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I'm so sorry, Footloose.  I know you are hurting.  You poor poor child.  I send loving and warm thoughts to you.  I will remember you in my prayers.  I remember an incident in my family, about eight years ago now, when my MIL and I had an unfortunate confrontation.  It resulted in an estrangement, not by my choice but by hers.  I was emotionally charged, demanding that DH do something about it.  I remember him saying to me, 'Ruth, you want everything right now.'  I gradually had to come to accept that this was one of those things that was going to be a long time coming, and maybe not at all.  We are still estranged.  This taught me a lot, about patience and about how little to no actual control I have to compel another person to hear or see my viewpoint, and to enter a relationship with me.  It is hard as it can get with it is your own DC. 

There is no sense in going back over what happened, Footloose.  Be kind to yourself.  It was just a mistake.  I don't make any fast moves with my DS anymore, even when he contacts me, I am very slow.  If you cannot come to terms with having to accept the absence of DS for a time, for as long as it takes him to let go of his anger enough to begin to open the door to you, you are going to destroy your health, and that will be tragic.  You are a kind person, with the best of intentions, but your intense love for your DS is driving you to act out of character.  I want you to let go of the phrase 'time out' because it is degrading to you.  You aren't a child, and you aren't in punishment.

This is more of a sabbatical for you, to allow time for both you and DS to explore new ways of understanding each other.  Have you ever considered that maybe it is for the good of both you and DS, to have this little time apart?  That it is intended to produce a good and much more fulfilling relationship than you had before?   I am silly, I know, but I do believe things happen for a reason, for some ultimate good.

I have sometimes thought it odd, but you know I have never seen the inside of anywhere my DS has lived, since he lived with me.  I mentioned this once to DD, how I understand now why my elderly mother made the hard trip a couple years ago to see my house.  MOthers for some reason just need to see where their child lives, its comforting somehow.  But I will not go to my DS's house unless he asked me.  I know he would consider it crossing a boundary.  Let it all ride for a few months, Footloose.  Then you can begin sending a note in the mail now and then, and reach out to him again.  You'll know when the time is right.  Hugs.

Its probably a good thing I didn't get Sherlock Holmes.  You guys had a lot more fun with 60's rock!  Has anybody noticed (and this is off the subject but) how teeth looked like real teeth during the 60's and 70's?  Now everybody has these perfect teeth, I don't think anybody on TV has real teeth anymore.  Its all that cosmetically enhanced stuff.  I miss the old teeth.

I know you find it impossible to believe this now, but even as we (write) it is changing for you.  It moves slowly like the earth on its axis, and you aren't even aware that the days are lengthening and the seasons are changing, but I promise you, Precious One, it will be a while but you will wake up one morning and think that you are different, that life is different.  There  will be a new normal, but this is a good thing.  I honestly believe you've taken the steps and you just now have to have faith and wait.  The best thing you can do to make it move along is to help  other people, however that takes shape for you.  I don't think the sadnesses or disappointments ever totally go away and even if they did life has a way of presenting us new ones on a regular basis, but maybe our inside, our heart, is changing into a shape that can contain it better, at any rate, once you get free from that old guilt and remorse, you won't ever have to go back there again.  The bottom line is that I no longer expect myself to live a flawless life, I know that I am a human being and mistakes happen, it  doesn't define who I am.  My faith has changed all that.  I am honored to just be your sister. 

Sad.  I think of you often.  I'm always hoping things have begun to swing the other way with your DS.   I do indeed get where you are coming from.  On the plus side - Well, DS still has a roof over his head, and doesn't seem to have deteriorated.  There is also some relief in matters being out of your control.  Your DH has tied your hands, and this relieves you of taking on the burden of coming up with some kind of possible solution and stretching yourself to the breaking point to try and make it work.  (This may be your blessing in disguise).   I still maintain, dear Sad, that this generation is amazingly resourceful, when it comes to getting their own needs met.  DS is tenacious and won't let go of his fixation on 'entitlement'.  Maybe if you just hang on, his natural resourcefulness will kick in and he'll get sick enough of this situation to get out of there and work something out.  I mean he's college educated, smart, fluent in the language, and very skilled at manipulation.  Is he mentally ill?  Who knows?  I have doubts, big ones.  Personality quirks, yes probably.  He's powerfully stubborn, (like my DS) and can wait out the faint of heart.   They can really fool you, you know....  Make themselves look so weak and so volatile, you lie awake all night imagining the worst...they can be the very devil at getting the job done for themselves, however.  He's having an enormous tantrum.  The same as with my DS, you're beating your head against a brick wall trying to reason with him.  I'm also waiting out a big one right now, DS is fresh out of college and no job, no money...  we'll have to see who caves first.  I have made the decision that I won't give anything without some kind of an apology or at least a measure of respect.

