I am sorry you have been through so much anguish too, I wish I could meet everyone and have a group hug!
A group hug would be powerful wouldn’t it?
We have all been in our own individual battles with these terrible issues with our d cs.
It can be a very lonely thing.
We are not alone.
I don’t know too many people in my daily life, who face this.
It is sad to see so many others posting here with similar challenges.
I am sorry for your need to be here, LOS, and everyone else reading along and posting, but glad that we all have this place to share our hearts.
It is a hard journey we are all on. Each at different places on the trail.
It is a help to write to one another and share stories and suggestions.
To know that we are not alone in our unique struggles.
I am working at fending off the anxiety of it LOS.
Calming myself, even though my two are out there, making the same horrible choices.
It’s not that I do not care,
I realize I have no control over what they choose.
When hubs and I allowed them to come home, it was the same old same old.
I was in the thick of it for a long time.
Stuck in the swamp right along with my two.
I call it the swirly whirly.
It was eating me up inside.
There was nothing I could do.
My two are adults and they will do what they want.
It was like living on a runaway train.
Anxiety off the charts that I just couldn’t push away any longer.
The mistreatment was horrible.
Blaming me for everything.
I went through the tapes of their upbringing and picked apart times when I slipped up and could have been a better mom.
"I am like this because of YOU, MOM!"
Huh.
Sting, slap, ouch.
I fell deep in to the guilt trap.
Geez, we are only human.
We do the best job we can, with what we have at the time.
Our d cs instinctively know our weaknesses and will target them to get us to do what they want.
Smack dab in the center of them.
Comes the arrow, straight to the wound.
We bleed and give in,
they be like "Cool, I got what I want."
We are dazed and confused, broken.
They are cunning and manipulative.
They know how to push the right buttons to keep us in such a tizzy, we don’t know which way to turn.
They tug and tug at our heartstrings.
It is a no wonder we become so wound up and frazzled.
Exhausted, short of breath, palpitations.
Weak.
This is where they want us to be.
We can’t make good decisions in this state.
It works for them.
That’s really sad isn’t it?
Sucking the life right out of us.
This is the addicts way.
It hurts,
because these are our kids.
We want the best for them,
but they have got to want it for themselves.
Unfortunately for my two, right now, their choice is drugs.
It doesn’t mean I have given up on them.
I pray daily that they find their true potential.
I have given in to the notion that
I have to help them.
I am not the one.
I am too close to them.
They view me as a rug.
I am not a rug to be tread upon and muddied.
There are resources out there,
if they choose to come out of their drug hazed world and seek their potential.
I think that when they are truly ready to do this,
they will not seek help from me.
When Tornado came to me after I had figured this out and whispered in my ear that she needed to come home.............
my husband had just passed.
I was grieving and lost.
I found the strength to tell her that my home was not the place for her to get help, that it hadn't worked before,
that she needed to go to a shelter.
The words echoed in my head, "
shelter,
shelter,
shelter."
I felt small.
Hollow.
She had a devastated look on her face.
That was not an easy thing to do.
It was true.
It felt empty for a bit, even cold.
"What a biotch!" one of my head voices said.
Okay guys, we all have little voices in our heads..........don't we?
Ahem, well Eckhart Tolle says we do........... anyways...............
I was so conditioned to think that I had to "help" her.
But my stepping in was not helping.
She just wanted to continue as is.
Since, she has appeared here and there, coming over for a bit,
but what I see is that she is continuing on the same downward slide.
Drugging and partying. Not caring for herself, or her kids.
"When people show you who they are, believe them."
Maya Angelou.
She will make comments that I have "only two daughters", that I have written her and her older sister off.
OUCH.
Not true.
I just know that I am not the one to help them.
They take advantage of me.
Berate me, like your son.
If it is not verbal abuse,
they abuse the sanctity of my home.
Like it is a pit stop.
A motel.
A vacation.
A store to shop for things and not pay for them.
Uh, no.
Now, the more they push, the more it strengthens my reserve.
Okay, I fall back a bit and lament.
Then I have to pick myself up and dust off the old ways.
I think it was Cedar who touched upon the idea that by continually stepping in to "rescue" our adult d cs, we really make
beggars out of them.
Take away their capabilities to figure their own lives out, their responsibilities.
She was getting at their unreasonable, illogical mistreatment of us.
The saying goes "Bite the hand that feeds you."
I think it is true, that they end up
resenting us, for what we try to do for them.
Because deep inside,
they know they are capable.
We clip their wings, when they are meant to fly on their own.
We will not be on this earth forever, to be there when the bottom drops out.
They have got to learn how to "fly".
When I put it in this perspective, it is easier to say no.
Love says no.
We did it a thousand times when they were toddlers.
Addicts are like toddlers.
