How Do I Support Without Enabling Our Physically Challenged, Adult Son?

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Caring for an adult child with a physical disability is extremely challenging 

Half the time I have no idea what my role is. I am Mom, caretaker, nurse, counselor, all at the same time. 

All very unique roles and all very important but to do all of them at the same time is hard and very challenging.

Guilt... Help!

Mom guilt...frustration, anxiety, worry, feelings of... I'm doing it all wrong. The question I ask myself, what if? What If I would have checked on him sooner in his apartment? What if I had found him sooner after his seizure? Surely we could have avoided all this and he wouldn't need to deal with these stroke like issues.

 Our adult son had some sort of episode (we still don't know what happened) and lost mobility to walk and use his upper limbs due to stroke like symptoms. 

He's single and came home to live with my hubby and I for a period of time to nurse him back to health. It's going on 3.5 years.

 Just prior to this my husband retired so... this was not in the plans of how we we had planned to do life after retirement. 

But then again, life is not made up of "drinking sweet lemonade" every day... sometimes we're handed a bitter lemon.

 It's life, things happen. What we do with the lemon is really the most important. 

I’m the kind of person that wants to fix everything and make everyone happy. I often feel angry and frustrated because I can't. I can't fix it all.

I spend hours researching hoping to find the next right thing. Because I feel sorry for him,  I do things for him that he could maybe do himself just so I don't need to see him struggle or... the fact that I could do it faster for him.

I struggle with feelings of helplessness, feeling like I don't do enough but then guilt because I do to much. It's a vicious cycle in my mind.

Am I An Enabler? 

When does doing to much for your adult child hinge on the side of an enabler? I certainly am guilty of that and struggle with it constantly. 

 It's a frustrating, emotional rollercoaster...

I will say though that I often find internal strength that I never thought I had. God desires that we be utterly dependent upon Him and when we trust in him he will never leave us alone. He is always there and he will always provide a way even where there seems to be no way. God is ever so faithful and I often hear him say, "Don't panic, I've got this. Simply trust me. 

So... I come up for air and I become intentional about looking at the progress that was made. I savor the good moments and realize how blessed we are. I thank him for the progress our son has made and continues to make. 

I'm thankful he can walk again even though he struggles with his balance. 

I'm thankful he can use his upper limbs again even though he only has use of one hand. It's peepy steps but it's progress in the right direction and for that I am thankful. I savor the good days and moments and... I don't take them for granted.

 I look for and find  joy in even the smallest milestones reached that were predicted never to occur. Yet, I will occasionally feel like I failed my son when we have our moments of lashing out on each other because one of us or both of us are not in our lane. Thats the emotional rollercoaster ride I speak of.