I remember the horrific viciousness of rage and guilt and pain compounded by an overwhelming sense of loss and a like, I don't know ~ like a fish out of water feeling, when my difficult child was in and out of Intensive Care (they found her passed out in a snowbank one time), and when she came down with such messed up bloodworks that organ failure was suspected.
It was like time slowed down.
Everything went silent, and there was only pain.
You know those movies where there is a slow drip of water? It felt just like that.
Out of control, time passing, nothing, nothing at all, that I could do.
I am glad you posted to us. Alone with it is worse.
We are right here.
I have two difficult children, too.
If the difficult child child can triangulate the family's unity (that is what this kind of behavior is called), then the attention will be on the difficult child, the mother's (in most cases) sympathy, empathy, guilt, pain, sadness and focus will be on the difficult child...and the money will flow.
That' why they do it; that's what they want: the money to flow.
Our difficult children most often use "family values" to justify our continued support.
So the money will flow.
I don't think it is that they don't love us. I think the drugs that are out there on the streets these days are so powerful that it changes the chemical structure of the brain to the point that the user can no longer feel empathy.
Thus, no conscience.
They will do anything, say anything, justify behaviors they know darn well are wrong...so the money will flow.
Stop the flow of money.
If you do nothing else, stop the money flow.
Al Anon might be better. There is nothing so healing as hearing the stories of other parents, of decent parents, whose children are acting out the same way.
You did not do this to your children.
There is research out now that indicates there is a genetic component to these things. It was not the way you parented. It was not what happened to little Johnny in third grade. It may well turn out that our difficult child children are acting out the genetic heritage they were born into.
When you think about relatives two or three generations back, are there strange things happening?
Lots of creativity?
Alcoholism anywhere in the family line?
That is why this happened. Especially in that you have more than one child who can't seem to use without losing his or her life, I would say you will find the same kinds of behaviors in past generations.
It was not you, it was not husband, it was nothing you did.
Your children were born into a time when drugs and alcohol are readily available. Their genetic heritages predisposed them to addiction and alcoholism. It is not that the neighbors' kids did not try these things.
It is that the neighbors kids did not carry the genetic heritage that meant trying anything, even just once, would doom them to addiction or alcoholism.
That is true.
You cannot do this anymore.
It isn't working, anyway.
We can help with this part, Lost. We have been where you are. We know how this feels...and we have come back from that dark place.
You are here with us, now.
You are not alone with it anymore, and that will make all the difference for you, for your husband (who is so welcome to join us, too), and for your marriage.
Just think. If you two have managed to stay on speaking terms through one difficult child, let alone two of them?
It must be love.
:O)
What we are learning here Lost is how to survive even if our children continue to self destruct. It isn't about turning away so much as it is about standing tall, about choosing love, about learning the right things to say and learning how to cherish ourselves and our mates and even our wayward kids through what is one of the most horrible things that can happen to a family.
My story is an ugly one, but it is my story. Those are my children, and whatever has happened, I love them in that silly, goofy way moms always do love their kids, no matter how grown up they are.
But I had to learn to survive their addictions, their illnesses, the pain of loving them.
And this site was a good, good place to do that, to learn those things I needed to know.
I am so glad you came back, and posted to us again.
Holding a good thought for you and husband, Lost.
Cedar
