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[accmama]

I'm new here and really feeling weary right now. My oldest daughter is 19 and has had behavior problems her entire life. To get away from bad influences here, we moved her out of state about one year ago to live with my mom. Things were going well, but she was being careless, not keeping her room clean, not following house rules, etc. Finally she got into a fight with her boyfriend in the street in front of my mom's house and my mom decided she had enough and asked her to leave.

The plan was for us to buy her a one way ticket to fly back home and then deal with getting the rest of her things later. That would have been super easy, but of course with her nothing is easy.

She decided she must drive herself the 11 hours to get her because she didn't want to leave her car.

Of course, she is so impulsive she spends her money as fast as she earns it so she has no money for gas. We gave her gas money and a gps and sent her on her way.

Only she decided at the last minute she's staying there. And using the money we gave her to drive here as spending money until she gets paid next week.

Meanwhile her car has been wrecked, and will need to be repaired and it is old anyway....

there is just no way for her to survive right now without living with a family member and we have a very small family. Her only option is to come here or be homeless or stay with a friend.

I am so sick about this I might throw up.

I'm worried she'll go to my mom's house and try to beg her to let her stay there. Mom has been instructed to not let herself be manipulated, but to instead call the police for help.

I'm also worried something will happen and she'll call us asking for money in a week.

This child has been in juvenile detention, rehab, group home....we've been dealing with major stress for about 10 years now. I thought she was on the road to a better life, but I guess I was wrong.

We just do not know what to do other than to send her off to make her own way.

I have small children here, so even if she does decide to come back here we will have to kick her out if she causes drama here.

I just do not understand why it is so hard to just do the right thing. If she could just make normal choices, even bad choices would be fine if they were normal for her age, but everything she does is so over the top and dramatic and outrageous.

 

[BusynMember]

I'm sorry you are upset. Can you give us a history on your daughter. Any drug use? Diagnoses? Do you and her father still live together? If not, what is the family dynamics? Any abuse, either witnessed or experienced? Trauma? How were her very early years? Are your small children her siblings or steps? Is she jealous?

 

[accmama]

Yes, she does have a history of drug use. Mainly drinking, pot and pills. She's always been extremely defiant and some have tossed around the diagnosis if borderline personality disorder. I'm not sure if she's been officially diagnosed, but she sure fits the description. She has been self destructive for a long time.

Her dad and I were never married, but I married my husband when she was 5. For years she had a relationship with her bio father but when she was 12 he told her he never wanted to see her again....she was difficult before this happened, but I'm sure you can imagine it was magnified after that.

I'm pretty sure she was abused as a very young child but we don't know who or what exactly happened. There are so many red flags that didnt' show up until she was around 10 years old. By then she had either decided to forget or block or whatever, but her friends have told me she told them about the abuse when she was drunk.

We've tried numerous programs, treatments, therapists, psychiatrists, etc. Nothing has helped ever. I'm glad she's not using drugs right now, but now that she has decided to stay with a friend who knows if that will stick.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Welcome. I'm sorry you are struggling with your daughter. Your daughter's behaviors fit many of our grown kids behaviors. Whether on drugs, alcohol, mental issues or whatever, at this stage of the game, she is considered to be an adult and you have no more control over her choices.

I know how hard that is to hear.

What you CAN work on is yourself and your responses to her choices. You may want to read the article on detachment at the bottom of my post here. You may also want to go online and find the nearest NAMI, National Alliance on Mental Illness............they have chapters everywhere and excellent support for families, including a course for parents that is extremely helpful. You may want to attend some 12 step groups for support, any one which fits, CoDa works. You may also find private therapy helps. For you. To learn how to detach and accept what you can't change.

Difficult kids do a lot of damage to families and after awhile we get conditioned to it, not noticing how depleted, exhausted, angry, resentful, bitter, sad, grieving and just in general how all the joy and well being has been sucked out of our lives by a family member who is always in crisis, drama or some kind of trauma that we as parents feel we must step in to help with. It becomes a pattern of behavior we simply get used to living in.

