Aquarian, welcome.I am very sorry for your need to be here, but you have come to a good place to find respite and encouragement.
You have suffered so much loss in your life which I think makes it infinitely hard to let go.
On top of all of this is your daughters physical challenge, how it makes you feel, the sorrow you have over something you really had no control over.
We have no control over our genetic makeup, what we pass on to our children.
Gently I write to you, there really is no sense in feeling guilty, or grieving over it.
It just is.
That is a huge simplification, I know, because in reading your post, two daughters with CF, all of the trials that come with that in raising them and watching your late daughters struggle and decline in health, leading to her passing, is heart wrenching and devastating. I am so sorry for your grief and all of the tangled up emotions that go with it.
You are in the toughest battle and have been dealt some very hard blows with all of this loss.
There is a lot of guilt surrounding a genetic disease that you pass to your kids, and I already lost one to that horrible disease. That is why I feel I keep allowing her to weasel her way back in to my life. I cannot stand her as a person. She literally makes me feel ill just writing about her and that makes me so sad. I need to let this go and concentrate on ME and my man and my granddaughter... but HOW can I do that when she is physically sick? If she dies I will never forgive myself.
Guilt. It is a part of the tangled web of addiction that ensnares many of us, for different reasons.
“If I had been a better parent”, if I had spent more time, if addiction didn’t run in the family, if, if, if.
The reality is, we are only human and did the best job we could under the circumstances we are dealt.
Kids grow up and make choices.
It is the hardest thing to watch, when the choice is drugs. We throw ourselves under the bus trying to save our kids. Unfortunately, what’s
driving their bus is
drugs, and they won’t stop until they realize the consequences of use,
are not worth using.
What we need to realize is that as long as they are using, we become nothing more than an opportunity to them. They use drugs, and will do everything and anything to get what they want, which includes
using us. Pulling at our heartstrings
, using our love, finding our weak points, and literally poking at those open wounds until we give in to their latest “emergency”.
Sigh.
My two are deep into meth use, and all of the ravages that come with it.
I hardly recognize them.
We have gone through much of the same, manipulation, theft, blaming, the list goes on.
I was numb as well. It was the only way I could get through the day to day necessities, without driving myself mad, or having meltdowns on coffee breaks.
It was if a fog had settled over me, and I didn’t know how to escape it.
FOG.
F.ear, O.bligation, G.uilt.
It is this fog that keeps us returning to the same pattern of trying to rescue our adult children from the consequences of their choices.
Comes a point for many of us here, that we suffer the consequences,
more than they do.
We see them as they once were, those little bundles that we nurtured and kept safe.
They grew up.
They made choices that we never imagined.
It hurts.
A lot.
When I was stuck in this fog, my two would call with the latest chaos in their life, my heart would sink and race, and I would go into “paramedic” role. That would mean rearranging my life, my home, whatever it was to save them from the disasters they had gotten themselves into. It took years of this cycling, until one day my daughter in a rage, circled my house and spewed out at the top of her lungs a repetitive rant of how I was “Nothing but a bleep, bleep, bleep.”
Ouch.
The fog started to lift.
I realized all of those years of trying to help her, her kids, meant nothing to her.
This was a drug addicts psychotic moment and it woke me up to the reality I was facing with my two.
I stopped seeing them for the memories and dreams I had for them.
I slowly disentangled myself from the web addiction had snagged me in.
I was so caught up in
saving them, I didn’t see that I had numbed myself to the destruction they were causing me, my son, my hubs, my home.
I didn’t see that
they didn’t want saving, help getting off drugs. They wanted a roof over their heads, three squares, access to what we worked hard for,
so they could keep using. Using drugs, and using us.
It is a hard reality to face, but tantamount to pulling up and out of the grip their addiction had on me.
I stopped looking at my two as the little children I had raised.
They are adults.
They are drug addicts.
Understanding that addiction is an illness that can infect everyone involved is so important. We get so wrapped up into it, it is our mothering instinct to try everything to save our children.
A drug addict uses this instinct against us, to twist everything around into our believing that we are responsible for their choices, that if
we love them, we will continue to throw our own lives by the wayside to come to their every need.
It is an insidious nightmare go round. Addiction feeds off of this, until we are so entangled that we don’t know how to move forward. We feel if we don’t do
something, we are abandoning our beloveds.
