week we would read a little and talk about it. I would translate some of it into more modern English, explain some cultural things (happens to be one of my fields of interest) and we would talk about what we had read and move on. The girls started to call it "the rest of the story". They had heard of David and Goliath thier whole lives, but never David and Bathsheba, they had heard about Noah and the ark, but not him getting drunk and naked after. They had heard about Solomon being a wise king, but not about how many of his brothers he had to kill to get the throne. They had heard of Abrahams faith, but not his lies and not how he treated his first son. It was kind of funny, as we read they would ask me if thier parents knew that stuff was in the Bible, they called Genesis a soap opera. I remember this particular girl asked me one day why God never gave up on us. As a race, we seemed to be whiney and kept blowing it and could not seem to follow the simple rules he gave us. She told me if she was God she would have given up a long time ago. Now let me tell you more about this girl. The following year, when she was a freshman, one of her sisters was home visiting from her first year of college and the other was two weeks from graduation. She woke in the middle of that spring night to her mother's scream. Her mother (whom I worked with teacher preschool) had just found her husband, the father of the three girls collapsed in front of his computer. (he had been looking up heart attack symptoms and the day before had made an appointment with a cardiologist for the next week, but all this came out after) Her mother did CPR but it was too late. When they went to the hospital, of the four of them, my little friend was the only one coherent enough to do the paperwork. So at 14 she did all the paperwork for processing her father's death. The next day was a Wednesday, I usually taught a youth Bible study on Wednesday nights with some of my more serious kids. I had 50 youth in my youth group at the time (I was the youth director) but only about a dozen came on Wednesdays. I e-mailed all my kids and told them that instead of the study we would have a prayer gathering. Since there were other things going on in the church, I asked them to meet me in a large gazebo that was at the edge of our church property. I dropped my children in the church nursery and went out to find my normal dozen and several more were already there. Within minutes 200 kids were in and around the gazebo, then a car pulled up. Out of that car got my little friend, her boyfriend and her boyfriends mom (who was her mom's closest friend) The girl asked if she could join us, I said of course and her friends surrounded her with hugs. The mom of the bf collapsed in my arms, she had been trying to hold up her friend and could not hold it together any more. So I sat, holding this woman and watched this child, stand up and pray out loud in front of 200 teenagers. This girl had been a total daddy's girl. She actually praised God, she told him she didn't understand his reasons but she trusted he had them. She said it hurt so much more than anything she had ever gone through, but she was holding on to him and trusting him and even praising him because she KNEW he had a reason.
So now you know why this little girl was sooo important to me. Why I was thinking about her on this, her wedding day. I remember that question about why God never gives up on us. Maybe that's why we can't give up on our kids, we are made in His image and that is one little part of Him in us. We know he has not given up on them. There were a lot of people in the Bible I would have given up on. Heck Paul ended up writing half the Bible, and who that knew him before his conversion would ever have expected that? He was still an arrogant, such and such, but he was transformed.
God called David a man after his own heart, even after the whole Bathsheba thing. So, anyway, now that you have had your very long sermon of the week from me. That is why I try to keep hoping, even when it hurts.

[lovemy6]

Beautiful!

I'm glad that no one gave up on me. No, I didn't have RAD, but I was so unlovable at times. I was into things I have prayed that my kids never got into. I was so lost. Yet, here I am, still a work in progress, but successful by the world's standard.

Sometimes hope is the only thing we have to hang on to. When I had decided to disrupt, dh asked me to go to therapy one last time. Our therapist gave me hope that my kid wouldn't always be doing what he was doing. And you know what? He was right. I won't say that sometimes it's still not VERY hard, but the thing that I had lost hope in was resolved. Bc I regained the hope that things COULD get better.

That's why this support system is so important! We are able to give one another hope when things seem so hopeless.

[lucyjoy]

When life is without hope, it makes me beg for death to come.

I relate the need to be addicted to hope to my spiritual beliefs. They are based on faith rather then hope but at the same time, I try to take my direction from there when I can think straight(sometimes I need to pitch a good fit or throw myself a nice pity party first but I get there)

Sometimes I have to stand back and let my sons make their mistakes. I pray for them. I give advice when it's invited or I feel they are wanting it but then I stand back. I figure God doesn't give up on me when I blow it, walk the wrong way, defy what he wants me to do and do it my way. So, I try to offer my kids the same hope. I try to vent my anger elsewhere and share it with them only in a way of teaching empathy and respect for the feelings of others.

I read the codependency stuff. I am codependent in a lot of ways so this is not new info for me but I'm not sure I agree with it all. I think if I were to change all the things they refer to I could become a pretty cold and uncaring person. I think I'll take my lessons from elsewhere. "Whatever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me" That, to me, is what matters.

[mommytoEli]

i'm addicted to hope. i think that is why i'm disappointed and frustrated everyday...bc i keep expecting things to be different, better, and they are not. i'm in the middle of trying to adjust my expectations, without lowering the bar so much that i give the impression that i think what is happening is okay.