My best advice to you is to get as much help as you can right now and to learn tools to respond to your daughter in a healthy detached way. To learn how to detach from her choices so that they don't make you sick and take you away from the other younger children who need you now.

If you can put a little bit of distance between yourself and your daughter's choices, in that space you can learn to detach just enough to begin responding differently. Many of us need professional help to do that because it really goes against our natural instincts to protect and care for our children. However, once our children are over 18, if they continue making these dramatic choices, our influence dwindles considerably, however our suffering increases because of the lack of control we have now.

Your daughter may or may not change, but you can't allow your life and the life of your family to hinge on the choices she makes.............find yourself some support that feels right to you.............keep posting, it helps..................sending you good wishes to find peace..................

 

[Dancerat]

That is the 20 million dollar question. Why do they make these over the top choices that are made on the fly, with no thought of consequences from 5 minutes from now, much less tomorrow or any other type of long range plans? It's like they see "shiny toy", and with no regard or thought, they grab it. And throw tantrums. Thrive on drama and stress, the more the better. Believe that we, as parents, owe them things even though their peers are out earning $$ and supporting themselves. Can't see the future at all. In fact, I would say they are trapped in childhood. Something that I am grapping with is having to put my kid without a safety net. But something that Midwest Mom has said is so so true. They are making CHOICES. They are making choices - live with stress and drama and no accountability and they choose to not live at home. Live with peace and accountability and rules and they can live at home. You are NOT throwing your kid out. She is CHOOSING to leave. This is what I tell my son now. Every time I see him, I hug him, I tell him I love him, but he cannot set the rules in my house. I set the rules. He can live with them or choose to live elsewhere. Right now he is choosing to live elsewhere.

 

[accmama]

I just realized how disjointed my first post was. I am having such a hard time today I'm barely making sense. She has decided to stay with a friend. Someone she knows from here where we live, happens to be in college in the city in which she has been living with my mom. She managed to talk her friend into letting her stay with him. It is an hour away from her job.

She seems to think she can manage this. No money in her pocket. sleeping on this kids couch, and probably will end up getting involved in drugs and/or alcohol.

Meanwhile I'm here 4 states away, trying to figure out how we got to this point and how I can prevent this outcome with my other children. I feel like I've fought so many battles. I just want the war to end, somehow. I just don't understand how anyone would want to live like this. She has friends who seem to be forced to live crazy lifestyles. Their parents are unstable, mentally ill, drug users......but we are not like that. I don't understand how this happened.

 

[accmama]

Midwestmom-

Yes, she has a history of drug use and we do suspect that she may have been abused as a very young girl. Not only that, when she was 12 her bio father told her he didn't want to see her anymore. She's not jealous of her siblings. Her problems started when she was a toddler. She has always been extremely defiant and has been to numerous therapists, psychiatrists, programs. She has been hospitalized 4 or 5 times, and has been in rehab. It's been a long hard road.

I will say that I am able to detach sometimes, but only when I know she has a roof over her head.

The hardest part about this is that she is so immature, she needs mothering. She needs someone to take care of her because she is emotionally more like a 13 year old (in my opinion), but she is legally able to do whatever she wants.

I would feel better about her "staying with a friend" or even sleeping in her car if she had half a brain in her head. But if she did, I guess she wouldn't be in this situation to begin with.

So, not only do I have a child out there on the streets, I have a ridiculously impulsive, self destructive person on the street.

 

[recoveringenabler]

Dancerat, MWM gave you a wonderful piece of wisdom, it is THEIR CHOICE. Your son is 20, mamakathy's daughter is 19, my daughter is 40............you guys want to get this detachment thing going NOW........you want to learn how to respond and how to live in your own lives NOW..........listen to what others are saying, do your own therapy or homework or whatever you have to do to learn how to detach from the CHOICES of others that you cannot control, that you are powerless over..........no matter who they are.............if you can do that, you can have a peaceful and joyful life.................however, riding on the choices of another is a complete exercise in insanity.............

