C
Country_Gal
Guest
I have an adult son who became estranged from me 7 years ago. I think part of it is his angry personality that he was born with. He was going to university, I was helping him with money and a free studio that was in the backyard of a rental property I own. He began having panic attacks, all the while, unbeknownst to me he was staying up late making dramatic, angry YouTube videos for a very large following (30,000 subscribers)
I had given him a deadline to move out of the studio, he had almost finished his bachelors. I had an empty house that I was renovating that I said he could move into. Anyways, he didn’t meet the deadline, I wrote an email that I was very upset, he blamed me for everything and alienated himself, dropped out of college, and is now a wandering climbing bum, working as a cook occasionally to support his lifestyle of going from climbing mecca to climbing mecca.
We had some contact on facebook, I made it clear I’m open to reconciling, meanwhile finishing raising the last of my 6 kids. Recently, one of my other sons was here before going to the Philippines, and I invited him to come to see him off, offering to pay his fare. I’m in Washington State and he was camping at Smith Rock in Oregon, about 5 hrs from here. Instead, he suggested we come down there. I asked my other son, he said yes, and we took my camper down there, my estranged son told me on FB that he’d be there. Well, we got there and he had taken off to California.
Well, the latest is that he messaged me on facebook when the Typhoon happened, asking if I had heard from the son there, and brushing off the fact that we drove all the way to Smith Rock for nothing. He became angry when I said that we had been annoyed. Then, yesterday he was even angrier because I had messaged him a Thanksgiving greeting, and told me, unless I apologized right then and there that I would never see him before I die. Then he blocked me on Facebook.
Today I researched estranged adult children, and have realized that this is a silent epidemic today. Our culture of individualism fosters it. I’m thinking of starting a support group for other parents. There is a lot of embarrassment regarding this. Our culture tends to blame the parents for anything that goes wrong with our offspring, but this isn’t always the case.
I found a couple of good articles,
bu.edu/fsao/2012/07/13/when-your-adult-child-doesn%E2%80%99t-want-you/
drjoshuacoleman.com/books/helping-parents-heal/
I had given him a deadline to move out of the studio, he had almost finished his bachelors. I had an empty house that I was renovating that I said he could move into. Anyways, he didn’t meet the deadline, I wrote an email that I was very upset, he blamed me for everything and alienated himself, dropped out of college, and is now a wandering climbing bum, working as a cook occasionally to support his lifestyle of going from climbing mecca to climbing mecca.
We had some contact on facebook, I made it clear I’m open to reconciling, meanwhile finishing raising the last of my 6 kids. Recently, one of my other sons was here before going to the Philippines, and I invited him to come to see him off, offering to pay his fare. I’m in Washington State and he was camping at Smith Rock in Oregon, about 5 hrs from here. Instead, he suggested we come down there. I asked my other son, he said yes, and we took my camper down there, my estranged son told me on FB that he’d be there. Well, we got there and he had taken off to California.
Well, the latest is that he messaged me on facebook when the Typhoon happened, asking if I had heard from the son there, and brushing off the fact that we drove all the way to Smith Rock for nothing. He became angry when I said that we had been annoyed. Then, yesterday he was even angrier because I had messaged him a Thanksgiving greeting, and told me, unless I apologized right then and there that I would never see him before I die. Then he blocked me on Facebook.
Today I researched estranged adult children, and have realized that this is a silent epidemic today. Our culture of individualism fosters it. I’m thinking of starting a support group for other parents. There is a lot of embarrassment regarding this. Our culture tends to blame the parents for anything that goes wrong with our offspring, but this isn’t always the case.
I found a couple of good articles,
bu.edu/fsao/2012/07/13/when-your-adult-child-doesn%E2%80%99t-want-you/
drjoshuacoleman.com/books/helping-parents-heal/