Lance, I found one of the hardest things as a parent was realizing that I couldn't fix things. I couldn't make things be perfect for my son, keep him from feeling pain, resentment, anguish, hurt, whatever. I could only feel the pain and empathize with him (understand his pain). Some of these feelings he had resulted from my parenting. Mistakes I'd made, things I coulda, woulda, shoulda done different. However, I can't go back, I can't keep him from feeling the pain. I sure understand hurting when your child hurts as a parent that is what we do, we feel their pain. We cannot take back the things we did wrong, the mistakes we made, and/or help some of the things life deals us that makes us behave in a certain manner (mental illness). I wish I could take back my failures as a parent. I don't know any perfect parents (because we are human). However, we can work on making ourselves better once we realize the problem. Learn from our past mistakes. I can't take back what mistakes I made with my son, I can't take back the hurt that they caused him, but I can learn from them and not do them again. With my mental illness I can work on me and that will help him. And as your son grows and matures, he will understand more about your condition and how that played a part in the mistakes you made. By focusing on you, you are helping him with his pain, by focusing on you, you are working to be in a postion to restore that relationship in the future.
