Losing Heart - How To Be Supportive With No Support

[melina]

This is about the challenges of being a single parent, but also about trying to be supportive of others, encouraging them while I myself often feel like collapsing. I have four sons - all in their 20s. All of them are college students at various stages of studies, two are married and the other two have girlfriends. They're good people and have turned out well. I'm proud of them. I know their father would be too - or perhaps he's watching over us and IS proud.

My problem is that they're missing a major person in their lives - their father - and I can't be both father and mother. They all had good relationships with their dad. He was the calm, balanced one - I've maybe been more active, but also more worried and uptight. I have one son who especially tends to worry a lot and gets really down when things don't turn out well. Right now he's struggling to find a job, but even with a Masters degree, the job market isn't easy. He wants to talk about this with me - but I feel that what he really wants is to talk with his father. They could talk for hours at a time. I can't be that person. I get stressed when they're stressed, and though I try to hide it, I'm not always up to listening to them and don't really do a good job of it. It ends up wearing me out and I'm so stressed and worried that I can't sleep afterwards. This is weird - since I work as a psychologist and have to listen to people all day.

Right now all I see ahead is problems and worries. Will my kids find work? Will they be happy in their relationships? Will they manage financially? Will I manage financially? Will I be alone the rest of my life? Will I have to provide comfort and support for others - but never receive it myself? I know my sons love me, but of course it's not the same as having a partner. I don't know how other widows/widowers are able to be there for others all the time. Sometimes I get so tired that I almost wish my life would end now - not because I'm suicidal, but because I just don't know if I have the energy to get through all the years to come. My stomach at times is in one big anxiety knot and I wonder how long I can dangle on the edge like this. I don't want to worry myself sick. I have few friends, and those I have don't really understand what I'm talking about. I have no other family nearby. I have little contact with my mother and siblings. My husband's family sort of drifted away and I don't hear from them.

On top of all this are my financial concerns - and I'm working as much as I can. One full time job and freelance work whenever I can get it. Sometimes I feel that all I do is work and worry.

Just needed to share this. Maybe someone else out there understands?

Melina

[kayc]

Yes, Melina, I understand. My kids' dad is still alive, but doesn't have much of a role in their lives. It was their stepad, George, that they came to, it was he that would help my daughter move or replace her broken car window or show my son how to weld a new bumper, etc. We all felt it when he died.

If it's any consolation to you, my dad died when I was in my 20s and I've managed without him okay. I don't think you have to be mom and dad, your children are grown now and will find their own way. What they need most from you is someone who cares and listens. It sounds like you've done a great job and they will be okay. Yes, I also worry, but I shouldn't, it's just hard not to...that's what moms do.

I have the same concern, will anyone be there for me when I need it in my old age? I'm already 60 and see myself working when I'm 70 and don't know how I can do it, esp. with the super long commute that I have. It's hard keeping a place up and working and never enough money and you can count your friends on your left hand with fingers left over. Trust me, I'm there. People say to get involved and meet new people, ha ha! Who has time and energy for that? Besides, I'm kind of a home body, I live in the country and I like it that way. I do wish I had more friends but I want them to magically appear, I don't want to have to be out more in order to find them. What a dilemma! My mom is in a Dementia Care Facility and even if she didn't have that, she wasn't there for us anyway, she's always been nuts. I have sisters but we're spread out and I worry about them as they age (they're 70. 68, 66, and 50) . I have a brother but he's too busy for contact (five kids and three jobs).

At the end of the day, I do my best to keep up, try to stay in the moment...enough trouble today w/o worrying about tomorrow unduly, get out once in a while with a friend or two, keep plugging away working and hope when I'm too old to do it any more my kids will step up to the plate and help me make an easier life. I don't think about finding someone...I already tried that, disastrously, wish I hadn't. Some said I was brave, I call it stupid.

You're okay, in fact, you're more than okay, you're great! You've done a great job with your boys, what more could one aspire to!

[mfh]

Hi Melina,

I just read and re-read your post. I have to be honest. I have no clue how you have and are juggling your loss and grief, a full time plus job and four adolescent (20s are adolescence in my opinion) sons each with unique personalities and needs. It is huge. I am not trying to overwhelm your further but just let you know that I see it all to be a monumental task and your worry and anxiety is understandable. However, you said yourself that you are a worrier. That makes it even harder. I hear your sense of feeling so overwhelmed. i would be also. I want you to know I hear you. but i want to speak to the worrier.