I wish I could have learned this a lot earlier............too many of my days/weeks/years have been used up by my family members who lived in major drama and trauma due to their own mental/emotional issues. I never had any control over any of it.

Whatever the reason, your kids are wired in a way that makes living in the same reality we all live in, impossible for them. Sometimes they get over that, sometimes they don't, but it is clearly their choice to do whatever they want to do with their lives. It is up to you to respond differently and learn how to detach from their choices. Whatever you have to do in order to accomplish that, do it. Otherwise your lives will be a struggle which has a lot of suffering in it...........we have no control over the choices of another. Any thinking that we do have that control is absolutely crazy-making.

Dancerat, you're doing a great job, by the way!

 

[Nomad]

MamaKathy, our adopted daughter is over 21. She has the diagnosis of bipolar disorder. She is impulsive and rarely, if ever, can think or plan ahead of time. She is on disability. It was a sad measure to take, but a necessary one and I'm grateful for it. Perhaps keep this in the back of your mind. I think disability is not too keen on drug abuse, but if your daughter has a mental illness diagnosis and this can be proven, down the road, if needed, she could get on disability. The money is used to put a roof over their heads.
we just went through a very rough time because our daughter moves a lot and even having the disability she was without funds due to needing security deposit money. So, briefly she was staying with a friend and now is in an apt. In a very rough area again. All she can afford at the moment. Since she moves so much (due to her impulsivity) she loses deposits and runs out of money. I have detached, but I do find it hard to truly detach when she doesn't have a roof over her head. Yes, that makes it harder and I can relate to your comment about this.
just something to think about....re the future. Hopefully, your daughter is employable. But, if in your heart you feel she is too sick to work, think about having her condition diagnosed (if it hasn't been already) and start setting the groundwork by encouraging her to see a doctor regularly just in case you might have to help her file for SS Disability in the not too distant future. And of course, medication and therapy might just help her think more clearly/adaptively.....and that would be ideal.
PS whatever happens, I totally agree with the others that detachment is vitally important.

 

[BusynMember]

I would like to add that borderline is not parentable (I just made up that word). It is a VERY difficult problem that will make problems for everyone your child meets unless she is willing to confront that diagnosis and change. Dialectal Behavioral Therapy is the only really successful treatment for it and many borderlines have gotten way better with it, but many borderlines get furious if you tell them they need treatment too and they declare that the world has to change, not them. You can not mother them, no matter what their "emotional" age is. They won't listen so you are wasting your time AND your life. And your other kids who are normal will feel resentful and cheated and YOU won't be taking good care of yourself. My guess is your daughter is using drugs more than you think. I"m going to recommend a book for parents or spouses of borderlines or any difficult adult children:

http://www.amazon.com/Stop-Walking-Eggshells-Borderline-Personality/dp/1572246901

Do not hesitate to buy it right away. If you can't afford it, go to the library. You can not save your adult daughter unless she decides to make the decision that she is tired of herself and WANTS to change and will work VERY HARD to change. Whatever happened in her past has happened and she is what she is and nobody really knows why borderline happens. The trick as an adult, which your daughter is, is for her to get her act together and get help and that starts with cutting out the drug abuse. Dancerat, I k now you think your son isn't using strong drugs. I don't know if I agree that you know if he is or not. The same thing goes for him. HE needs to change. Our adult kids will be treated as adults if they break the law and nobody will give a rat's if we try to defend them by telling the judge that they are "emotionally six." It doesn't matter. They can legally get into their own trouble and bring you into it with them if they, say, keep illegal substances in your house or get violent with your minor children (this is to original poster).