But I did, and I checked, and she is still failing two classes. Are you ready for which ones? Theater appreciation and theology. Ridiculous.

we also have a system to check. my dd is failing " family and consumer sciences." lol. really? she is failing life skills? lol. telling. her lowest grade was an assignment called "all about me." she failed an assignment that was about herself. lol. you have to REALLY try to fail an assignment where the only right answer is YOU. *mommytoeli says to herself....adjust the expectations. adjust the expectations. * lol.

But I am starting to learn the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

i think that is why i feel insane. i parent the same way, give the same chances, and get the same result...when really i think in my head, "today is the day she is going to get it, today is the day it will all make sense to her, she'll see my side, she'll see why she's wrong." and i feel crazy EVERY day. i have to start seeing that she will be the same....actually regardless of what i do. i need to expect her to be the same. she will always react the same. and then think about what i need to do for ME so that i don't feel crazy, and hope that someday my dd will join me in the land of normalcy. lol. but i don't think there is anything i can do to really get her there anymore....except kind of stay there and wait for her. it is the first time i feel like backing off and letting her fail over and over again on her own with no explanation or towering over by me is NOT me failing her. i have to get back to getting myself healthy, bc otherwise what good am i? a crazy person trying to tell a crazy person to not be crazy? lol.

That's why this support system is so important! We are able to give one another hope when things seem so hopeless.

i couldn't agree more. i don't know what i would do without all the support from the fabulous people here. seriously.

[tybeemarie]

Thanks for your thoughts on hope. I've been thinking about it some more.

Today, my younger two nearly drove me to distraction with their endless bickering and sniping. My oldest was okay, actually. Really a fellow sufferer in this instance. Anyway, it was so draining, I decided we'd go to the 5:00 Saturday Mass instead of our usual Sunday 10:00 Mass. I HAD to have the Eucharist to counteract the general ugliness of the day.

I always feel at home at our church. It's nice to be around so many people who care about one another. We made our way to our usual spot up front, when I was struck by all the light over to the left--the votive candles by our mosaic of Our Lady of Perpetual Help were almost all lit, every one, and it was lovely.

And I thought, THAT'S hope! Only the hopeful light candles like that. Even if you're very sad and dejected when you light the candle, you light it in hopes that you will be comforted, if nothing else. And I sure believe in that! I want to be among the candle lighters. I also had this thought: I must be crazy looking to find hope in my damaged children! Even in healthy children or other people! Hope comes from relying on God. That I can do.

I think it boils down to me wanting to suffer less disappointment and shock and sadness. But I thought of our parish prayer wall, where people write their petitions for folks to pray for them about. And there's lots of suffering on that wall--cancer, joblessness, divorce, bereavement. People suffer. Why should I be any different?

Still, I felt very drained and quite sad about how hard it is for my kids to not do stupid things, destructive things, mean things. It's hard on them, and it's hard on me. And then, my oldest actually snuggles up to me, right there in the first pew! It was a little bit of a shock, actually, and it's always tricky to respond in a way that does not overwhelm her.

It was as if God was reminding me that the point of all this struggle and suffering was not success in the traditional sense of the word. The reality is, my oldest is going to tank academically, she's going to sabatoge her athletic career, she's going to pick total losers to moon over, she's going to do a lot of stupid and dangerous things. I am sure by this time next year, I will be delirious with joy if failing out of high school and getting pregnant are my biggest worries for her. But, apparently, it's not about that. It's about her getting to the point where she is willing to place her head on my shoulder and lean into me--I think in response to my sadness, if you can believe such a thing.

I cannot--or at least, should not-- hope for things like graduating from high school, delaying child birth until marriage, being a legally employed adult who pays her rent. I have to hope for little inroads into her heart, and hope that I can have enough love and patience and humility and courage to go down the little pathway to her heart, despite the treacherousness of going down that road with someone so broken.

If there's a hard way to do things, that's the route my kids are taking, period. That part I have to accept. Hoping that my kids act like normal kids is a ridiculous, false hope. That I want to just leave behind me. One way to do this is to never again check the computer for updates on her status at school. There will be plenty of other ways for bad news to make its way to me! My energy should be going toward creating moments of connection, or at least being open to those moments.

SIGH! Hope is tricky.

[kburch]

Originally Posted by tybeemarie

I have to hope for little inroads into her heart, and hope that I can have enough love and patience and humility and courage to go down the little pathway to her heart, despite the treacherousness of going down that road with someone so broken.

Wow, I thought I had replied to this thread earlier, but I guess not...

Anyway, it is the very hope you mention above that is fading very, very fast for me with regard to my older son, Z. He has been with us for just short of 5 years, and I am honestly and truly doubting if any true healing has happened in that time at all. I'm pretty sure it has all been an act, and he is just as much of an emotional black hole (if not more so) as he was when we met him.

Just yesterday we were reminded by him that he needs no connection to anyone, and he wants no connection to anyone. He can figure everything out on his own, just like he has for the last 15 1/2 years. Oh, and because we put him in a respite home for 20 days almost 3 years ago, we are not his family and will never be his family. According to him, we just have to deal with the fact that he does not share our values or beliefs, and he doesn't care at all about what we think or want. His life has been hell, and we have made it so, so much worse, so we have no right to expect anything of him.

