Being an Adult, Being a Parent

My son got mad at me this morning.  It's not really surprising or notable when a teenager gets mad at his parents, it's part of their emotional development and really appropriate, but this was notable because I've been waiting for this to happen for a few years.  Last night my son had a dream in which he confronted my ex-boyfriend from my long term abusive relationship and it made him re-examine his feelings about what happened.  He wanted to protect me from him and he couldn't do it.  Underneath his anger there is fear and sadness, from the little boy who watched his mother get hurt over and over again and could do nothing about it.  He couldn't protect himself and he couldn't protect me.  He can't see it right now all he can see is the anger and that's okay, that's his vehicle to get to the deeper emotions that accompany the anger.

That being said, it's important to acknowledge that he has every right to be angry with me; I blew it.  I failed to protect my son and I failed to protect myself, these are inextricably intertwined.  When we fail to protect ourselves and allow ourselves to be abused we hurt our children.  Research has shown that for children it's actually less damaging to be abused than it is to witness another family member's abuse, especially a parent's a abuse.  I can agree with that.  If I just ignore the anger and try to get to the underlying emotions, I will do him a disservice.

There is a lot that I need to be aware of as a parent and as a person.  To say this isn't about me is on the one hand true, it's about my son and the effects of his experience during this abusive period in our lives.  But it is about me inasmuch as if I am not present, if I don't take responsibility for the what happened during that time, and if I don't do my emotional work so that I can be an effective and protective parent then I am failing him all over again.  There is no wimping out here, that is not an option.  His anger is both justified and appropriate.  He needs to be able to express it and he needs me to be able to listen and to accept responsibility for the choices I made that drastically affected his life. Basically he needs me to be an adult about this.  That means there's no room for denial or self-pity.  It means that when he expresses his anger I have to accept it with my eyes wide open and provide a safe place for him to express it, acknowledging the truth of what he is saying.

He's a smart kid.  He doesn't need platitudes, he doesn't really even need an apology right now.  He needs to know that I love him through his anger, that I'll keep walking right next to him, that I know what I did and that I accept responsibility for my actions and their affect on him, and that I'll never let that happen again.  Will he believe me?  No, he doesn't trust me and why would he?  I've given him no reason to believe what I'll say, I threw that opportunity out the window when I let my ex come back into our lives and hurt us again.  I have to earn that trust every day by being an adult and a responsible parent and providing him the resources to process his hurt and his anger in a way that will allow it to become a strength and not a poison.

The work I have had to do on myself is separate from the work that lies between my son and I, but it's part of the foundation of being able to be the parent he needs as he seeks to come to terms with what he experienced during this time.  It's really easy to try and hide from all of this, it doesn't feel good to look at the child you created and know that failed him.  People have told me I didn't fail him, I had issues, there were reasons why I stayed in that relationship and allowed both of us to be abused, I shouldn't be so hard on myself.  Bullshit.  I failed my kid and that's not a statement made as a martyr, that's a statement made with full understanding of what it means to be a parent and the responsibilities that come with that role when we accept it.

Being an adult means that I don't beat myself up for what happens and indulge in a lot of guilt and self-pity.  It means I look at what happened honestly, I accept what that means and the consequences that created and I get up, dust myself off and I face the problem.  I can't take my son's anger away and I shouldn't.  I can't go back in time and fix what happened, it's done.  But I can be the parent my son has always needed every single day, right now, and never forget the lessons learned from that experience; and when we mess up as parents that's exactly what we need to do.

Be angry, my son.  Tell me how I screwed up and what that did to you and what it means to you today.  Tell me why all of those experiences make you so angry; explore it, express it, let it be real because you've hidden it away too long trying to protect me.  I don't need you to protect me, I'm an adult I can protect myself, but I will not protect myself from your anger because it's real, it has value and it is justified.  I will be there for every word you have to say.  I will accept the truth of your experiences, I will accept responsibility and I will do better.  I will love you through it all, I will not hide and I will provide the resources you need to craft the expression of your anger into a healing process so you can be free of the hurt and become an adult yourself in the true sense of the word.  And when your anger has run it's course I will still be there loving you.  And above all, my son, I will never forget for one moment that I wasn't the parent you needed me to be and I will never let that happen again.

Trying to Find Balance

March 20th will be 6 months since my ex left.  I don't think the time is significant per se but I can't help stopping to reflect when I realize how much time has passed.  When he was in my life there was room for nothing more - only he mattered.  All of my attention had to be focused on him.  The time I spent with my son was grudgingly given and that is only because a thread of guilt would worm its way into his awareness and he would back off so I could have that time.  Notice he didn't participate...he just isolated himself from us.  My life was so small, so confined.  I had friends but I never saw them and didn't speak with them; there was no time.  He had to be my entire world.

Now, as I begin to see my life open up in many wonderful and unexpected ways I can't help but be aware that another entity has entered my life and is demanding that same focus of attention.  It's not any healthier and is just as limiting.  It's my job...my job!  When my friend likened my worklife to third world country workers who work 18 hours a day and sleep in the factory at which they work it was not a good thing!  I need to take notice of that.  And although I am laughing as I write this, there is a thread of seriousness here that cannot be ignored.

I have struggled most of my life to find work that is meaningful to me.  Going in and working a job where the end result is that a few profit enormously and the rest of the people who do the actual hard work are barely surviving financially has never been acceptable to me.  I went to college to escape that scene.  Now in some ways I am lucky, I have a job working at a rape crisis center and I find the work personally fulfilling.  However...when you work 12 hours a day 10+ days in a row without overtime it can be rather draining.

How do you balance your life when you have to work and the work you do throws everything out of balance?  Every day I take time to sit and meditate 30 minutes a day morning and evening but lately I've been so tired I've been falling asleep during both meditation times.  I wake up in the morning and go to work.  I come home in the evening and crawl into bed.  The only thing in between is work.  I have no time to exercise, no time to cook, limited time with my son and I steal time away from sleep in order to connect with important people in my life...and the list of those people seems to grow daily, something I am incredibly happy about.

Now the voice of practicality is calmly telling me that I knew this job would demand sacrifice and I should stop my whining and get back to work if that's really all I have time to do during my day.  It says that working in a non-profit crisis center means working long hours without the benefit of overtime or comp time and I knew that too.  But I'm just not buying that it has to be that way - I don't believe that I have to sacrifice everything in order to do work that is meaningful to me.

As usual I don't know the answer.  I'll have to find it as I make my way along this journey. Many people have told me that I need to find a new job and I'm certainly open to that possibility.  In the meantime the closest I come to balance these days carrying an armload of items as I carefully make my way down my apartment stairs in heels trying not to fall.