-=> Quoting Damon Getsman to Nancy Backus on 08 Jan 14  18:42:23 <=-

 NB>> to hang out here, but these little support echoes are pretty much where
 NB>> the good aspects of Fido community can still be found.  :)

 DG> Heh.  Yeah, there's a couple of echoes that I've been making a go at
 DG> for quite a few months now that I'm about ready to put aside for
 DG> awhile.  Seems like in at least a couple of them, the moderator and a
 DG> few key individuals that always seem to be in about 180-degree
 DG> opposition sit and hurl artillery shells at each other to the tune of
 DG> dozens of kilobytes of text, but never come to any sort of agreement
 DG> and certainly not a ceasefire.  Most of my attempts to get into those
 DG> discussions have been met by people testifying against each other
 DG> regarding whoever's posting that I may've responded to.  

Those sound like the type of echos I've always avoided... ;)  COOKING
and MEMORIES, where I do hang out, are much more inviting places... :)

 DG> Whatever, I guess, doesn't really work for keeping me amused but if
 DG> it gives them a happy and full life, so be it.
 
One does wonder at times...  ;)  

 DG> Interestingly enough it was my adoptive mother (the one who just a
 DG> couple of months ago kicked my son and I out into the snow so that she
 DG> could get her house fixed up enough to get photos of it in 'Victorian
 DG> Living' hopefully [she doesn't understand that a 2 bedroom, one floor
 DG> starter house with spraypainted doors will never end up there]) who

Delusional... or at least overly optimistic...  :)

 DG> first pointed me at William Peltzer's book, _A Child Called It_.  She's

I've read that... horrific tale...

 DG> one that I got a few forms of serious abuse from, when she wasn't
 DG> having paranoid schizophrenic delusions about Satan commenting on how
 DG> she was burning in the 'Lake of Fire'.  Let me just sum up all of that
 DG> by saying "I'm glad I was adopted; that genetic line needed to stop
 DG> there." 

At least you know that the genetic seeds of that sort of thing won't
have come to you from her.  I'm sorry you had to endure that, too... 

 DG> The cat actually seems to be doing pretty good lately, at this
 DG> interim place that we're at.  However, it appears that our stay here is
 DG> coming to an untimely end, with me still no closer to having my
 DG> transportation working, nor any other place to stay, nor a job (thanks
 DG> to the no transportation and seriously sub-zero temperatures).  Pretty
 DG> sure I'm going to end up in an overnight shelter with my son, after
 DG> this, and if the pregnant wife of my friend, whose hormones are (he
 DG> says) allegedly to blame for my eviction from here, that my cat will
 DG> end up kicked out, too.  That's almost worse in a way than having to
 DG> put him to sleep.  All that my cat does when I'm not around and he's
 DG> in an unfamiliar place is hide and yowl when other people or animals
 DG> bother him.  He's a completely fulfilled and happy cat when I'm around,

Hopefully that will iron itself out... I suppose the yowling when you
aren't around could be getting on the wife's nerves... hormones can be
silly things... and some use them more as an excuse than others do...

 DG> though.  Gah.  I gotta stop focusing on the problems and start focusing
 DG> a little more on the solutions.  When I look at the problems too long,
 DG> my outlook goes negative, and then I start attracting negative.  The
 DG> last thing that I need is any more of that right now.

Yeah.  It can be useful to look at problems long enough to acknowledge
their existence, and to hopefully be able to see what to do about them,
but dwelling on them only makes things worse... 
 
 DG> That is absolutely right.  When I'm struggling with the amount of
 DG> bogus crap in my life, the one thing I can always rely on to put a
 DG> smile on my face, or at least a warmth back into my thoughts, is my
 DG> son.  Not having to worry about his abuse or neglect where I can't do
 DG> anything to help him is one unrelenting positive in my life.  When I
 DG> really don't know where I'm going to get my next meal, then it weighs
 DG> me down a little bit more; I could stand homelessness when I was on my
 DG> own much easier than I can when I've got a son to provide and care for.

You've got more reason and motivation with him... it does make things
seem more weighty, but that's part of the balance...

 DG> God if only I could get that vehicle working.  Everything is fixed
 DG> now, it just needs a higher amperage battery.  However, without
 DG> transportation in this weather, I can't even get to the plasma bank to
 DG> donate plasma to raise a hundred bucks for that battery.  Everything
 DG> right now that I need to jumpstart myself is in a catch-22 situation
 DG> like that, as far as I can tell. 

Can someone help you either get the battery, or get to the plasma
bank...?  It would seem that someone should be able to see that only a
little hand up would make all the difference... but, I do know that a
lot of people expect others to pull themselves up by their bootstraps
without paying any attention to the fact that the bootstraps are
broken... 

 DG> That's precisely why I talk my son all the way through pretty much
 DG> everything that I'm advising him on, any reason he's having priviledges
 DG> taken away for, or anything else that reminds me of experience in my
 DG> life (or experience that I would've been better off getting or knowing
 DG> about).  I always tell him how not learning these things, or how not
 DG> having a proper example, or whatever from my messed up childhood,
 DG> affected me and how much longer I kept paying and suffering for lack of
 DG> it.  Everybody that talks to him, his teachers, everyone, always
 DG> comments about his vocabulary and his mature perspectives into things,
 DG> and how good his decision making is when he doesn't have any
 DG> supervision.  I hope that means that I'm doing these things right. 