Luise, you are in a class by yourself.  You may be excused from any excursions down memory lane, because you are not in any category!  Please take that as a compliment
Keys Girl, that was a nice sentiment but ....I do have a rocking chair, its one of those that the footstool also rocks, and its my favorite seat in the house.  As for Jethro, I just want to know if he does handyman stuff.  Trust me, I am old.

That was just an amazing post, Begonia, and I had to read it twice in order to grasp the whole thing.  It was (I am sorry!) even a little comical, as I could get a mental picture of your DS popping out sweat beads, staring straight ahead.  I can assure you, even if everybody in that van acted like they were in control, it had to have been ugly.  You survived one of those insane moments.  We do have them, don't we.  The thing I see so promising for you is that you didn't internalize it at all, you didn't wallow in remorse and worry 'what a bad Mom I must be', and all that garbage.  It was an incident where this family behaved badly, and they will have to deal with the consequences of that.  I am glad you had a good walk.  The weekends are my worst times, and if I just get through it I feel I did ok.  I do love you, precious one.

I had a tough weekend but its over and I'm thankful to be starting out a new week.  Today I fanned out as far as my 'reading room' for the elderly is concerned.  I made one very good contact with a director that was warm and inviting toward me (they aren't always so) and I am excited about this.  My new direction is taking shape.  In addition to this, my DVR recorded the wrong show over the weekend.  I thought I was going to be watching Sherlock Holmes but it erroneously recorded old Ed Sullivan classics of 60's rock, and there I was in living color, so to speak.  Suddenly, it hit me that I'm an old woman.  I tell you, it nearly knocked me off the couch.  Watching the Stones, The Association, Mamas&Papas, etc. doing their big grand stands onstage shot me back to my girlhood in the 60's and I just still can't believe I got this old.  Then, I opened my email and there was a message from DS, just as if nothing had happened between us.  Just the usual updates about job interviews, etc.   

I had to go back to the beginning, SCW, and read your first post, to get my gears turning, but I immediately remembered you.  I am still here.  Still have a big soft shoulder, also.  First of all, I know where you're coming from.  You may remember me in that I confessed to you long ago of having moved away from my DS after remarriage and leaving him behind (at his own choice) with his DF.  Now, I want to tell you that there is hope, and you can get loose from this torture you're going through.  First of all, you've already admitted to yourself and (more than one other person!) that you made a mistake, and that if you had it to do over you'd do things differently.  Don't spend too long there, I suspect you've already talked or written to you AC about this, and you don't need to stay there which is what I suspect you're doing.  You have some kind of distorted thinking that if you just stay there long enough, you can turn back the clock and fix it.  I know because this is what I did also.  It is subconscious, but its powerful.  So you have to next admit to yourself that you are a human being, and human beings make mistakes.  At that point, you can start being more compassionate toward yourself and cut yourself some slack.  I know its an overworked phrase, but you have to try and be as good to yourself as you would a friend who was walking in your shoes, and reached out to you for help.  After I did these steps, the torture eased up a little on me, and then my mind cleared up enough for me to do some constructive thinking and begin to peel off layers that lead toward the truth.  Now, I still have some very bad days.  This weekend I took a little of a back set and began to second guess myself again, sometimes just the smallest comment I might read can set me off in the wrong direction, i.e. hating myself and blaming myself for everything.  Now I know that I am to blame for some things, but not to blame for everything.  Now that my DS is a big grown up man, I hold him to blame when he is rude to me, or chooses to say or do things that hurt me.  I really work at accepting that he doesn't have the wherewithall to cultivate a close relationship with me, nor the desire.  Nothing I could have ever done differently in the past would have, or could have, changed his personality and his natural bent.  I suspect this kind of thing lies at the root of a lot of the estrangements here.  There's not a mother or a family on earth who haven't made enough mistakes to bring on an estrangement, its just that most people want relationship and reconciliation, so they forgive and move on.  Some people don't.  They are too stubborn and selfish, and they like to punish others..... Now, and finally, I am living a new life.  I consider the past as history.  Twenty plus years was enough suffering.  If any one thinks I didn't suffer enough, I will be happy to enlighten them.  I didn't get a free lunch, as I'm sure you didn't.  I don't have to account for the past anymore.  That isn't who I am now.  If my AC want to get to know me as I am now, a more mature Mom with a much broader and more unselfish perspective on life, they have the choice to do so.  But I am spreading myself out, finding new volunteer opportunities to work with the elderly, which is my passion, and hope it may even lead to some kind of a new career for me, who knows.  I have given my life over to the care of God, and as long as he is pleased with me, that is all that really matters.  Loving others and being kind, doing acts of kindness to those who can't help themselves, pleases God.  So I am happy now.  You can be happy also.  You have to be brave and allow those layers to peel off.