Detaching is a work in progress. I have a 35 year old that I feel so sorry for that I just wish I could fix his messed up life for him. If I dwell on it, it can bring me to tears, but I am learning coping skills to take my mind off of it when I think about him. He is not doing things to help himself, such as getting any sort of therapy, and has every excuse known to man as to why he can't get help, which he desperately needs. He threatens to kill himself because he will probably be on the losing end of a custody battle for my grandson and his son is the only thing he cares about and loves, yet his ex wants to take his son, who loves him so much, away from him and the justice system is so far stunningly biased toward the mother. She, by the way, is borderline. He is something too...not sure what. I believe he could kill himself. It is my deepest fear. BUT I CAN NOT STOP HIM!!!! If he loses his son and only gets him ever other weekend, in his differently wired head, that means he LOST him and he could actually kill himself. What on earth can I do to stop him if he is going to do it? If he tells me I can call 9-1-1. If he doesn't, I can't do a dang thing. Thinking and worrying about it 24/7 won't make things better. I have learned how to quickly focus my mind on something else if my mind starts floating in that direction...because I am powerless over his decisions and the future.

I have three other kids who are nice to me and not living on the edge. I have a great husband. I owe them the best me I can be.

You owe your loved ones who are functioning well the best you can give them of yourself and you owe yourself love, a life, fun, and things to look forward to. Your daughter will only change if she decides to change. I wouldn't enable her bad behavior. If you do, she will never become motivated to better herself and behave in a more acceptable manner. The more we "take care of" our adult children, the more they become dependent on us and unwilling to grow up...sort of stuck in Peter Pan mode. Some also get abusive and dangerous to us and others in our household.

My adult son can never live in my house again. My other adult child could if times got hard, but she wouldn't choose it. Adult children normally want to be independent. My son could be dangerous to all of us if he gets in a dangerous mood. I am not going to risk it. Fortunately, it won't come up. He does have a job in Missouri and his son is there so he isn't leaving the state. I am very sad to report that I am glad he can not come here and won't show up on my doorstep. (He also has a huge phobia about driving far). His anger can be scary.

Just my opinion.

Lots of love and hugs to you. This is NOT by any means easy, but in my opinion it is necessary for our entire family, including the self-destructive adult child in our life.

 

[accmama]

Thanks so much. Yes, we did seek out a therapist who specializes in Dialectical Behavior therapy, but as soon as we got started with treatment our insurance company decided they'd no longer work with that person. Unfortunately, that was the ONLY therapist who can do DBT in our city. The nearest one on our insurance is 2 hours away. We have the WORST mental health coverage. It is absolutely ridiculous that they can get away with this. I honestly think it would be easier to treat some forms of cancer than this because at least it would be taken seriously.

Not only that, but taking her to therapy is like pulling teeth. One minute she needs to see her therapist right now or else she'll die. The next minute she's refusing appointments because she'd rather hang out with friends. I owe her last doctor several hundred dollars in no show fees because she'd disappear and not be home in time to leave for her appointment. It is miserable.

I just checked with her. She says she's at her friends apartment, though I don't know the address or even the neighborhood or even this friends name, but I guess as long as she is able to communicate with me and not harassing my mom we're okay for right now.

She does have a job and she works almost full time, so that was the reason for her not wanting to come home when she was kicked out of my mom's today. She said she wanted to stay local so she could keep her job.

 

[BusynMember]

Borderlines are incredibly difficult patients because of exactly what you said. DBT is new in the US, but there are tons of books about it. I did a lot of self-help in this arena and that can sometimes help as much as seeing a psychologist.

I would not take her to therapy. It is her responsibility to go and get there and if she doesn't go willingly she won't get much out of it. Therapy is a lot like learning how to play the piano. If you don't practice and work hard at it, you won't learn anything and you'll just be wasting your money. I have many challenges myself and have worked my tail off in therapy to be a much better and person than I was and to learn things that "normal" people automatically know...coping skills that never occurred to me. It is a very hard lesson (many lessons, really), but none of our difficult children will change one iota if they are not committed to a recovery and acknowledge that they have problems.

