Need help to stick to guns...

[carolanne]

it's been one month since I last spoke/emailed/msn'ed with difficult child Jess....and for some reason today is the day I choose to find difficult to get through. I have been keeping myself busy, so busy in fact that I am physically worn out but my mind won't stop.."pick up the phone and call, log into msn and send a mssge"....argh I am driving myself crazy here.

Part of it is that easy child#1 was caught on msn last night talking to her....I had gone to bed early with a nasty chest cough and husband checked on the kids and found her typing like a fiend...she closed down the conversation right quick but he saw who it was on the other end. easy child now has no computer for a week but who's to say that she isn't talking to her through texting or at school.

And I did hear through the grapevine that she is very sick with the pregnancy...thus my urge to call/write/vist......someone nail my feet to the floor and my hands to the ironing board!!!!

 

[trinityroyal]

Be strong, Carolanne.

You're already physically exhausted and feeling sick. Do you really need a does of difficult child drama and the associated heartache on top of that.

Consider your feet and hands nailed down, as requested.

Sending strength and positive thoughts your way.

Trinity

 

[Star*]

Tell yourself this:

If I call/text/msn/im today - I will loose all the days so far that I have stood fast to really help myself and my daughter understand I'm done playing games.
If i call today - I start over - day one.

I also took MS off of my computer and told Dude - No more. And guess what? Removing it from my computer did little - he can go to MS, log on in a second check messages and be back off in the blink of an eye.

Now I'm making my computer ban ms - haven't figured out how totally - thought I knew through security - but alas - i can still log in.

YOU DO NOT GIVE IN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THIS IS AN ORDER!

=and lots of women get sick in pregnancy. SHE is the one that started this whole game. NOT YOU.

NO LOLLIPOP MOM HERE!

 

[meowbunny]

I'm not going to say don't contact her, but I do have a question or two --

What good would it do?
Is it going to change her drama, her cruelty?
Is it going to help her in any way?
Will it help the baby?

If you think it will make a difference in your relationship with your daughter, then contact her. If you don't or it will just be temporary, don't. Let her make the first move. If she's like most of our kids, she will contact you when she needs you, maybe you'll even get lucky and she'll get an eyeopener and figure out just how much you do love her.

Hope you feel better soon.

 

[carolanne]

Thank you everyone...it's after 11pm and I made it without any contact. I went back and re-read all the messages they sent me about getting out of their lives and than back here to read what you had said to me...and it helped...it wouldn't have done any good, wouldn't change her drama or cruelty, help either her or me at all...possibly damage what relationship I have with my other kids, and it certainly wouldn't have helped the baby. She will call when she needs something...like someone to cough up the money for circumcision(it's paid for by parents here in Ontario) or the cab ride home or diapers or whatever....I am putting all these replies in my purse and reading them when I need to...thanks everyone...I do appreciate it so much..

Carolanne

 

[Hound dog]

Carolanne,

You've come a looooong way. You ought to be proud of yourself. Because I know you're worried and hurting, and wanting so darn bad to find out if difficult child being sick is true and what is going on. I know because I would be, and so would probably all of us.

But it's true contacting her would do nothing to stop her behavior. So, you'd be right back at square one, actually maybe a couple of steps back from square one because she's not gonna think you've got the strength to stand up to her games and she'll just work harder on you.

And you always run the risk she's just saying she's sick to tug at your heartstrings.

But you stood strong. ((((hugs)))) I know that was hard.

Stepgfg stepped out of our lives 5 yrs ago. And I still have a day sneak up on me when I want, need to try and find her and the grands. Doesn't seem to matter that my brain knows that's not the answer. My heart occasionally over rides my brain til I can get it back under control.

Sending warm (((hugs))). Hang in there.

 

[hearts and roses]

Sending strength your way. You're doing really great~

However, may I ask why easy child is not allowed to IM with her?

 

[carolanne]

easy child can't im for a while. We have a log on our computer(installed by hubby when I was chatting with a friend and he wanted to know what we were saying...he was kinda embarrassed because it was about how lonely I've been feeling) and when she shut down the conversation and was very snotty to her dad, he checked the logs. She's been telling her what is going on around here, typing in entries from a journal I keep(found it stashed in her room under her mattress), saying that she is going to run away because she didn't have enough minutes on her cell...etc etc etc.

I understand it's her sister but easy child needs to get it through her head that my journal is off limits(not sure how she found it, must have searched when I wasn't home), that difficult child has no right to know what is going on in this house as she doesn't live here any longer.

We don't look at the logs and they delete on their own every six days.husband just felt something was up and wanted to make sure she wasn't getting back into pot like before...

Carolanne

 

[hearts and roses]

Oic, carolanne. It's not directly about easy child not having any contact with difficult child. It's more about other stuff - sorry, I must have missed that in a prior post! You and H are absolutely correct - your journal is private and it sounds like easy child is just exhibitiing some normal typical teen behavior. Wah, wah, wah...big baby wants it all her way, I totally get it.

 

[witzend]

I'm not going to say don't contact her, but I do have a question or two --

What good would it do?
Is it going to change her drama, her cruelty?
Is it going to help her in any way?
Will it help the baby?

I would rephrase part of that. Is it going to help her in any healthy way? (Or is it going to help her be more dramatic and cruel to you and other innocent people?)

