Hi Hope
Of course I know who you are.
I am really interested to know in what way your husband feels that this time it is different because it is the differences that can tell us how things are going – including the not so good bits.
You expressed your son’s reaction to his girlfriend’s birthday well – he set himself up and sadly in doing so he almost guaranteed he would feel a failure when he couldn’t deliver the birthday that ‘he’ thought she wanted. Only with experience will he learn to cope with all the different aspect of his behaviour. I remember asking my CG why he was struggling with an issue when he had been out of GM for a while, he told me that GM had planted the seed and cared for it while it grew into a bud – but buds take time to blossom.
As your son is talking to a member of the GM staff every two weeks he is getting on-going support and hopefully if he tells them about his recent problems he will be helped to realise that recovery has to be nurtured, it doesn’t just happen.
I’m afraid there definitely is no magic wand but you do know now that he can be the son you want him to be and even more importantly your son knows that he can be the person that he wants to be. No matter what we want Hope, it is the desire of the CG to want normality that matters above all else.
Velvet