My parents were very uncaring and tossed me out at eighteen when I was probably emotionally ten with neurological and learning problems. I survived because I had no safety net and I threw myself into therapy to be the best me that I could be and I am STILL in therapy because differently wired people always need tune ups to remember our learned skills. I think that it is actually better to let your child sink or swim than to enable the child to act ten or twelve or whatever age we think they are stuck at. WE CAN NOT AND WILL NOT LIVE FOREVER. And nobody else will put up with a, say, forty year old who is used to mommy doing his laundry or cooking his food or giving him money for cigarettes (in my opinion nobody should ever give any adult child money for cigarettes anyway...it's such a horrible habit and big waste of money).

Maybe I'm biased because if my parents would have coddled me because of my differences, I never would have made it this far and I'd never have been the person I am today. I had to grow up. The last ten years of my mother's life, she did not want to talk to me. Although it hurt, it was for the best. She didn't mean for it to be for the best, but it was. I had to depend on myself and my own family and therapy for emotional support...and it worked out great. For me, if I had been coddled, I would have taken the coddling and never grown up because being independent and adult was hard for me. It would have been much easier just to let mom take care of me. Fortunately for me, she was unwilling, which turned out way for the best. My daughter also grow up and cut out the drugs and rotten choices once we made her leave our house. Now she was never on the streets, but she could have been had s he not decided to go live with a brother who is a fundamentalist Christian and would have thrown her out if she had so much as lit up a cigarette. She would not change under OUR care because she knew I was a soft touch. But she sure didn't really want to live on the streets and she even quit her cigarettes, got a job, walked to work (she had no car) and left her drugs behind her when she lived with her brother who made very harsh demands of her in order to live in his house. He would have had no qualms throwing her out and she knew it and responded to it!

I have not seen any success when parents keep saving their grown children, if they are difficult children. You can't raise them like you raise your PCs and you can't relate to them as adult children the same way you relate to your PCs either. Like apples and oranges.

Your daughter has a job. That is huge. That means she can always find somewhere to stay. And that shows glimmers of responsibility too.

 

[Nomad]

The fact that she is working and show signs of liking her job is a great thing. The borderline possibility is not so great. Detachment is going to be vital. I believe it is vital for you, but it also teaches our difficult child some things in a way....the value of self discipline, integrity, boundaries, self respect,etc. If and when these struggles prove to be too taxing for you, consider getting a therapist for yourself...perhaps something short term...just to help build your strength. These kids can really challenge your reserve.

 

[scent of cedar]

Welcome, mamakathy. My daughter is 39. It is heartrending to worry over your child, to know she is homeless, to hear the horrible things that are happening to her. As any responsible parent would, we question what went wrong, search for the key to what it is, blame ourselves endlessly for the horrifying choices they make and for the situations they invariably get themselves into. We put ourselves and others in our families in danger to help our self-destructing kids. We bear the brunt of the judgments our families and peers whose children are normal make against us.

We judge ourselves most harshly of all.

Unless we have had perfect lives, we can always find something to blame ourselves about for what has happened to our kids. When we first brought our daughter in for evaluation, the professionals came back with questions about our marriage, and about whether our daughter's real father was still in her life. All we could tell them was that husband was her "real" father, that we'd been married since before she was born, that we loved her, that there was no known trauma to explain our rebellious, sometimes criminal, daughter's behavior.

You did nothing to cause this, mamakathy. More and more, research is telling us that so many of these problems are genetic. If you have a genetic tendency and toss any drug use at all into the mix, the problems are magnified, and that is that.

Which doesn't change the horrible pain of watching someone we love self destruct.