There is nothing further from the truth.
We have taken up the consequences of their choices as our own and have abandoned ourselves. To the point that even thinking of self care seems selfish. “How can I find peace and joy when my child is out there
suffering?”
“How will I go on if they die?”
I call this the terrible awfuls.
Our hearts, spirit and minds despairing the choices they make, we concoct all of the worst case scenarios and consequences they may suffer.
It is a miserable place to be.
When I start to go down that road, I say a prayer. “Please watch over them.” I have given my two back to God. It is too much for me to handle. I am not a counselor, a psychologist, I am not equipped to deal with their issues.
If you have faith in a higher power, giving your troubled mind to prayer is strengthening.
If not, there is meditation and working at practicing and training your mind to stop going into the swirly whirly of “what if’s”.
Understanding that you didn’t cause this, can’t control it or cure it, helps.
This stands true for your daughters CF, as well as her addiction and drug use.
Posting here helps me remind myself of the journey I am on.
That is to keep myself out of the entanglement of addiction.
It is what I wish for my two, to understand the hold addiction has on them, to seek
rehab, recovery, realizing their full potential.
As their parent, I must lead by example. You too, Aquarian.
Rehab- I must rehabilitate my heart and mind to finding new ways to react and respond to the challenges their addiction cause me. This takes continuous work to keep from slipping into old habits. Reading, posting, therapy, whatever it takes to untangle that web.
Recovery- I must find new ways to move forward and strengthen myself. I must realize that taking care of myself is
not selfish, it is what I wish most for all of my children, that they take good care of themselves.
Realizing my full potential- Life is short. There are so many beautiful things to look forward to. Yes, there are challenges and tragedies in our lifetime, but there are still so many amazing opportunities and blessings.
Switching focus from the “what if’s” of my twos choices to opening up possibilities within my life, is my recovery.
I am working at healing, peace, joy.
I am convinced that by doing this, I am showing my daughters that they can do it too.
Throwing my life to the wayside as some sort of self flagellating, sacrificial offering,
a bargaining for their well being, does
nothing to change their choices and resulting consequences.
Living my life in ruins, will not bring them to their senses.
Only they can decide.
They can choose better, your daughter and my two.
It is completely up to them.
We can show them, by
how we live, that there is much to living a wonderful life.
There is much to taking good care of ourselves.
There is much to striving every day to living as best as we can, despite all of life’s challenges.
I did not come to this train of thought easily. It took time, prayer and practice. I am mindful that it would be easy to slip back to old ways. So, I have to keep working at it.
These are my beloved daughters, I think of them daily and grieve their choices.
I think that it is important to allow ourselves to grieve and feel what we feel.
When I took those first baby steps to switching focus from my two, I summoned up strength from the encouragement of members here. I prayed. I broke down. Built back up and broke down.
I said no to them, because love says no to destructive, repetitive patterns.
“No, you cannot live here, you do not get well with us”
“No, I will not pick you up.”
It wasn’t easy to say no, after all of those yes’s.
I didn’t do it only for myself, there wasn’t much left of me to start with, so I focused on my
sons right to have a peaceable home. He was just 14 at the time of my “awakening” He was fed up with his sisters using drugs and abusing us. I borrowed strength from his resolute stance that we shouldn’t have people living with us who stole from us. When I felt myself weakening, I focused on him.
I posted and read, started walking in the mornings before work. I went to therapy. I borrowed ideas from the pages here, parents who had been there, done that, and learned better. Music helps me. Quotes like “What you allow will continue.” Getting outside in nature helps. Focusing on my well children helps me.
One day, one step, one moment, sometimes one breath at a time, you can learn new ways of thinking and facing the hard reality of this.
I need to let this go and concentrate on ME and my man and my granddaughter... but HOW can I do that
You have taken the first step in recognizing your need to let go. The rest depends on learning to value your life, disentangling yourself from addictions web.
You are a warrior in the toughest battle.
Fortify yourself with necessary “weapons” to fight, knowledge, understanding, self help, and restoration.
You are not alone in this fight. We are all on the journey, at different areas on the pathway. Take what advice works for you, leave the rest.
You can do this AquariunMom, you are so worth the effort.
(((Hugs)))
Leafy