costello: I've asked this question a few more times - what do you think is going on with you? Usually I get no answer or, with a great deal of discomfort, he tells me that he doesn't understand what I'm talking about and that I don't know what's going on. (We really are like beings from two different planets trying to converse. This morning he decided to stop talking and started pantomiming.)
One time when I asked him to tell me how he perceived his experience, he gave me this video:
I get the feeling you're back to that place of feeling that you can't communicate with him, but very much wanting to find that connection. In the Windhorse article, they talk about the value of "basic attendance". I believe Mosher referred to this as simply, "being with".
Quote:
Genuine Recovery
Restoring personal and social meaning
The process of recovery from mental disorder, or from any life-disrupting situation, can naturally develop if the optimal environmental and interpersonal conditions are provided. Our human body/mind systems are intrinsically oriented toward health and balance, but it is impossible to predict the extent of someone’s future recovery of health.
Any successful treatment begins and ends with the caregiver’s hopeful attitude about the person’s potential for significant recovery. This attitude communicates a sense of trust to the person that his or her experience is valued, can be understood, and can be worked with. The art of basic attendance is to skillfully be with the person with maximal attentiveness and flexibility through the stages of recovery. Experience shows that at some point the person simply begins to respond positively to the healthy environment of the Windhorse team. At Windhorse Community Services, we place a high value on such a positive attitude of hope and workability.
Often the most painful aspect of mental disorder is the person’s sense of loneliness and alienation. One’s basic connection to self and others is in doubt and one ceases to recognize and trust oneself. When a person who is suffering in this way is in an environment that combines attentive care with the companionship of engaging people:- That person can begin to relax and be curious about his or her experience.
- He or she can then begin to reconnect with a realistic confidence in his or her mind and actions, which naturally carries over into relating properly to the surroundings.
- This process can lead to a renewed appreciation for what one has been through and even forgiveness of oneself.
These gains, combined with abatement of symptoms, are the elements of genuine recovery. Reengagement with a meaningful life is then within reach, which is the ultimate goal of every Windhorse treatment.
Source: Windhorse ~ Basic Attendance
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During my child's own experience there were many times I felt that longing to connect as well, to understand intimately, what they were going through, to help them where I could. We did find touchpoints of similarity and I think it was helpful in some ways that I'd had a similar experience. It didn't take me as far as I'd hoped however. I think what really got us through was the ability to stick with each other, to stumble through to the best of our ability, and to have faith in each other.
costello: Maybe the homeless guy in the video is his hero.
Maybe he is. He strikes me as a bit of an underdog -- someone whose cards are stacked against him but he holds one powerful trump card that just might overturn the entire game. Maybe your son does feel like the odds are stacked against him. But if he feels that he just might have it within him to overturn the tables and emerge triumphant after all... I hope he carries that belief close to his heart and allows it to quietly nurture him, possibly for a very long time.
Do you and your son watch movies together? If so, perhaps you could look for some movies that contain underdog themes and then, talk about the movie when it's done. Maybe it will help to build that connection between you.
This is the key issue as I see it. It feels like I'm putting out all the effort here. He's waiting, like a baby bird, to have nourishment dropped down his gullet. Or more likely to reject all suggestions as absurd.
lol! I recall at one point my child saying to me, "
I needed you here because I knew you'd understand. You're the best!" It's certainly true that my child's experience restored a large measure of my value in my family's eyes because they were all frightened and suddenly, I was the expert. But, as I also pointed out to my child months later, they had patently rejected every single piece of advice I offered -- so much for the aura of "my expertise".
I wondered if it might have been different if I wasn't their mother and they weren't a young adult trying to forge their own way of being in this world that required them to be separate from "Mother". That is the way of the ego.
For better or worse, my way of responding to them was to "decorate" the environment with books and articles by Perry, Laing, Grof, personal stories of recovery, etc.. I think I may have mentioned that I often left reading material in the bathroom. Sooner or later, everyone gets bored and there's no telling where or when a seed can be planted. No telling when it will sprout either.
There did come a time when my child actively stepped forward and took on the reins of their own recovery. They have done their recovery differently from the way I might have scripted it for them but that's the way recovery has to happen. On our own terms. It can be a long gestation.
~ Namaste
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