I'm so sorry we have no solution for you, mamakathy. The advice you have received regarding your daughter is golden. The toughest thing we go through with troubled children is recognizing and coming to terms with our own feelings. Given that your daughter has a history of difficulties, her issues may trail her all her life. If you will be parenting this child and dealing with these issues as you begin to age, as you look forward to retirement, as you become a grandmother...how will you do it? What would you like that to look like?

How will you interpret this child's actions to yourself, in your own heart, and how will her difficulties change your perceptions of yourself, and of your ability to effect positive change or have any control at all over events in your life? For so many who have been responsible parents, the forever-unresolvable issues of their children destroy the parents' own senses of efficacy. Of happiness. Of belief in the bright future. Of hope. We slip into frustration and despair so often that it begins to feel normal for us...and our own lives are flying by.

These are the core issues you must address. Not so much "How can I help her?" (Though that is important, too.) but, "How can I do what needs to be done for this child I love for the incredible amount of time I will need to do it, without cheating myself of the joy to be taken in my own life?"

We are learning that too, mamakathy. It is good to have one another, good to see our stories reflected in the stories of the others, good to have a safe place to come, and to learn, and to grow into the difficult role of healthy mother to a troubled child.

Cedar

 

[accmama]

Thank you all so much. I'm learning to detach. Actually I don' t have much of a choice. We have 4 other children, all homeschooled, plus their various activities (piano, theater, scouts, etc) I don't have much time to worry. If I could just figure out how to sleep all night, I could be distracted all the time. I'm here for her when she wants to come home and follow our rules, but until then I just need to focus on the kids I can parent right now.

 

[susiestar]

Your last post before this nailed it, in my opinion. "I am here for her when she wants to come home and follow our rules, but until then I just need to focus on the kids I can parent right now."

That says so very much. It shows your love for her. It shows your love for your other kids. It shows that she is not ready to get her act together, and that you know you cannot allow her to take the whole family down with her.

PLEASE do not bring her into the home with the rest of your kids unless/until she has gotten things together and is accepting treatment for her mental health and sub abuse problems. Not going to a therapist or meetings, ACCEPTING treatment and using the tools she has been given an will be given to make a healthy life for herself.

If and when she wants help, she is going to need information from you. She will need to know all of what the docs told you (and her), the medications and how she reacted to them, family history, etc.... It may be that seh ends up on disability for a while or forever. To get it, the info is vital. Years ago some moms here created the Parent Report. Itis a document that you write that has all the info about your child and organizes it into one usable document. The link in my signature will take you to the thread with the outline and description of the report. I firmly believe that the Parent Report is one of the most valuable tools we have to help our children. When she is ready for help you can then give a copy to her and the doctors can use it to really figure out waht is going on and how best to help.

The thing about making a PR now is that when you are feeling lost, wanting to help but not sure how or if to help, pull out the PR and work on a section of it. It will give you something to do and help you not feel so powerless, and it won't have you tied up in enabling her current choices. The PR is best worked on in chunks anyway.

Have you gone to meetings and/or seen a therapist for YOU? These problems impact the entire family. If you get help, it will improve life for all of your kids because you will model healthy behavior and you will teach it to your younger kids. alanon/NA family meetings can be a huge source of support and hugely increase your difficult child's chances of staying clean and sober. The increase is around 30% vs those who have family who do not go to meetings. That is like turning a D (60%) to an A (90%). I think a lot of parents would go to school for an hour a week to raise their kids' grades from D to A, and this is very similar except that it impacts their lives for a lot longer than any school grade ever will. Plus it makes you more sane, in my opinion.

