Tuesday, April 14, 2015

BOUNDARIES - ENOUGH IS ENOUGH

     It's a good thing, I am not as insecure as I was a couple of years ago!
     Sonny's news that, he missed a deadline to transfer into a 4 year college shook me up. I don't know, how to be a kind of a parent, who wouldn't react to such situation with dismay. The thing that causes me most pain is not whether Sony goes to college or not. I am concerned about the way his character is shaping up to be.
     I heard the alarm bells in my mind, when he would refuse to get up even for the most important of the reasons. Noticing, how he would stuck in his room made me very uneasy, although he and some other people told me, it was usual for the young people these days to spend so much time gaming or watching videos and anime online. 
     But Sonny seemed so determined to go to college right after school and told me so many stories about his classes, teachers and the material he studied (he was very easy going, once he came out of his cave)! I told myself: "See, he is managing! He'll do fine!"
     It's not a tragedy, that he didn't manage to get into college this year. There are other options for his education. I am talking about the fact that, 1. He put entertainment and leisure ahead of his main job - study and 2. He would not acknowledge his mistake in any way, as well as continue (at least outwardly) to lead the same way of life, taking no responsibility to correct the situation.
     He is my son, and I love him. I want him to grow to be a great man, husband and father - a citizen - who can add something to the world. 
     I worked hard these few days to calm down, understanding the need to be objective and not screw up the situation even further. I wrote a few post in this blog, each of them - calmer than another. I continue to take part in the discussions Sonny and Taka have, even though they largely ignore my point of view.
     Mr. P. was very helpful for me to understand Sonny's reality. We talked about it at length at our sessions. I am still working up my nerve to tell Sonny, he has to shape up or find himself another place to live, as Mr. P. suggested. Imagine my surprise, when in reaction to me half-humorously calling Sonny a slacker in one of my posts, Mr. P. wrote a comment, where he strongly warned me off being judgemental toward Sonny or harming him emotionally. I continuously tried to explain myself, pointing out: I wrote the blog with love and humor (the pictures of Sonny in that post are cute, with nothing to suggest me judging him). I even pointed out that, I don't claim to know it all, and Mr. P. could be right, but he kept on insisting that, my blog became "insecure place" and telling me, how I should or shouldn't apologize.
     I learned from Mr. P. how to observe the boundaries. It's my blog, I write it to work out some of my thoughts or problems. I'll gladly take advice, but enough is enough!  

     

2 comments:

  1. Hello Dina,
    I have been following your blog for quite some time, and I find many of your posts interesting and your stories beautifully written. However, I urge you to follow with your therapist's advice. Yes, this may be your blog, but this is a space that is made public for people to find and read, much less your children.

    To me, it seems that, rather than seeing your son as a slacker, perhaps you would think about his view on things. Yes, I read that you say that affectionately, but words can still be extremely hurtful, even if they are meant to be taken as affection. If a person who was overweight was called tubby by their family, it's meant affectionately, but it would still hurt their emotions and it would make them lose trust in their family.

    Perhaps, Sonny is not slacking his days off in his room for purely playing games. I have a son, and he does this too. My own therapist urges me to consider that he may be distancing himself from me and my husband, as I fear might be happening here as well. We tend to fight a lot, and I am ashamed to say this but we do tend to drag our children into our fights. Or, some days I will be irritated, and subconsciously take this out on my own Ben. Now that he's grown up and moved out, he tells me he moved away to another state so that he could be comfortable without us. It really hurt me to hear this, but it also made me think about how I treated Ben. He tells me we put too much pressure on him, that we threatened him and his life too much, and he felt that he was not good enough, and that we put him down too many times. "There's only so much shame from you I can take, mom." In his own words.

    I hope I can find a way to mend things with my son, which might be hard since he's moved out already. I only wish he'd told me this so I could have tried to make him feel more comfortable in his own home. My therapist said, "Give Ben the tools he needs to be his own adult. Try not to judge him too much, but give him the love and support he needs. Don't exile him."

    I say this here, to you, in case this might be happening to you and your family. From one mother to the next, I urge you to be careful. I might have pushed my Ben too far away, but you still have your Sonny. Don't push him away.

    God bless you, Dina, and keep writing! My favorite stories from you are Rimka and Shelter. I would buy the books if they were on the shelves! Perhaps your daughter could create the book covers.

    With love, Annalyse.

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    Replies
    1. Dear Annalyse, you can't imagine, how happy I am to hear from you! I also appreciate your advice, since I suspect, the situations in our homes might be similar.
      I think, it's hard to know, what's going in another person's heart, even when they live in the same house or sleep across the hall from us (or on the other side of the bed). I accept, your advice, therefore, that my humor might hurt Sonny. I always thought, he and I have a better relationship, than he with his father, but now, it seems, he'd rather take dad's criticism and advice than my humor. It could also be, he makes mistakes in order to attract his dad's attention.
      In any case, I am grateful for your input and readership and hope to hear from you again!

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