Dear Sara, you poor child.  Life has become far too complicated for you, far too soon.  That is a bad thing, yes, but it can become the time in your life when you make a decision to grow up into the woman you would most admire, and the mother you would most love to have for your daughter.  I fear there are too many broken things here to put back together again.  I saw my own daughter go through a tragic decision, far too early in her life, and take such a tragic toll on all our lives, for many years.  This is just what we have to come to terms with, because all decisions, both good and bad, have consequences and there is no escaping that fact.  Your husband will be a part of your life, and your child's life, for at least the next eighteen years, so you must find the most constructive way of handling that.  My advice for you would be to go back to your Grandmother's home, with the clarity between you both that you do not go back as a child to be protected and made war over, but you have to go back as a kind adult woman finding sanctuary for herself and her child.  I would advise that you continue in counseling, and in counseling as a couple, to see if over time there opens up a new door for your marriage, but I do not think this will be the case.  All the drama you have wrapped yourself up in is only clouding out the real issues, Sara, and the truth.  The counselor can help guide you through some murky waters into being able to make better decisions in the future, good luck precious one and I hope you will be very brave and do the right thing for your child., and yourself.

When my kids were growing up I kept a poem framed, entitled 'Children Learn What They Live'.  I'm sure you all know that poem, and I remember then how unsettling it was for me, and how intimidating, because I was always so painfully aware of falling short in spite of how hard I tried.  My kids were hard headed and constantly at it.  I was always tired.  And there was always too much month left at the end of the money.  There were just not many endearing moments during those years.  I always felt like I was just fighting to survive and get through it.  On top of their continual bickering was the drain of their father's rash temper and brutal moods.  The poem was a beautiful sentiment, but things don't always come out the way we hoped, even when you follow the recipe to a T. 

I just finished reading an old book, 'The Hiding Place'.  I came across it while digging through my bookshelves looking for good candidates for my reading room project. ( Recommended reading for those of us who feel our troubles are too great to bear.  A couple of years in a concentration camp throws a new light on things....)  When Corrie returned from the concentration camp, she was  pulled back into her old role in the underground, but immediately it went badly and she escaped by the skin of her teeth, and swiftly concluded that this was not her role now.  She stated she knew this because the skills she had for that work were gone. (I thought Wow.  I would have just kicked myself for having second thoughts, for failing, and proceeded to forge on ahead, doing the same thing over!)   I thought this was profound.  What wisdom to know right away to stop and turn around.  I have wasted way too many years trying to return to a role that is gone for me.  This is OK.   I'm going to find the right role for me now, for this time in my life.

I think we might also add that this jerkitis seems to be a genetic sickness.  Organ transplants (heart, etc.) have not proved effective in eradicating it.  Pain management is necessary.  Hospice has been called in for the more stubborn cases.

I would just like to encourage you to bear in mind that the way it is today, will not be the way it will always be.  A lot of us here have A/C who are very late in growing up, or in growing wisdom and understanding.  They have to do this in their own time.  Nothing we can say or do will accomplish this for them, and I think after a period of time it just takes life itself to accomplish that.  Take it one day at a time, Tinker, and don't try and figure it out. 

this made me start jiggling with laughter!

Every time I see your name, BOC, my mouth waters!  Gosh I love them.  It was so clever of you.  As life would have it, it often seems like the last people in the world to really know us, are our DC.  Please don't waste your life mourning this.  Give your gifts and enjoy giving yourself.  You did a good job and even though you still see challenges and some unfinished business, they - the AC -  have to make their own journeys and become human, this isn't your job.  You don't have to go to either extreme, I don't think, in order to make a positive change here. 

Pen, I think Pooh should maybe rein in that diagnosis, because next thing coming down the pike would be jerks filing for disability... 

Today I started my Reading Room at the assisted living center.  Oh, it was just wonderful!  Why didn't I do this ages ago?  I spent some time with a 91 year old delightful little lady who hasn't walked in many years, but she was so sparkling and intelligent.  She probably didn't hear half what I said, but was too nice to admit it.  I will be doing this on a regular basis now, and I plan to branch out into some other facilities as I get my sea legs, and dragging along my big knapsack.  Finally I can see how accumulating all these books over the years can have a higher purpose than I ever imagined.

You know, everyone, there is no reason for any of us to be lonely, or useless, or stuck.  Opportunities abound for us to share ourselves with others, who want and need what we have to give.  Some of us didn't get the brass ring as far as our DC go, but we can decide to keep on loving them with an open, but full, heart.  We can benefit them greatly by letting our lives show them that they aren't the center of our world, or anyone's world, and they need to get over themselves (ahem speaking of my DS primarily).  Begonia, DH and I did the basement thing last week, we nearly broke our backs but every time I go down those steps I feel pleased.