Yoga pants, hanging on my clothesline. This is where it started, this fear. Something as simple as yoga pants.
I came home from work, went outside and there they were. Yoga pants, not mine. The smell of my d cs perfume wafted from them, in the breeze.
My heart sank, she has been here.
After four months of peace, of rebuilding our lives, of finally accepting her disappearing with nary a goodbye, leaving all of her raggedy possessions, she has come back. Sneaking back while we were at work.
It is not a good feeling.
We have gone through years of enabling with our two, in and out the revolving door. When they have come home, it started out well intended from both ends. Then little clues emerged that change had not happened. Little clues built up to a crescendo of chaos, robbed my home of peace, and things, missing, and the questions. "Why are we going through this? What has happened to my children? Why can't they see the damage drug use, has done to them? How can we turn the away, when they are our children?"
The answers came, through the years of comings and goings, through counseling, working through guilt, deep sorrow, then realization that there was nothing we had done, or could do to help, or prevent the choices that they made and are making.
For my oldest, now 36, it has been 18 years of struggle. She has dabbled with pot, alcohol, poor judgement with mates, held jobs, quit them, responsible, irresponsible, to meth.
She denies it. But I witnessed it, not the actual smoking of it, but the changes. The sleeping, the tweaking, the moodiness, weight loss, aging face, the dress code, hoody, backpack, baseball cap pulled low over the eyes, and sunglasses. I see this "uniform" of meth users everywhere, the parks, outside stores, walking the streets.
It is as if there is a whole different underworld, meth zombies.
And my daughter is one of them.
I realized first , that we could not help her. I was tired of the excuses, the sleeping as we went off to work. The midnight disappearances. The moodiness that enveloped our house like a dark cloud. The rule breaking. Coming home from work to find street hardened people in my back yard. The missing items. I would question myself, thinking I had misplaced things. Then it became more obvious, missing cash from our wallets, we would lock them in our cars. The odd behaviors, one day coming in from yard work, finding her still scrubbing an area behind the stove, she had begun two hours before. "I knew I could get this clean!" She said triumphantly.
We had been blinded by our love for her, and our desire to help. Our help did not help her. It only helped her continue her habits, and sent us spinning into a world of guilt and sorrow and more enabling. I was the stronger one, the one who had to put my foot down, the one who questioned things. She used that to divide my hubs and I. He was the softy, and she pounced on it. She has held me in contempt for years.
"She cannot live here" I told my hubs a few years back. He reluctantly agreed. She came back. He let her. She left again, homeless. We did not see her. When she did, she was unrecognizable. There were excuses, "health issues" "I have been walking" etc. etc. but the clues were right there in front of us. Still we tried.
I feel if we had put our foot down years ago, she may not be at this point. But there is no good to come of looking back, we cannot change what was. We can learn from it, or help others.
I mention it, because perhaps some of you here on CD, desperately looking for answers for your situations, with younger d cs, may benefit from our mistake, from the lesson and regret I feel now.
If anything, the comfort of posting here, of venting, and then trying to help others, brings some meaning to all of this.
If someone can take my story, and use it to help themselves in their trials, then something has been gained, from what we have lost.
Folks post of the sadness and horror of having their d cs become homeless. Yes, it is sad, but with the choices they make, inevitable. I ask you all to look at my story, years and years of the revolving door to my house, going round and round, ended up with my d c being homeless at 34, still at 36. Perhaps, if we had shut the door long ago, made her take responsibility for her choices, I would not be here writing this. Perhaps not. Who knows?
The point is, our d cs are on a path of their choice, and they must take full responsibility and suffer the consequences of their actions. They are the captains of their ships, we are the captains of ours. We do not have to go down with their ship.
When I came home yesterday, the yoga pants were gone, meaning she had been back again in our absence to claim them.
I do not look at this as a good thing. I have finally accepted that she is on her path, given her to God, and stopped the endless worrying about where she is, is she eating, is she okay.
I have to live my life, for me, for my husband, and for my young son. We deserve to have a peaceful home. We have let go of the notion that we can help her.There is help out there for her, she doesn't want it. When she was in our home, she did not care about her actions, she did not care what she did, said, what affect it all had on us. She ravaged herself with meth, and ravaged us along with her. Then disappeared.
I did not pine away for her. I was used to this.
A peace fell over our home.
And now, she is back. Like a ghost.
I have not seen her, but the clues are here. Yoga pants, here then not. My clothes on the line, missing. An empty hotel bottle of shampoo on the ground, by our hose.
I do not fear her being homeless, I fear her being home. Home when we are gone at work. Home to take advantage of us, to steal from us.
I do not fear that I will break, and take her back in.
I am done with that.
I know her life has not changed, who comes to their parents home when they are not there, if they have changed?
In her state of mind, on meth, she is a danger to herself, and to us.
Sigh.
I share this here, wondering if any of my CD friends have experienced this, and have suggestions.
I share it also in hopes that those struggling with their young d cs, and the notion of "helping" understand the risk in it. That setting boundaries early on, may prevent what has happened to us, and our daughter, from happening to them.
For now, I have resolved within myself to try to have a better frame of mind with this.
To not let the appearance and disappearance of yoga pants send me spinning.
I need to settle myself and breathe, and live.
What will be, will be.
With all of your help and support, I have become stronger, I thank you my friends for that.
I will be okay, with Gods grace and help, we will be okay.
One day at a a time....
leafy
