Serenity Is My Endgame

Warning: this is a very grim post, and probably the last one for a long time about my difficulty in parenting my lost young adult child.

I entered the office alone, because Xavier threw a last minute tantrum and refused to come. I was the first client of the day and sat alone in the reception area. My son's black psychiatrist came out, and his eyes looked resigned and a tad weary, even though it wasn't even 10 AM.

His first words were shocking, but in hindsight, unexpectedly validating.

He announced, "I am done with Xavier. I will not treat him anymore."

"Why?", I asked.

"I've been doing it too long, and am burned out from youth like him. They are stupid and refuse to change."

My mouth must have been hanging open from his raw honesty, because he continued talking.

"I read your email this morning on my Blackberry," he continued, "and I got very angry..."

Indeed, my son's shrink who had become a friend was utterly comfortable in unloading his feelings about Xavier and lost young brothas like him who have been given an infinite number of chances but blew them all, and treated others like dirt in the process.

This unfortunately sums up my son, who has sucked me dry of love, time, money, and resources, and given little in return. Oh, we've had some good times and great laughs over the years, but these have been short vacations from an otherwise one-sided living arrangement where I give and he takes.

His mind was poisoned years ago by the unavoidable, lowest fantasy elements of this pleasure-centered, get-something-for-nothing culture. He is the ghetto version of the Wall Street banksters; slick and deft at creating smoke and mirrors to confuse you to continue investing in him, and just as destructive.

My son and I are at the endgame now, just as our country is, and I am left financially depleted but not defeated. I walked away from a hugely lucrative job seven years ago to work part time and spend more time at home, taking the huge gamble that he would be worth it.

I was wrong.

On the other hand, my daughter benefited enormously from my presence. If a cruel, random event doesn't do a drive by on her life and dreams in the future, then I will know that at least she benefited.

Yesterday, Xavier actually tried to con me with a whole new game of bullshit.

"Ma," he said, "since you're pressed for money, I can help..."

In a flash, I know how cheap he is, so that was a lie right there to bait me into giving him permission to deal drugs, as well as an admission that he's back in the crazy life.

"I know someone who can set me up..."

"Stop. Right. There," I growled at him slowly. "Don't even think of dealing, and if I see any drugs in this house, I will flush them down the toilet."

"But Ma, the money is good..."

"And the jail time is long," I quickly countered. "Weren't you supposed to talk to your old boss about getting your old job back this weekend? What happened to that?"

I listened to the next lie roll off his tongue, thinking again of his psychiatrist who has given up working with juvenile delinquents and stupid-assed young men who consistently screw up their parents, girlfriends, kids, and play everyone for suckers, all for what they believe is the cool and easy life. So few avoid jail once they become entrenched, that it's pitiful.

His lips were still moving.

"You wouldn't turn it down if I handed money to you, would you?" he was now saying.

"I'd call the police," I said flatly.

He saw the truth in my eyes, and responded by looking angry.

My voice was deadly serious. "You need to stop whatever you've been doing the past two months...," I began to say.

"Ma, I'm not going to change..."

"Then remember this conversation when your baby on the way is calling someone else daddy because you're locked up."

He flinched, and walked away.

If he's back to using drugs again, those words, like all the thousands of others I've used on him since he was 13, won't make a difference.

I know this, not just intellectually but in my heart. It was broken for long time, but somehow, some way, for some reason, God healed it. Things were so bad that earlier this month I prayed for Him to give me the inner strength and calmness to get on with my life and to be happy again. My request to the Lord is similar to a modified Serenity Prayer from the 12-Step Program that I have taught my clients for over a decade:

Grant to me the serenity to accept
those who cannot be changed or helped;
courage to change and help
the one person who can,
and the wisdom to know
that person is me.

This is like what one of my readers said in the last post, and I'm paraphrasing from memory: "You can keep helping someone, but when it doesn't help, you aren't helping."

Yeah, I know that Xavier might do a turn around "one day" when the proverbial light bulb in his mind comes on. My own, however, has turned on and I realized that I need not tolerate the dark drama he brings to my life.

A sick family member who will not well himself (or herself) will infect the others with their illness of spirit. The cure for the ones who are fairly well and healthy is to detach. This begins in the mind, then the heart, and if and when possible, the body... in other words, to move on. It is a process that can take years, because love for the "sick" one, instead of nurturing, spreads the disease of spirit.

I personally can't think of anything harder than giving up on one's child, which for most, is tougher than walking away from a spouse.

My son's black psychiatrist has been grieving too, over giving up some of his patients. I have an intuition that he is not quite where I am yet in the self-healing process. Almost, but not quite.

You have to understand that when you love "your people", whether they're Black Americans, Irish Catholics, gays, etc., you not only try to save them from the external forces of bigotry that grind them down, but from themselves, because first and foremost, they are human beings.

This fact trumps race, religion and culture for the simple reason that there have always been those within any group who choose to live on the fringe and against their own best interests. For a black male psychiatrist to burn out and give up on a small but significant section of the black population - young black males who refuse to get their shit together - is painfully hard.

This culture, which is fantasy-driven, hedonistic, and at times, discriminatory, created many casualties. They are everywhere.

I am about a half dozen paychecks away (from a full time job I have yet to get) from a fresh start in a new place.

Until then, one casualty lives in my home.