It's very hard to admit that you are being misused, mistreated ... one may bitch about one's boss, but to admit that your husband hits or belittles you or that your son yells at you and refused to pay some equitable portion of household expenses is a LONELY embarassing admission to make. Some people are lucky enough to have ANGER be their first response ... but many of us feel hurt and guilt.

Mistreatment by children is hard to deal with ... there's the deep hurt of being treated badly by someone you love so much... someone you have done so much for ... as well as the uncomfortable belief that since you raise them, It's your fault... which can also be applied in this case to the son's lack of ambition, lack of social life, etc. etc.

It took a long time for my mother to admit, whispering, that she had in fact grown afraid of my older brother ... I had been afraid of him for years. He would corner me when he "caught" me alone ... I sense LW is beginning to feel that her situation is leaving her "control" ... she needs the money ... she wants her son to "launch" ... she feels helpless and quite possibly a sense of shame or failure.

I hope she will get some help ... many communities have senior centers (I know you're too young) that offer peer counseling and may have either some peer group sessions or the name of a therapist accustomed to working with change of life issues. LW has done nothing "wrong" ... although it's quite possible that sonny boy blames her for everything ... as my younger brother continues to blame our (long dead) mother for failing to exert enough authority in dealing with HIS drug problems ... (I was there ... for a depressed alcoholic with serious reality-problems of her own, she did all she could and then some ...)

It's unlikely that "change" is going to occur in this situation "nicely", like the sun coming out from behind the cloud. I suspect sonny-boy is spoiling for someone to yell at, someone to blame ... and mom's available ...

Get some help, emotional support. Your church, if applicable, may have some resources as well.

and like Bremer's refutation/explanation of how and why the Iraqi army was disbanded (he still thinks it was a good idea) in today's NYT, they are our best protection against the inevitable revisionism already in progress ... likely waiting for Cheney's death or incapacitation (since utter discreditation seems oddly elusive).

I have been wonder what percentage of Americans if pressed would give GWB the "easy out" wrt WMD -- preferring instead to express belief that he was misled (either by Cheney or by "the CIA" - logic, history, facts are not necessary here) or vaguely "bad intelligence."

Most of us closely watching the escalating drumbeat, the feigned "last resort" rhetoric, from August 2002 onward strongly suspected the books were "cooked" ... the demands for "verification" were bogus (proving a null hypothesis is a bitch).

From most of what I've read, Bremer was Iraq's Michael Brown -- hopelessly out of his league in many ways. I can only hope that his op ed in today's NYT in an attempt to clear his name is the first first many.

I'm hoping he finds "retirement" a hell of a lot hotter than he's found his tenure.

Americans are VERY reluctant to call anyone a flat-out LIAR and part of the problem with effectively dealing with TeamBush has been the tangle of their lies, their pathologic secrecy and the sometime real/most times not claims of "national security" ...

Anything that chips away at the "presumption of good faith" Americans usually afford people of authority is a good thing ...

I can't wait to read about the security screening required before a person can pay big bucks to see private citizen Bush ... and he intends to make big bucks ... ha ha ha ha .... Loved his little swipe at Bill Clinton ... what a wanker!

... this debunks the "nobody told me" defense ... the "I trusted them and they let me down" gambit.

It's like in Bremer's NYT piece ... he mentions not only writtne communications but also a VIDEOCONFERENCE where the dismantling was discussed. Bush may have not read the memos (or "appreciated them" or comprehended them or) but a copy of the videoconference likely exists and, unless Bush is visibly disengaged, the "I trusted them and they let me down" gambit is off the table.

The revisionism is already and continuously underway ... for anyone who lived through Vietnam, the idea that "we pulled out too soon" could even possibly become a viable meme would have seem absurd ...

more real was the "they wouldn't let us win" complaint made at the time which argued for more and bigger bombs, fewer bombing restrictions and -- it was argued often -- limited nuclear strikes -- We had already dropped more bomb in this tiny country .... but there were those who, in anger, wanted to decimate Vietnam -- back to the stone age ... but, this desire was espoused by a very small dead-ender faction. Most just wanted to blame the politicians for interfering with the generals... but -- except for some macho bluster -- we kept taking the same hills over and over and most everyone wanted this divisive and deeply embarassing war over. (not, it should be noted, because it was a deeply wrong conflict for us to be engaged in in the first place.)