I'm just not sure I know how to be "family" with someone who openly and actively rejects any connection of us as "family." He expects everything and gives nothing. I can't make him care. I can't make him love. I just don't know what to do anymore. Hope? Not sure I even know what that is right now...

[Perfect7]

Thank you all for sharing. This really touched me and ALL OF YOU give hope to others like me. I feel so sorry for myself as I look at my "typical friends" with their "typical families" and how easy it all looks. I also rely on my faith to get me through the rough patches and my son has given me something I may have not otherwise had the opportunity to learn, "let go and let God". I'm still learning, and I loved the part about God not giving up on us so why give up on our children? I needed to read this. Thank you all.

[Perfect7]

Hee Hee, when God handed out lives, we all signed up for the advanced course!

[aspenhall]

"The important thing is not that we can live on hope alone, but that life is not worth living without it." --Harvey Milk

"Adversity is the state in which man mostly easily becomes acquainted with himself." ~ Unknown

[Linny]

I'm farily new to this section of the adoption forums. Generally I stay in the 'regular' section...the general section. When we had our RAD children....along with children dx'd with ADHD, bi-polar, fetal alcohol, etc and the list could go on. The adoption of those three children all failed in some way. One is now an adult in a residential setting...severe RAD. In another, we were allowed to reverse the adoption because of the severe danger that was presented within our home; and yet the last one was relinquished when deciding to live with a relative----at the child's choice due to factors of one of the dangerous children. Long stories, all of them; but years full of heartache, danger, disgust, confusion, anger, some joy--occasionally-----and within the darkest times...hope. I think so far as to say an 'addiction to hope'.

Say what you may, but our intent in adopting every one of those children was to make it a permanent situation....calling them 'our own'......but after years of trying....and the realization of the dangers one presented for a shorter time.......each passed away from our home to another setting: Residential; Jail; another home.

My point is, while I continued to hope against hope that ONE day, things would just-even-change-a-bit.......it wasn't until a psychologist/counselor told me: "(Linny)....I think you've done more living for this child than THEY have."
Initially, that hurt. But upon further thought, I realized they were correct. I HAD done more living that the child would/could ever do. RAD is a very hurtful, dangerous, confusing condition. It threatened the very core of what I thought parenting was supposed to be. It turned me into someone I'd never seen before-----or acting as I never thought possible. I hated what I had become. And yet, in the middle of holdings and such, I found myself wondering 'WHY can't *I* make the change??? Why is this child doing this *to me*????"

And the answer was: The child didn't care about me. The child didn't do anything---for/toward/thinking of----me. The child was what he was, period. Any change was NOT going to be because I'd hoped for it; but because I tolerated the child UNTIL---or even IF he wanted to change.

That sounds simple enough, right? Not really..and maybe some of you realize how that is. I'm all for 'hope' in hoping life will someday be 'real' for these behaviorally damaged children who can't seem to see the love we hold/held for them. But, I'm disturbed by the parents I've talked to----I've read about---I've pm'ed who now are constant visitors of medications because they can no longer 'hope' in a healthy way. I"m concerned over those who live---literally---in danger---or their other children live in dangerous situations, becuase the parents feel they must maintain some sense of 'hope'.

Guess my long-winded point is this: There is a healthy hope; and there is a lost-hope. There is hope as long as it grasps toward the possibility---remote as it might be---that something postive will occur for any child. But, there's also an 'unhealthy hope'....and maybe that's the codependency you write of......that sense that 'regardless of how far a child takes me down---or takes down my ENTIRE family...to the point we're all living with cameras, monitors......parents living on medications for long-term...just to be able to cope?.....To me, that's 'un-healthy hope'. I think some authors believe parents MUST continually change their lives in order to---hope. The problem is, down the road, perhaps some parents DO the living for the damaged child......and in the end, two lives are damaged and lost. It's a fine line...and one each parent must choose for themselves. But I see a dangerous trend sometimes in that parents must sacrifice everything---to the exclusion of themselves AND the rest of the family---in order to live for a child that won't----live. I'm not sure what 'that's' called...what term to give it.......but I did it once and now, outside, see how wrong it was.

Our family now includes some children with special needs (medical, some behavioral).....but children who are able to feel at most levels--if not all. I'm not patting myself on the back; I AM saying I've BTDT on the part of co-dependency.....to the point that when I had to walk away...it wasn't easy---it was full of 'guilt' and plenty of the 'what-if's'....but it was the best thing I ever did for everyone. I started to become---me---again. My other children began to laugh again, live again. I was able to love without worrying someone would sabotage everything we were all hoping to do.

LIke I said...it's a fine line.....but I felt compelled to write this, because I feel sometimes that 'hope' is far too glorified in books and lectures...making parents who've given their 'all''...think they've not given enough. Nothing could be further from the truth. Just be sure the 'hope' isn't one that damages *you* to the point that all God has intended for *you to do* is lost at the expense of one child who truly can't/won't change.

Most Sincerely,

Linny