 

[scent of cedar]

In your first posting you mentioned that the desire to call her was almost impossible to resist, and that thoughts of calling her came back and came back, no matter how you tried to distract yourself. I remember those times, too. I found it helped me to go ahead and grieve the loss I was feeling. For me in that time, and I think for you now Carolanne, the pain and the unremitting wish to make contact are what we allow ourselves to feel when we know that what we really want ~ to love our children and to have a normal, loving relationship with them ~ is never going to happen. Still, we want it so badly that we convince ourselves, down on some level where we can't really address it, that if we just tried one more time, things would be different. For me, all kinds of other thoughts would come barging in next ~ things I might have said or done differently, ways I could behave differently now, horrible imagery of how much I was needed ~ awful stuff. If I could sit still with myself, the real reason for the pain would overwhelm me.

But at least it would be out in the open.

Sometimes it helped me to light a candle for my son. Other times, I would write him letters I knew he would never see. I just missed him so much that I had to do something concrete to bring the feelings back to something I could function around. Sometimes, I would set a place for him at the table. All these things sound so futile, but they helped me to focus on the reason I was feeling so out of control.

I missed my son.

Just like you are missing your daughter ~ the smell and the feel of her, the sound of her voice, now.


You are right about the way the relationship would go if you were to contact her now, I think. I know this because there were so many times when I did call, or when we did run down to where he was living. And everytime, it was a mistake to do that.

Are you attending Al-Anon meetings? Being in the company of those who can understand your grief will help you to get through this part.

The other thing I would add is that I could only begin to heal once I acknowledged how traumatic the loss of my child was ~ and I did lose a child, and so have you, Carolanne. The things the kids are living through now are not the things we wished for our children. There have been times when I have hated the person who seemed to be holding my good boy hostage. These are such confusing feelings. Talking about them with those who have not walked in our shoes leaves us feeling like we are making a big deal out of nothing,or that we should be stronger ~ or, worse yet, that we are somehow to blame for the situations our children have chosen for themselves.

The truth is that we are not to blame. No one is to blame. Our children are suffering. We are suffering. If we can acknowledge that what we are feeling is grief, if we can own those feelings and mourn our very real losses, then we can begin to heal.

Finally, if you can remember that you are teaching your daughter how to treat you, I think you will be able to accept the pain that comes with change more easily. This is going to be a long, hard journey but at the end, if you stay strong, if you refuse to compromise or allow old patterns of behavior to be good enough, you may be able to bring your daughter back to you healthy and whole.

I am sorry this is happening Carolanne.

I know how hard it is.

I think you are doing the things that need to be done, now.

Barbara

 

[carolanne]

Oh Barbara...your words have touched my soul deeply. I have been missing my child. In fact, I was looking at some pics hubby and placed on his facebook page and I added a comment on the one of her smiling directly into the camera "i miss my girl"...than I gave myself permission to cry and I've been doing that for about an hour.

You're right you know. I did think all the things you said....that if I had only done this or said that, maybe I would be good enough. Maybe if I let her walk all over me and treat me this way it would be okay because at least I would be able to see/talk to her.

No one around my home gets it....my other kids, my hubby even. They miss her too but not the way I do. I feel like she died and it hurts so damn much!!!!!

I don't want to be like this any more but no one will let me grieve. I have to paste a smile on my face and be normal until everyone is in bed....than I can cry .

I hadn't thought of alanon...I honestly thought it was only for people dealing with drugs/alcohol...I will give the number here in town a call tonight...

I don't want to do this anymore....

Carolanne

 

[scent of cedar]

No one around my home gets it....my other kids, my hubby even. They miss her too but not the way I do. I feel like she died and it hurts so damn much!!!!!

Carolanne

Sometimes, if we can just put words to the feelings, we learn that we are strong enough to do what needs to be done. I wish I could help you know how to get through this, but I think each of us grieves her child alone. It is a horrible thing to lose a child. I always used to wonder whether mothers whose children did not make it walked as difficult a path to recovery as those of us whose children are alive, but who suffer, losing more and more of themselves every day.

I don't know that answer. But I do know that it helps me to hold faith with my son, though that is almost impossibly hard when I am confronted with the reality of his life. The way I see it is that if he is ever to find his way back, he will need someone who remembers for him who he is.

That would be me, expecting decency and integrity from the child I raised to behave with decency and integrity. You may be able to take strength from remembering all the good things you taught your girl too, Carolanne.

And then, remember that you raised her better than to do what she is doing.

And then, remember that, just like you loved her through ten thousand things when she was little, you will love her through this thing too, however long it takes, and however it turns out.

When we don't know how to do that anymore, there are other moms on the site who have lived through that part already, and they will help us.

Posting will help you now, I think. It helped me so much to come here and learn how to survive what had happened to all of us.

I always wished there were an armband or some other external mark that a grieving mother (or father) could wear. We are so raw and vulnerable, and the outside world is often so judgmental.

It helped me to remind myself that I WAS grieving, whether there was anyone to understand or not. I was able to function in a more balanced way once I was able to acknowledge my own pain to myself.

You will make it through the other side too, Carolanne.

It takes a really long time, though.

But we are here, all of us, having made it through and trying now to help the others of us who are just beginning the journey.

Barbara