I am finding that although my son is in recovery, many of his personality traits still reflect his drug use. He is very selfish, he only wants from others and isn’t giving. Everything he does has a motive behind it. He still tries to make others feel guilty and always has a million excuses. So although I know that he isn’t using, I have no idea if I’ll ever get my “original” son back. His brain is just wired differently and if he doesn’t see that it will never change. You and I can see things that we need to change and we work on improving but he doesn’t see anything wrong.

It’s very hard to point things out because he gets so defensive. So I bide my time and try to bite my tongue but that doesn’t always work. I see myself as much less able to hold things in. I guess that I’ve gotten to the end of my patience. It’s been so many years of trying to say and do the right things and I thought when he was in recovery that would change. I thought that I’d get my son back and it’s so frustrating that I haven’t. I’m certainly happy that I’m not worrying so much about that knock on the door, although it’s still there in the back of my mind.

My daughters ask my opinion on things, they look to me for guidance and advise. Of course they don’t always take it but we respect each others opinions even when they are very different. We can talk to each other with mutual respect. Sadly my son cannot do that. Anything and everything is a perceived threat to him, a personal attack and he can viciously come back with verbal abuse. It takes him a long time to come back to me and say he’s sorry. I’m getting tired of walking on eggshells around him.

So how do I change this? Change him? I can’t. I can only change my reaction. If I need to think before I say things and process in my head what the results can be and what my goal of this encounter is there can’t be an immediate response. It’s like I’m playing on the reality show “Survivor” or “Big Brother”. How do I reach the outcome I desire? It is so very hard and stressful to live like this. I had thought it would be easier and in some ways it is and in some ways it never will be. If he doesn’t see anything wrong he won’t see any reason to change. Without his desire to “rewire” his reactions they won’t be changing.

Even though I thought things would be so much different, so much better and we would be close again, it’s not happening. I was worried about him withholding access to his children when I said or did something he didn’t like but that isn’t a concern anymore, you see I know he can’t do that for any extended amount of time. I am standing my ground, not backing down and sticking with boundaries. I am going to try and force him to understand that he needs to respect me and my feelings. No means No not maybe.