Dear Chickory:
Thinking of you and your son and sending positive thoughts your way.
I can only imagine how difficult this must be. For years, I struggled with not knowing what to do in order to help my brother. As I mentioned in a previous post, he's not an addict but struggles with the affects of growing up in a dysfunctional home and also has a mental illness.
For the longest time, I truly felt like it was my responsibility to SAVE him and I also sometimes felt that I was the ONLY person who could help him. Things didn't start to click for me until I started my recovery work.
When I was truly able to look at my family of origin for what it was, a dysfunctional family system that was keeping all of us locked in unhealthy patterns, I started to realize that I was probably one of the LAST people who could help him. I was able to detach from him with love because I truly believed that how I was treating him (how our whole family was treating him) was making him sicker not stronger. Detaching was no longer something that I should do, it was the only thing I could do if I wanted him to heal. I sort of thought of my family as being on a boat. If we all stayed in the boat together it was surely going down. The only chance any of us have at getting better is by jumping out of the boat.
A family system doesn't automatically get healthy when one person leaves. I became the scape goat for awhile, they were content with the way things were and didn't understand why I wanted change.
I'm at the point right now where I'm learning to respect everyone's choice to live the life that they want. I'm still trying to define me and figure out what makes me happy (at the age of 48!), so I'm in no position to tell someone else what they should do with their life.
My brother is currently estranged from the entire family. I haven't heard from him in months and I'm hoping that this means he's taking responsibility for his own life. I have to also accept that the life that he choses may not be the life that I would chose for him, but again it's not up to me to decide. I also pray a lot.
I found "The Soloist" to be a moving film about accepting the things you can and can not change when it comes to extreme mental illnesses.
Thank you for letting me share.
db