I hope she fnds her way in the world and builds a healthy life for herself. At this point, bringing her home will not help her and will harm the other kids by inflicting her drama and behavior on them. They dont' deserve that I have gotten a TON of grief from my family for insisting that my difficult child live outside our home starting when he was 14. We had done therapy, medications, phosps, you name it we did it. I spent hours on the phone beggng for help from programs (literally would take the phone and a notebook and cold call preachers, hospitals, programs, etc... to the point that I filled three spiral notebooks in under ten days trying to find a program for him!). Even with all the help in the world, he as violent when he did not get his way. I knew, deep down in my gut, that if he stayed in our home then he would end up in the morgue or prison for killing me and his sister, and I would end up dead either by his hand or by mine after I had to kill him to keep him from killing my younger daughter. He went to a shelter for youths, then to my folks when he would not follow any of the shelter's rules (he didn't even last 24 hours there, more like 12 before they kicked him out). My father was retiring and wanted to try to 'fix' Wiz. My mother wanted to help Wiz and for my father to have a project so she would not go nuts with my father home all day. It seemed to work because after a few years Wiz turned himself around in major ways.

But most of my family thinks I chose the other kids over Wiz. Even Wiz thinks this, which is devastating to me. I chose to let Wiz go so that he had a chance for a future outside of a box or a prison cell. He was so very close and we literally had no other resources to turn to. He would not accept help or that he had problems. I was not willing to sacrifice my other children on the altar of his problems. They are just as wonderful and special as he is, and I didn't feel I had the right to sacrifice them to keep him at home. It has been hard, but it also was the best option available for everyone. My folks didn't have help for my gfgbro, and I know how scary it is to have an older sibling with these problems. follow the gut that says to not allow her drama to impact her siblings.

It is clear you love your difficult child and want the best for her. Let her know that when she wants to make good decisions, you will support those to hte degree you are able. for her other choices? She is on her own and needs to work them out. when life is hard enough, and that bottom is miserable enough for long enough, she will choose, accept and utilize help. At that point, you can work on mending and rebuilding your relationsihp with her.

Last thing in this novella (I get wordy, it is just me lol), you have great instincts. I am always telling parents to be aware of their instincts and to follow them. the truly major parenting mistakes I have made have been because i followed some advice that my instincts screamed was wrong. I firmly believe we have those instincts for a reason and that not following them is incredibly foolish, regardless of how many people dislike what your instincts are telling you. You have earned a pat on the back for following your instincts, keep up the good work!

 

[BusynMember]

Our grown children know how much we love them.

Their problem is that they don't love themselves.

 

[accmama]

Thank you all SO MUCH! I had to come back here to read your words today because she is carrying on today about how she has no where to go.

She texted "I'm losing it" so I called to ask her what is going on. She then tells me she needs money because her friend won't let her stay more than 2 weeks. I reminded her that one week ago, we gave her money to drive home to move back in with us and she decided to lie to us and take that money to go to stay with a friend instead.

In a nutshell, in her words I am going to cause her to be raped, killed or drug addicted because I refuse to send money for her to use for an apartment.

If I did send her money for an apartment, this scenario would just play out again in 3 months when she's again out of money and needing money from me or face being evicted. It is better for her to learn now that she can't call me for money every time she has made poor choices with the money she earns from her job.

This has to end now. We told her we'd follow through with our promises not to help if she made bad choices and she made bad choices.

Someone tell me I am doing the right thing. It hurts to know she is scared and suffering emotionally right now.


I told her the only help I will offer is a bus ticket home. I will always have a place for her but if I'm footing the bill for her life, it will be under my conditions. Take it or leave it.

 

[InsaneCdn]

I told her the only help I will offer is a bus ticket home.

You HAVE given her a viable option. It's not like you've left her 100% to her own devices... although she will no doubt state otherwise.

 

[recoveringenabler]

MamaKathy, yes, it does hurt. However, you did the right thing. You left her the option to come home. If she is "scared and suffering emotionally" you gave her a choice to come home. Remember, SHE is choosing to make poor choices. SHE is choosing to stay away and do 'whatever' as opposed to come home. It's very difficult to let go, to detach. But it is necessary. Hang on. Hang tough. You are absolutely doing the right thing. Keep yourself well supported, get YOUR needs met, take care of you now..............sending you good thoughts for strength and peace of mind.