Sounds like you are doing something right there, anyway..  :)  And he is
probably also absorbing life lessons just from the unsettledness that
you both find yourselves in...  

 DG> He's obviously soaking things up and applying them at a much faster
 DG> rate than a lot of his peers; I just hope they stick with him, despite
 DG> the fact that, unlike me, he hasn't been burned and learned the hard
 DG> way from most of these things. 

Some children are able to assimilate things easier than others... some
have to have the hard knocks, others are very tender and learn easily...
and children can be very resilient, despite whatever life tosses at
them.  Having a loving parent there to support helps a lot, no matter
what the child is or is going through...  :)

 DG> I'm just very, very glad that I was able to get custody without any
 DG> sort of a serious fight.  Now if I'd just start getting the child
 DG> support that I've been owed like forever now...  well I wouldn't be
 DG> in this situation today now, would I?

Yeah, child support can be another catch-22 situation... having the cash
would have been so much easier for keeping roof over head etc...
 
 NB>> As long as you don't coddle, but do support, he should be able to learn
 NB>> it just fine... You can sympathize with his feelings, but then explain
 NB>> that they didn't mean it personally... it's just more a game with
 NB>> them... and that it's ok to respond in kind, but not in a mean way... 

 DG> Heh.  I try to do that, but I know that at some times I end up
 DG> sliding to the extreme of coddling now and then.  It's difficult, and
 DG> every time that I realize I'm doing it, readjusting to a newer,
 DG> healthier standard, always feels like I've become a terrible and
 DG> uncaring person.  I do try to evaluate myself on a regular basis for
 DG> when things like that have to be done, though. 

A certain amount of what probably is coddling, isn't a problem... it's
when you always give in to what the child wants, and "protect" them from
the consequences of their actions, that you end up spoiling them and not
teaching them how to grow more mature from the situations...  Nurturing
and discipline (both teaching and consequences) are important in growing
the child into an adult...  I've seen way too many children that didn't
get the guidance they needed, in the false thinking that giving in to
their every whim will make them somehow respect you for it... and what
they grow up to be, just whiny children in adult bodies, unable to teach
their own children anything... 

 NB>> I don't recall quite that dynamic growing up as a child, but then I was
 NB>> the oldest of 8, the first five showing up by the time I was 7... We'd
 NB>> have our arguments, but in most cases, it only made us grow closer...
 NB>> and of course, since I was the oldest, I was usually being held
 NB>> accountable for whatever squabbling was happening, so I tended to try
 NB>> to keep that sort of stuff to a minimum wherever possible...  ;)

 DG> Yeah, I've got the only child thing going on here (for myself, as
 DG> well as my son).  I'm really good at noticing only child
 DG> characteristics, and I'm starting to be good at recognizing the 'last
 DG> of the litter' characteristics, too, but that doesn't really lead me to
 DG> always identifying the behavior in myself in such a way that would
 DG> improve things in my own life early enough...  I need to focus on that
 DG> more.  

We ended up with an only child, not by plan but by that's all we got. 
But then he had my younger siblings to work off the rough edges on...
and lots of cousins that came along later to interact with.  My husband
is the younger of two...  Some of it is learned behavior, some is maybe
inate, but I think some things have less to do with place in family and
just with who you are and how you interact with others...  

 DG> Hell, today I think the first thing that I really need to do is
 DG> meditate, today.  I don't know what it is, but after I took a short
 DG> nap this morning I've been struggling really hard with slipping off of
 DG> the continental shelf off the coast of an optimistic attitude. 
 DG> Everything that I think about in my particular situation is leading me
 DG> into a spiral of hopelessness, resentment, and anger.  Even 180 seconds
 DG> of good meditation will lead me out of that, but it's always just
 DG> getting the timer set that's the hardest part of that for me...  Then I
 DG> always notice afterwards that my day is going 100x better...  If I miss
 DG> it for a single day it's become picking up the Empire State Building
 DG> with one hand again, though.  :P 

Breaking the downward spiral of thinking is always a useful thing...
focusing off the problems to either something else, or perhaps to some
solutions that may occur to one when gets re-focused is usually the key.

 DG> I very much hope so.  Seeing lots of other families and fathers with
 DG> their sons I realize how very special and unique the relationship that
 DG> I have with him is.  Every time he takes a new step on his own, I fear
 DG> that it's one away from me that won't necessarily come back in this
 DG> direction.  I think that's primarily because of how I reacted having to
 DG> leave my own parents in order to gain my own freedom, though; it's not
 DG> necessarily what will happen in a healthier dynamic.

One can foster independence in one's child(ren) without losing the
relationship with the child... in fact, sometimes that can be the factor
that keeps the relationship solid, that the child doesn't have to fight
to get any sort of independence.  And it can be done without removing
your support of the child as well...

 DG> If my doctor would just put me back on my regular prescribed amount
 DG> of ativan again I'd be able to deal with these rare negative days a
 DG> lot better.  :P 

Pluses and minuses to meds...  :)   As long as the negative days are
rare, maybe you don't really need the med...?  Just work on other ways
to cope...?

 DG> I thank you very much for the kind words, either way.  I'm already
 DG> noticing a more positive shift in my outlook.  :)

I'm glad to be of some help..  :)

ttyl           neb

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