I am not a parent so I do not know how much worrying I would do if I had kids but I guess my goal would be to come to terms with worry. My mom was a worrier and I grew up with her worrying about us. It drove us crazy. It was when she was about my age that she let it go with the help of her then three adult children, all of us in the helping professions. I can't tell you how it gave me joy to see her finally relax. I do not know where to begin that process but I do think changing the thought pattern, I.e. repeating negative thoughts...is where i would begin. as soon as you find yourself worrying, change the thoughts and/or what you are doing...in other words do not feed them. I do know that is soooo easy to say...so hard to do.

You know more about the brain than I do but I remember being at Mayo with Bill. We had this wonderful alternative East Indian internist who helped Bill's growing dementia related anxiety which by the time we got there was resulting in thrashing. I think the Lewey Body part of his dementia fed that as opposed to the Alzheimer's. He taught Bill mindfulness techniques which he and I did together every hour for months. He also explained how neurons develop on brain pathways when we keep repeating a thought and when we change that thought, those pathways die out making it increasingly difficult to keep repeating them. in the meantime, new positive pathways develop i.e. the new thoughts become easier to think...a new habit. These are actual cells...brain plasticity being what it is.

I know you did not ask for a solution and I do not have one. But these are the thoughts I had when I read your email. Telling yourself that worrying only makes things worse...reminding yourself of that and then even saying to yourself or out loud..."I release worry. It is useless. I will be a better parent if I change only that." Just some thoughts.

Again, I applaud you for trying to juggle it all and I hope my thoughts might be a bit helpful. When we practiced mindfulness together we had a basket of shells, gemstones, rocks, etc and we sat focused on one of them together sharing out loud al the details we were seeing in each one. I would bring flowers home to use also and things with details. Bill had an antique clock collection and love the precision of a clock and so we would study the clock works and pocket watch works. It all relaxed his e tire being.

Thinking of you always.

Love

Mary

[enna]

Dear Melina,

Well, first of all thank you for sharing yourself with us. How wonderful that your four boys are attending college and two of them are even married. As you say, they are good people and you have every right to be proud of them. I am sure that their father IS watching over them.

From my point of view I can assure you that your children do know how much you care and support them. My late husband, Jim, and I have seven children between us and all are now adults with children of their own. We are parents, grandparents, and great grandparents. I still worry about each of them and I know that Jim is watching over each and every precious one of them. It is our job as a parent to worry, but as Mary said in her post it is necessary ‘to come to terms with the worry.'

I think it is very natural for you to have all those questions in your head.

I like to think of the word trust when I go down the avenue you are questioning and I try to remember that as a human being I can do my best and trust that that is enough. I am finding after only a little over seven months without Jim that I have the exact same questions you are having and I don’t think there are any answers to all these questions except to live in the moment, trust that everything will be all right, and come to this forum for your support. Family and friends seem to disappear when one loses a spouse. That is a reality. The people on this forum understand that.

I think you are doing all you can and that is all that is expected of you. I'm not going to tell you not to worry but I will suggest that you sprinkle it with a little trust that all will turn out ok.

It so helps for us to share our thoughts. We some how receive strength from kind and understanding words. Anne

[melina]

Kay, Mary and Anne,

I just wanted to thank all of you for replying, for understanding and for being you!

I agree that staying in the moment is a good idea. I've tried to do that - but often it's difficult to not panic about the future. I do think I'm going to take a class in mindfulness and maybe also meditation. I tend to have a million thoughts in my head at once - all with their own emotions firing out all over the place.

I'm tired of being stressed, and I know I have to do something about it if I want to have a halfway decent life in the years I have ahead.

Thanks again for being there for me...

Melina

[mfh]

I am sporadically working on a short piece on mindfulness and meditation and it will have some good links to on line resources. I will get on that this week and post it soon. I agree mindfulness and meditation really help me. We all reach points where we make changes in direction when we are ready....like the labyrinth...always moving to the heart center but switching directions as we move closer. Safe travels.

My love goes with you,

Mary

[enna]

Melina,

I also wish you safe travels. We will all do good to focus on being in the moment. So easy to say yet always a struggle. We will be grateful when Mary gets those links ready for us. I have found since my Jim's death that meditation has become a much more important action in my life. I have found that if I really listen then I learn. I just have a real problem with patience!! Anne

[kayc]

Ditto to what Anne said!