Politipidity

Alanon's 'Letting Go' Versus Mine

The mother of a son with schizophrenia on 'Letting Go'

I learned the previous words on 'letting go' through Alanon. I understood them and practiced them. Then my son was diagnosed with schizophrenia. I have been struggling for nine years to apply the principle of letting go to this disease and my life.

How do I apply the principle of letting go to schizophrenia?

Show me the services designed to address his disease. Give him the skills and tools he needs, so I can let go.

Alanon's "LETTING GO"

"Letting go does not mean to stop caring;
it means I can't do it for someone else."

What does doing it for himself mean if he can't fathom the process needed?

"Letting go is not to cut myself off;
it's the realization I can't control another. "

How do I continue to be available when my availability is viewed through the skewed eyes of a disease that often sees me as the enemy through no provocation of my own?

"Letting go is not to enable;
but to allow learning from natural consequences."

What do 'natural' consequences mean to someone who keeps making the same mistakes over and over expecting different results? Forgetting the lessons?

"Letting go is to admit powerlessness;
which means the outcome is not in my hands."

How productive is the acknowledgement of my own powerlessness over a disease that has no cure? It is a feeling we parents are struck with on day one that never, ever leaves.

"Letting go is not to try and change or blame another;
it's to make the most of myself. "

How do I make the most of myself when no one else is willing to recognize the actual need for assistance in his life?

"Letting go it not to care for;
but to care about."

How effective is just caring about my son without caring for him when his disease and the disenfranchised system of care deems my care giving as necessary?

"Letting go is not to fix;
but to be supportive, not to judge, but to allow another to be a human being."

What are the boundaries between letting my son fix his own problems to the extent he is capable and stepping in to teach and teach and teach him how to do it on his own?

"Letting go is not to be in the middle of arranging the outcome; but to allow others to affect their own destinies."

How much can he effectively affect his own destiny? How much of his destiny is in his hands when he is so easily controlled and used up by others?

"Letting go is not to be protective;
it's to permit the another to face reality."

What does reality mean to someone who accuses one of the only people in his life who has never betrayed him of doing just that because paranoia rules his emotions?

"Letting go is not to deny;
but to accept."

How much does lack of insight limit his ability to accept his disease? Who's responsibility is it if he can not? Who's responsibility is it to call 911?

"Letting go is not to nag, scold, or argue;
but instead to search out my own shortcomings and correct them."

How many times do I have to take an inventory on my own shortcomings, dig back in, revise my behavior, try again to meet only what is NEEDED of me, before I do just give up purely out of a need to survive ?

"Letting go is not to adjust everything to my own desires;
but to take each day as it comes and cherish myself in it."

How do I cherish myself in my own life, when it is constantly interrupted by yet another crisis in his?

"Letting go is not to criticize and evaluate anybody;
but to try and become what I dream I can be."

How do I avoid criticizing and evaluating him when almost everything I say is perceived as criticism?

"Letting go is to not regret the past;
but to grow and live for the future."

How can I live and grow for my future, if I don't do everything I can to help him do exactly the same? My independence depends on his independence.

"Letting go is to fear less and live more."

How do I learn to fear less with a son who has become one of the most vulnerable people the world knows because of a disease?

Posted by Doe at October 10, 2006 03:38 PM