Acacia, I am so sorry for your heartache and all you have endured through this long, completely crazy making journey.
Many understanding hugs to you. You are not alone.
For some reason, mental, emotional, social challenges, biological issues, or drug addiction, these adult kids of ours have grown up with absolutely no fellow feeling for others,
especially their parents and including their own children. It is a hard road for parents and grandparents to travel, be it from afar, or smack dab in the middle of it in our own homes.
That is the definition of cruel to me, that these adult kids would take our dismay and desperation over their choices and consequences and manipulate our hearts to keep us in the center of it all, enabling them to continue as is.
There is help and resources out there.
They don't want help.
They want to keep living destructive lives.
It doesn't matter to them who they take down with them.
That is the cold hard reality of it.
That is the definition of cruel.
I still go through my ups and downs with this,
never did I imagine my two heading down this path. I suppose none of us did when we were raising them up.
Yet here we all are, trying to get a grip on our own lives, while dealing with the insanity of theirs.
Huh.
Life has a way of throwing stuff at us for sure.
My eldest is still living at a park. Her sister visits her often. I, at this time can't. Okay, won't. I won't bring myself down there amongst the street people and tent city.
It is too much to bare.
She recently had a severe leg infection, swelled up to the knee, and again, stubbornly refused medical care.
Even though her father recently passed from sepsis.
It is not the first time she has jeopardized her health on top of her meth use, which is bad enough damage to body and mind. Won' t go to the doctors because that "makes her weak in the eyes of her peers".
She has both decried and extolled her park living "shower in the bathroom, rats everywhere, raids and busts by cops, refused to go to shelters, they "are full, and filthy". Has stopped by the house every once in a while and seems anxious to get back to the park.
The choices and consequences go beyond reason.
I struggle with maternal instinct versus just downright survival skills to get past the reality of these choices, to be able to live my life.
The plain cold hard fact is that every time I have reached out to my two, it is thrown in my face, in various ways.
Then, I am left reeling from the after effects. Stress is an understatement.
FOG is such an appropriate acronym.
No matter what we do, detach or enable, we are still dealing with the reality that our children have grown up and are making terrible choices.
When I feel myself over thinking, going down the "what if" path, I say a quick prayer.
I know by now that nothing
I do or say will bring change.
By your post, it seems you are coming to that conclusion. It doesn't make going through this
easier, just
clearer.
We are not stone cold unfeeling people. After 15 years (for me, 20), the patterns are engraved deeply in our hearts and memories and it becomes a matter of surviving the hell of it.
Simple?
No.
It is still unfathomable, heart and mind boggling.
And here we are.
Comes a point that nothing changes, if nothing changes.
So we have to change.
Change our way of reacting, thinking and dealing with our adult children
.
Unfortunately, we are their targets.
Here we are, trying to figure out how to live the best, rest of our lives, while juggling with the reality that our kids have grown up, and gone down this path of destructive behavior.
If we rewind the tapes and tried to count all of the times we have literally laid down our lives for these adult children, we couldn't.
That's cruel.
The blame, name calling, stealing, conniving and manipulating, that's cruel.
The years gone by, fully in the game of it, trying everything under the sun to bring about change, that's cruel.
Comes a time when we have to pull up and out.
It's not easy, but we are worth it.
You are worth it Acacia.
You have meaning and a right to live to your fullest potential.
I feel that as parents, that is the best example we can afford these wayward adult children of ours.
No, I will not be a rug to tread upon, no I will not be manipulated and used.
Grab your life by the reins.
It is, after all what we wish for our adult children,
for them to see their full potential, to make clear headed decisions.
We will not be around forever to "rescue" them.
Do not buy into "the doctor said you were cruel'
I cry foul and utter bull
!
What is cruel is to drag a mother/grandmother through this sludge for 15 years!
Now that is cruel!
Hang in there sister warrior. You are doing the right thing. After years of use and abuse, you are giving your daughter her wings to figure it out. If she wants true help, she will find it.
Wishing you strength and comfort, but most of all peace of heart and mind.
It's been a long hard road, and you deserve it.
Hugs and more hugs,
Leafy
