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[accmama]

Well, after a week of couch surfing, she begged to come home. I told her I'd think about it and also let her know that if we do let her come home we'd be drug testing as soon as she walked in the door so if she's been using anything she might want to think twice about whether she really does want to come home. Of course, the next day she somehow has a solution for a new living situation and decides not to come home.

Fast forward to yesterday (2 weeks homeless), my mom read the newspaper in her home town and found that my daughter had received a citation for marijuana and now we know she has a court date. I posted about that on another thread. So, now she's living on a friends couch, has a crappy job, a crappy car, a court date and has humiliated my mom. She's so disrespectful to me when I talk to her. She's just ruining any chance she has of coming home anytime soon.

 

[scent of cedar]

Mamakathy, I'm sorry this is happening to you, and to your child. When I have had to take actions or make responses I never, in a million years, envisioned myself making, it helps me to remember that I am teaching difficult child how we will respond in future by my responses, now.

The worst battle we will fight is the one that takes place in our hearts and minds. We did not raise our children to do what they are doing. They do know better. But, they are doing what they are doing, anyway. Over time, we learn how to respond differently, but it is a painful process. I don't think we ever become comfortable with the way we need to parent our troubled kids. There is so much sadness, and there are so few times of brightness or certainty, anymore. It's very hard, to do what you are learning to do, now.

You are going through a crazy, hurtful time. You are handling it really well. The thing is that when our kids are choosing to live in ways we would never have wanted for them, it seems like every action we have taken must have been the wrong one, because the child doesn't come home, and things don't return to normal. It is so hard for us to believe that the child we raised and dreamed and sacrificed for is making the kinds of decisions she is. It is so painful for us. It feels like we have failed. But we are in a different kind of world now, mamakathy. The old rules and values seem not to apply. Part of what we do, here on the site, is help one another understand how to survive what is happening.

As others of us have said, it is vitally important that we take time to care for ourselves. Though things seem so dark right now, if you begin a gratitude journal, that will help. At the end of the day, come up with five things for which you are grateful. When we are in such pain over our children, it is so easy to lose the joy in our lives. Gratitude journaling will help with that.

Posting helps, too. It helps me get my thoughts in order. Sometimes, when something bad has happened, it seems like I just cannot think. So, post as often as you need to.

Holding a good thought for you, and for your family.

Cedar