Blaming everyone else for their choices, rejecting consequences and just wanting what they want.
Throwing tantrums in adult bodies.
Making everyone around them, even themselves, miserable.
It is about setting boundaries, for them and
ourselves.
We have conditioned ourselves to respond a certain way.
It becomes habit.
They know this.
So, we have to slowly change our habits and recondition ourselves to respond differently.
When this happens,
things change for us.
That is the only thing we have some control over,
what we do.
How we react, how we act, how we move forward.
It is a lot of relearning, it doesn't happen instantly.
It is possible to remove yourself from the nightmare of it.
One day at a time.
Learn to love yourself.
It is not selfish to find time to care for yourself.
It is imperative to your well being.
We moms are conditioned to give of ourselves, from the moment we learn we are pregnant, or adopt a child.
We arrange our lives around our children.
Being a mother is lifelong, but it is not a lifelong JOB.
Part of parenting, is understanding that there is a certain point where we have done our job, and the kids need to learn to be self sustainable.
Oh, sure, we are there if they need us.
But, a determining factor to how much time and help we give, is if there is respect and appreciation.
If that is missing, we are doing a disservice to ourselves and our d cs.
We are not teaching them.
We are enabling them to treat us poorly.
That is unacceptable.
These are our kids, grown up, adults, and they disrespect us?
NO!
In the course of my twos trials and tribulations with drugs (which became ours, too), in and out the revolving door of our home, their fathers health deteriorated.
This did not stop them.
In fact, they took advantage even more.
Hubs was raised in hardship, his father addicted and abusive to his children and wife.
All my husband wanted was for his kids to live a better life than what he had.
It was more than he could bear to see his two, and his grands living the way they did.
This did not stop them.
In fact, they dug in even more, triangulating and manipulating him,
because I was done.
So, I became "the bad guy."
He wound up in the hospital and nearly died, twice.
This did not stop them.
He ended up in the hospital again, this time worse off.
This did not stop them.
He passed.
This did not stop them.
My grief did not stop them.
When we spread his ashes, Tornado and Volcano invited their friends to my home (unbeknownst to me), partied and ended up in a domestic, Volcano attacking my daughter.
We had to call the police.
UGH.
Horrible.
Disgusting.
Unacceptable.
This did not stop them.
They will do what they want.
Death was not a deterrent.
How crazy and despicable is that?
Yet, these are my children.
Adults.
Addicts.
What is there left for me to do?
How much do I need to be shown that I have no control over their choices?
Lessons, hard learned.
I share this with you, and anyone reading, to help others see that an adult child using drugs is capable of treading upon anyone close to them and using them up to
death.
I am writing to remind myself to stay the course.
In their drugknapped state,
they don't see this.
Someone, has to see it and pull out.
Someone has to say,
no more.
I will not take this anymore.
It is not that I don't love them, I do. I just wont allow them to continue to rob me of my life.
Rob my home of peace, rob me of my peace and the joy of life.
If I allow that to happen, I have succumbed to the horror of addiction, as much as they have.
There is no easy way to step back and view what is happening with a logical mind,
rather than our bleeding hearts.
It takes work, and belief that
you matter.
We matter.
It takes reading and writing out your feelings and getting to the crux of the issue.
Slowly building your toolbox.
Finding mentors, in others who have been through similar journeys, or even looking at those who have come through trials in life, maintained and built up joy.
Viktor Frankl, Anne Frank, Maya Angelou.
When we are weakened, we can borrow strength from others.
One simple thing to keep in mind is the only thing you have control of, is yourself.
So, LOS and anyone else reading along.
You do not have to go through the loss of your mate, or a loved one, to open up your eyes to what is happening.
To you.
You don't have to go down with your d cs choices.
You can rise above, pull back and understand that the best way to teach our adult d cs,
is to take very good care of yourself.
They are captains of their own ship.
We are captains of our own ship.
If they chart a course of bad choices,
we do not have to follow along.
No amount of pulling our own hair, feeling desperate and lost, will help them.
Begging, nagging and beseeching them to change.
It ends up killing us.
What good can come of that?
They are worth much much more than the terrible choices they are making.
This, we can all agree on.
We love them.
I have come to the conclusion that the best way to help my two, is to
model behaviors for them that I wish to see in them.
I wish to see them take care of themselves.
I will take care of myself.
I wish them joy.
I will find joy.
I wish them peace.
I will find peace.
I cannot do this for them.
They have to decide.
Until then, I will value my life and my worth.
I have to work at this.
Daily.
It is not that I am so strong.
I am not.
I count my blessings and am thankful for the life I have.
I am worth much, much more than the terrible choices they are making.
And so are you guys.
(((HUGS)))
and peace in this holiday season.
Leafy