Thanks @soul .... 💕
It turns out that S2 has perfectionist traits .... I think all the kids do to some degree .... but I honestly believe the GAD and depression he is suffering from are the result of WH "hammering" him for the last couple of years about having to achieve .... trying to micro-manage him according to his own parent's style, and competing with mine ..... all under the influence of his own triggered mi. Eight years ago S2 was 14yo, and D3 was 11 ..... I don't think they can readily identify with memories of when WH wasn't like this. Because he had already had traits of it, I think they have just settled with this being him, along with the delusional thinking and rages, and constant seeking of excitement ....
They know his exercise and eating patterns are disordered, but are thinking that while he is settled, he is relatively okay ..... failing to understand that the only reason he is settled is because I am not challenging him over the influence his regimen and mindset is having over us. He doesn't eat family meals with us, for instance, unless our "marrieds" are here for lunch on a Sunday, and even then he is eating his own food, not the family meal. He is spending more time in his mother's company that he is with nay of us, but he is actually here more, just closed away in his office, or the gym, or going to sleep at 8pm before anyone else is ready to settle, and up at 4am .... challenging these and all the other minutiae of the mi would have him anything but settled, and the rages and delusional thinking would have taken over. While that would certainly have got him to diagnosis and treatment, I can't trust that we would be safe, or how badly that would destroy all our relationships, perhaps setting off mi in most or all of us.
That is what is hurting so much in regard to S2 .... without WH's mi impacting him, he may have needed some tools to managethe traits that were affecting him, but it is unlikely he would have dropped his whole bundle like this, and had his self-confidence so badly shredded, and because he is blaming himself, I don't think he is speaking up to the therapistenough about where WH was at - I say was because he is now in a panic about S2 and holding himself very calmly, trying not to rock the boat anymore after being diagnosed ocpd and called off being controlling with S2 by the pdoc. Both WH and S2 can start convincing themselves that he wasn't that bad .... S2 not wanting to acknowledge and blow the whistle on WH for what that might do to our fragile family .... and WH with a form of amnesia over himself .... ??!! .... he will re-write his own history to cope with this.
So ironic that the one who needs treatment the most is sitting to one side while the other goes through the therapy programs needed so much by the first ... 😔
They say "what doesn't kiill you makes you stronger" .... I am choosing to believe that. The examples of wonderful forumites who persevere and rise above their circumstances helps me to find courage and keep facing up to the next wave.
💜
