Thanks all, I am REALLY proud of him for addressing all of this & even more amazed that he seemed to stick to reasonable expectations & let go of the results.
I KNOW he's hurt & disappointed even though he was prepared for it - no amount of preparation stops you from actually feeling the pain. There's no getting around that part if you want to truly heal. I think for him, feeling so isolated & alone has always helped to keep him tied to their dysfunction - that thought process that some (albeit bad) family is better than No Family at all. (I'm the opposite - shared DNA doesn't raise my tolerance for a person.) He slept for hours in the middle of the day after arriving home - something he never does but that I'm sure he needed after all of that emotional purging. He was exhausted.
I have praised him for these efforts, and I want to hug that hurt little boy inside until he feels better, but I've been forcing myself to take a step back & give him some room. He isn't the type that responds well to constant praise & he doesn't need me to make it right for him, so I tried showing him support in other ways, like stocking up on some of his fave comfort foods.
The best part for me has been that it all seemed to make him come home with a new appreciation for his life & the people in it. I think seeing how they live, how they think & what they consider acceptable in life really made an impact. They live in a very remote area & in some ways it's like stepping into a world that time forgot. It's been 8-10 years since he was last there.
What's interesting is that I totally forgot this area where they live is actually a DRY county, so trying to drink would have been extremely difficult, especially with no vehicle. (Can you BELIEVE that even still exists in this country??)
Yet, before his plane even touched down, his bio-brother was texting him "Live bands at XYZ Bar in ABC County tonight!" & similar crap. RAH had fwd a couple of the texts to me & I was shaking my head..... wha???
This, he said, is how much they listen to me. I'm getting bombarded with this crap from my bro & I had to remind him that A. I DON'T DRINK.... THAT ISN'T JUST A PHASE I'M GOING THROUGH... and B. I'm here on a Mission & that's ALL I am interested in doing while I am here. That kind of set the tone for the entire visit.
